Aronian Wins Alekhine Memorial On Tiebreaks Over Gelfand

Coming into the last round of the Alekhine Memorial, Boris Gelfand led Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian, Mickey Adams and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by half a point. Gelfand faced Anand in the last round, played it safe with the white pieces, and Anand drew without much trouble. That eliminated one rival and made it such that no one could catch him unless he or they won their games.

Unfortunately for Gelfand, Aronian defeated Vachier-Lagrave in a generally impressive game, finishing with some very nice tactics. Through the first 28 moves, everything was going smoothly, and had Aronian played 29.d6 he would have been well on his way to a clean victory. Instead, 29.Rxb8+ was a mistake, and after 29...Rxb8 30.Rxa7 Bxc3! 31.Rxd7 Rb4 Vachier-Lagrave had reached an objectively drawn position. This is a pure abstraction though, and would remain so as long as White's d-pawn was alive and dangerous. After 32.d6 Rxc4 33.Be7 some care was required.

Black's best move would have been 33...f6, immediately eliminating all the dark-squared mating nets around Black's king and allowing it to join in the fight against White's d-pawn. Maybe there's a sly trap both players thought was winning, but I'm not seeing it. Instead, it just looks like a relatively straightforward draw, e.g. 34.Ra7 Kf7 35.Bd8+ Ke6 and now White seems to have nothing better than 36.d7 Rd4 (36...Rf4 first is an interesting finesse, threatening mate starting with 37...Bd4+. White plays 37.g3 and only then Black's rook goes to d4. The point is that after the same moves given in the 36...Rd4 line, the presence of a White pawn on g3 makes it easier for Black to liquidate the kingside and draw. Remember that he can give up everything he has for White's kingside pawns, his bishop included, and then draw with his king parked in the a8 corner.) 37.Bb6 Rxd7 38.Rxd7 Kxd7 39.Bxc5, when White's outside passer won't give him any serious winning chances.

Vachier-Lagrave played 33...Kg7 instead, and while it wasn't losing it kept him in danger. For one thing, it keeps the king away from the d-pawn; for another, it doesn't yet save the king from possible mating nets. After 34.Ra7 Black had to play 34...Re4!, and it still seems that he should hold the game. White can promote: 35.d7 Rxe7 36.d8Q Rxa7, but it appears that Black has a fortress, despite the presence of White's a-pawn. Of course if it's exchanged for Black's c-pawn the result is a dead draw, so let's see what happens if White tries to keep it: 37.Qd5 Bf6 38.Qc4 (threatening to start making progress with a2-a4) 38...Ra3! Now White's only winning idea is to bring the king over to b1, so the queen can go to c1 to push Black's rook away. (And even that is just a first tiny step.) This plan is incredibly slow, however, and Black has many ways to deal with it - just pushing the kingside pawns, for instance, easily generates sufficient counterplay.

Unfortunately for Vachier-Lagrave (and Gelfand and their fans), but fortunately for Aronian (and his fans and for those of us who can appreciate the aesthetics of his winning combination), Black played the losing move: 34...Rd4(?). It looks like an obvious blunder, but Black had a nice trick in mind. After 35.d7 Rd1+ 36.Kf2 Vachier-Lagrave played 36...c4!, a move with not just one but two points. The first, obvious point (though not so obvious when you have to think it up several moves in advance) is that if Aronian promotes (36.d8Q??) then Black saves the game with 36...Rxd8 37.Bxd8 Bd4+ and 38...Bxa7. But the really brilliant point was that if Aronian had played something obvious like 36.Rc7(?) Black has a de facto perpetual check! 36...Rd2+ 37.Kf3 (37.Ke1?? Rxd7+ and it won't be a perpetual; Black will simply win) 37...Rd3+ 38.Kg4 h5+ 39.Kf4 (39.Kh4 Bf6+ 40.Bxf6+ Kxf6 41.Rxc4 Rxd7=) Rd4+ 40.Ke3 Rd3+ etc.

But Aronian was up to the challenge, and played the only clear winning move: 37.g3! This eliminates the perpetual, allows Black to play ...Bd4+ if he wants (which he doesn't, as 38.Ke2 Bxa7 39.Kxd1 is a trivial win). The remaining moves were pretty simple, and in the final position White plays 43.Ra8 and starts pushing the a-pawn, with our without first interpolating Rc8.

The reason all this was bad news not just for Vachier-Lagrave but for Gelfand as well is the same reason why the last round of the London Candidates was a triumph for Magnus Carlsen despite his loss: tiebreaks. The same one, in fact, that cost Kramnik in London: it was number of wins of that determined the official winner of the event: Carlsen then and Aronian now. As then, and even before then - I've expressed similar complaints going back to the introduction a few years ago of chess tournaments with 3-1-0 scoring - I object to privileging a win and a loss over a pair of draws. Going +1, -1 doesn't show that someone played better chess or more enterprising chess than the player who drew twice; it doesn't even necessitate more fighting spirit. (Look at some of Kramnik's events here, or Nakamura's marathon draws in Zug.) It's impossible to discern anything about a game's quality just by knowing that it was drawn. What one does know, however, is that decisive games contain mistakes. So we know that the player who went +1 -1 made at least one error, and we don't know that his win was of particularly high quality. Maybe his opponent made a gross blunder in a perfectly good position.

It's also true that the draws might have been fightless and dull while the decisive games were dazzling and daring. It could be, but the point is that we don't know this a priori without looking at the games, and the games hadn't been played when the decisions about tiebreaks were being made. I'd prefer to skip out on tiebreaks altogether, either having co-champions when possible or a playoff when necessary. If tiebreaks are necessary though, I'd propose eliminating the "most wins/losses" tiebreaker or putting it much further down the list. (And why isn't head-to-head the first tiebreaker? It wouldn't have affected anything here or at the Candidates', but when it is relevant how is that not the most obvious and natural way to distinguish the players? Still another idea, aiming for objectivity over the kinds of dumb luck rewarded by the Sonneborn-Berger tiebreak: what about factoring in something like Ken Regan's Intrinsic Performance Ratings, both for the player's moves and his opponent's? It's not perfect, but it at least tries to isolate the most relevant factor: the quality of a player's moves.)

Rant over. In other games, Kramnik was successful today where he wasn't yesterday, this time winning the 7-hour game. Adams (his opponent) was doing fine for a long time, but a couple of loose moves between moves 30 and 40 got him in trouble. 33.Ne2 would have been better than 33.Nf1, but the bigger culprit was 36.Nd5? Adams must have missed or underestimated Kramnik's 36...f4! It's antipositional and ugly as sin, but it sets up the threat of ...c6, exploiting the knight's lack of squares to win the b-pawn. (Note that ...c6 needed to be prefaced by ...Be5, as White could have met 37...c6? with 38.Nf6!=.) From there it was a long, hard grind, and while Kramnik in general handled the ending extremely well and was a deserved winner, he seems to have erred on moves 61 and 65. I'm not 100% sure that Adams could have drawn even then, but at the very least Kramnik endangered the win.

In both cases Adams returned the favor; the first with inaccuracies on moves 62 and 64; the second with 70.Rf5. I'm not sure Kramnik is winning after the immediate 70.Rf8, e.g. 70...Rd3+ 71.Kc2 Re3 72.Nf6+ Kg6 73.Ng4 Rg3 74.Ne5+. White's setup is incredibly effective: the f- and g-pawns are frozen and the poor Black king can't go to its otherwise ideal square, h5, on account of Rh8#. The h-pawn has a little freedom, but it's limited. Continuing a bit: 74...Kg7 75.Rf7+ Kh6 (75...Kg8 76.Kd2 h3 77.Rf6 eventually comes to the same thing) 76.Rf8 h3 77.Kd2 Kg7 78.Rf7+ Kg8 79.Rf6 may just be drawn. When Black's king goes to the 7th rank, White plays Rf7+ and then goes to f6 or f8 - whichever rank is opposite Black's king. If there is a win in there, it's not easy to find. Anyway, Adams missed this chance and played 70.Rf5(?), after which Kramnik only had to find the simple but nice finesse 70...Rd3+! and only after 71.Kc2 Rg3. With the king on d1 White could capture and draw, but with the king on c2 it's an elementary win for Black. Adams played a few more moves, and then resigned.

Nikita Vitiugov and Ding Liren slugged it out in the Anti-Saemisch Gambit line of the King's Indian. For a while Vitiugov looked like he would be able to keep the material and win, but he never quite figured out how to extinguish his opponent's activity and the game finally ended in a draw. There are various improvements available to White, but the last chance to keep winning chances was with 32.Rc1 rather than 32.Rd1. After 32.Rd1 Rc4 followed by doubling on the 2nd rank, the game was equal. The difference is that if Black goes for the same plan with 32.Rc1 Rd4 White has 33.Rc6. In the 32.Rd1 Rc4 version, 33.Rd6 is ineffective due to 33...Bd4+, when White is lucky that he can still draw. In the 32.Rc1 Rd4 version, 33...Bd4+ is illegal, so White is winning. 32...Rd4 isn't forced, but White can still fight for the full point.

Finally, the game between Peter Svidler and Laurent Fressinet also finished in a draw. Fressinet was better most of the way and probably could have pushed a bit more, but in general it looked like the players were happy to vacuum up the board and draw at move 40 - which they did.

Final Standings:

1-2. Aronian (first on tiebreaks), Gelfand 5.5
3. Anand 5
4-8. Vitiugov, Fressinet, Kramnik, Adams, Vachier-Lagrave 4.5
9. Ding Liren 3.5
10. Svidler 3

Gelfand Leads the Alekhine Memorial With One Round to Go

It isn't over yet, though. Boris Gelfand just survived against Vladimir Kramnik today, and thereby finished round 8 in clear first at the Alekhine Memorial with five points. He had been tied with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, but the latter lost to Nikita Vitiugov and finally fell out of first. Vachier-Lagrave is only half a point behind Gelfand, and so are the members of the "A-Team": Michael Adams, Levon Aronian and Viswanathan Anand. (That's what I take to be the current tiebreak order; no implicit ranking should be inferred!) Two players, Vitiugov and and Laurent Fressinet, are a further half a point back with four points apiece, but they are shut out of the race for first, as the final round clash between Gelfand and Anand guarantees that someone will finish the tournament with at least five and a half points.

A few words about the two main games before giving the full final round pairings. First, in Vachier-Lagrave vs. Vitiugov White didn't obtain an advantage out of the opening, but he wasn't in any trouble either until 31.Bd1?, unnecessarily giving away a pawn. Simply 31.Qd1 or 31.Qe2 would have maintained equal chances. Even then it wasn't over, and although Vitiugov kept making progress bit by bit the advantage grew to decisive proportions only after 42.Bf1?, allowing 42...f3. (Maybe White should lose after better moves in the long run, but after 42.Bf1 the "run" was likely to be short.) By the time of 47.Bxb7 White was clearly lost, but the move chosen forced White to resign just two moves later, faced with the choice of mate in one or the loss of the queen.

As for Kramnik-Gelfand, one of Kramnik's chronic besetting sins (a failure to win won positions) struck again. He played well in the opening, inducing Gelfand to sac the exchange for a pawn. Gelfand's position was incredibly solid, but no problem: Kramnik started to grind and grind and grind, and after more than six hours of play he finally had his chance. He had made steady progress during the second time control (from moves 41-60), and in the third and final time control he at last had his chance after 63...Rxa5? 64.Rh8 would have won Gelfand's knight and the game along with it. (64.Rh8 Rc5 65.Rh5+ Nf5 66.Rg6 and there is no defense to Rgg5 followed if necessary by Kg4, or if 64...Ra3 then 65.Rh6! finishes the job, as Black either leaves the knight and loses it or moves it but allows 66.Rh5 [either mate in one or two, depending on where the knight moves] or 66.Rb/he6#, in case of 65...Nf5.)

Kramnik played Rh8 several moves later, and as the players grew short on time he continued to have chances, though none as clear as 64.Rh8. His 72nd move was inaccurate though (72.Kg4 kept some hope alive), but it was based on his hallucinatory 73rd move. Indeed, if it weren't for 73...Rxe3 Gelfand could resign, but of course it was there. With his last pawn gone, the position was simply drawn, and a slightly bewildered Kramnik acceded to the draw.

Final Round Pairings (with player scores in parentheses):

• Svidler (2.5) - Fressinet (4)
• Gelfand (5) - Anand (4.5)
• Adams (4.5) - Kramnik (3.5)
• Vitiugov (4) - Ding Liren (3)
• Aronian (4.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (4.5)

Candidates Tournament, Round 9: Gelfand Beats Aronian, While Carlsen Holds Off Kramnik And Leads

With five rounds to go, Magnus Carlsen finished today's round of the Candidates with a double dose of good news. First, though under serious pressure from Vladimir Kramnik, he managed to survive a pawn down to keep a full point lead over the ex-champion. Second, Levon Aronian, with whom he (Carlsen) was tied coming into the round, lost to Boris Gelfand. That leaves Carlsen in clear first with three white games left and no more games against his main rivals. Good news for him, and bad news for Aronian and Kramnik.

In the other games, Vassily Ivanchuk played more quickly against Teimour Radjabov, and was rewarded with his first win of the tournament. Finally, the game between Peter Svidler and Alexander Grischuk was a spectacular draw that was far more interesting (if less competitively significant) than the Kramnik-Carlsen and Gelfand-Aronian battles. You can check it out, with my notes, here.

Standings After Round 9:

1. Carlsen 6
2. Aronian 5.5
3. Kramnik 5
4-5. Gelfand, Grischuk 4.5
6. Svidler 4
7. Ivanchuk 3.5
8. Radjabov 3

Round 10 Pairings (Wednesday; Tuesday is a rest day):

• Carlsen - Gelfand (Gelfand is 2-0 this cycle; but 3-0?)
• Aronian - Ivanchuk (Also interesting, now that Ivanchuk seems to have realized that practicality has its place.)
• Radjabov - Svidler
• Grischuk - Kramnik (Kramnik is rapidly running out of opportunities, and may have to take some risks with the black pieces.)

Candidates Tournament, Round 8: Kramnik, Grischuk and Gelfand Win

The second cycle of the Candidates' tournament got underway, and with a bang. This round reprised the pairings from round 1 (with colors reversed), and with very different results. In round 1 all the games were drawn, but this time only the battle between the leaders, Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian, finished peacefully. Carlsen generally tries to create open-ended play out of the opening, but for once he failed in that respect. Aronian was able to kill the play on the black side of an Open Catalan, and so they remain tied for first.

Their lead shrunk to a full point in the wake of Vladimir Kramnik's win over Peter Svidler. They have had many battles in the Exchange Gruenfeld over the years, with Kramnik winning a pretty fair percentage with the white pieces. White's most obvious advantage in the Exchange Variation is his mass of central pawns, and in this game Kramnik was able to use it to squeeze Svidler into submission.

Alexander Grischuk defeated Vassily Ivanchuk in a rather sad game. Ivanchuk was doing fine over the board up until the very end, but once again got into desperate - and needless - time trouble and flagged. This was Grischuk's first win in the event, and it brought him back to 50%.

Boris Gelfand also won his first game of the event, making it back to a -1 score. He thoroughly and speedily outplayed Teimour Rajdabov with the black pieces, finishing in crushing style.

The games can be replayed here, with my comments.

Standings After Round 8 (of 14):

1-2. Carlsen, Aronian 5.5
3. Kramnik 4.5
4. Grischuk 4
5-6. Svidler, Gelfand 3.5
7. Radjabov 3
8. Ivanchuk 2.5

Round 9 Pairings:

• Kramnik - Carlsen
• Svidler - Grischuk
• Ivanchuk - Radjabov
• Gelfand - Aronian

Zurich Chess Challenge, Round 1: Two Draws

Round 1 of the Zurich Chess Challenge is history, and not the sort of history that will be studied years later. As expected, Vladimir Kramnik played something a little offbeat with White (1.Nf3 c5 2.b3), undoubtedly saving his real preparation for when it counts - next month's Candidates' tournament. Boris Gelfand didn't have much trouble with this, and were it not for the tournament rule that if players agree to a draw in fewer than 40 moves they must play an exhibition rapid game immediately afterward, they probably would have called it a day much sooner than they did. To be fair, Kramnik did try a bit, but there was little to be had.

The game between Fabiano Caruana and Viswanathan Anand was more interesting. Anand has had some trouble over the years against the 6.Be3 e5 7.Nf3 anti-Najdorf line - most recently earlier this month against Caruana in the Grenke tournament. Today he came out of the opening in good shape, and after 22...d5! he had equalized. Caruana managed to keep causing problems though, and after 31.g4! Qc8 32.Rb1! Anand had some difficulties with his semi-stranded rook on c2. Fortunately for Anand, Caruana was very short of time, and by the end of the first time control (completed after each side's 40th move) Anand wound up with an extra pawn. Caruana eventually held the draw, but it's clear that the world champion failed to make the most of his chances.

You can replay the games here (with my annotations to Caruana - Anand). Tomorrow's (Sunday's) pairings are Kramnik - Anand and Gelfand - Caruana.

Zurich Chess Challenge Underway

Only four players are involved in the Zurich Chess Challenge, but it's a very impressive field! There's world champion Viswanathan Anand, fresh from his come from behind win at the Grenke Chess Classic; there's world #2 and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, who has been playing very well lately and will participate in the Candidates tournament next month in London; there's Boris Gelfand, who came very close to defeating Anand for the title last year and will also be in the Candidates; and finally, there's Fabiano Caruana, who nearly won Grenke and will likely be a contender for the title in the near future.

The first round started a little while ago, with the pairings Caruana-Anand and Kramnik-Gelfand. The tournament is a double round robin, so color allocation isn't really an issue, but nevertheless a blitz preliminary was held yesterday to determine pairing numbers. In the first cycle, Caruana and Kramnik both beat Anand and Gelfand and then drew with each other, and in the second cycle they both beat Anand and drew Gelfand. (Anand beat Gelfand in the first cycle and drew in the second, and thus finished tied for last.) Finally, Caruana beat Kramnik with Black in the last round to win and get pairing #1.

The tournament website is very good, with a live stream and commentary (for the classical games, at least; the blitz is still available but without commentary).

Predictions? I'm finding it hard to prognosticate: Kramnik and Gelfand will surely hide their real prep, while I still don't think Anand is really playing anywhere near his peak - a good percentage of his recent wins (e.g. vs. Aronian and Fridman) were primarily based on strong preparation. That leaves Caruana, who is young, hungry, played well in the Grenke tournament and does well against Kramnik. He probably plays too much, but when one is 20 there is energy to burn. I'll pick him to win the tournament.

Gelfand Interview, Part 2

Have a look. (Part 1, in case you missed it earlier, is here.)

Part 1 of a Long Gelfand Interview

As far as I can tell, part two isn't out yet - isn't translated - but part one of a WhyChess interview with Boris Gelfand is and is certainly worth your time. (HT: Jaideep)

London Grand Prix: Gelfand, Mamedyarov and Topalov Tie For First

The first leg of the current FIDE Grand Prix has come to an end, with three players sharing first (no tiebreaks) in the inaugural leg in London. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov came into the round in clear first, but whether due to a lack of ambition or simply good prep from Peter Leko he got nothing with the white pieces and finished quickly (in terms of time) with a 41-move draw.

That gave Boris Gelfand, Veselin Topalov and Alexander Grischuk the chance to catch him in a tie for first, if they could win in the last round, and two of them did. Grischuk had White against Hikaru Nakamura, but despite that and the latter's generally poor form in the tournament he held a draw without much trouble. Nakamura repeated a relatively minor line of the Dragon he used as a surprise weapon against Anish Giri in Wijk aan Zee earlier this year. Grischuk was probably prepared and varied first, but may have been surprised anew by Nakamura's 18...Rab8 (18...b4 is usual). Grischuk didn't get much, and after 24.Bxg7 (the engine claims that 24.axb4 may offer White a very small edge...maybe) it was equal and the players were satisfied with an unforced (but reasonable) draw by repetition.

Veselin Topalov won a Carlsen-like game. Anish Giri had a very small pull with White in a Queen's Gambit Declined sideline, but it looked for all the world like it was heading for a quick draw. It was an even ending, but Giri started to drift. His 30th and 31st moves weren't so bad, but they sowed the seeds of his later troubles. The bishop remained shut out on a5 for a long time, while 31.h4 allowed Topalov to break up the kingside and eventually create a pair of central passers. For whatever reason, Giri was badly outplayed in the endgame, and Topalov won (or at least tied for first) in a major event for the first time in some years.

Another player who had gone quite some time without winning a round-robin event was Boris Gelfand, but with an impressive win over Rustam Kasimdzhanov, he did it. Generally speaking, it was a convincing victory, but as he admitted after the game he "blundered" 14...Bc6. (Linguistic note: there's a strange trend I've only noticed over the past year or so, but it seems to be everywhere now, and that's using the word "blundered" as a synonym for "overlooked". That isn't what the word means!) Fortunately for him, Kasimdzhanov "blundered" it too, and Gelfand went on to win in style. Kasimdzhanov blundered (correct usage!) into a forced mate at the end, but even without the helpmate White's win was routine.

Final Standings:

1-3. Topalov, Gelfand, Mamedyarov 7
4. Grischuk 6.5
5. Leko 6
6. Wang Hao 5.5
7-8. Ivanchuk, Adams 5
9-10. Kasimdzhanov, Dominguez 4.5
11-12. Giri, Nakamura 4

London Grand Prix, Rounds 6 & 7: Gelfand Still Leads, Mamedyarov Surges, Nakamura Falters

In round 6 of the London Grand Prix the action heated up after two rest days, one official and one not. Three games were decisive, and the other three were interesting as well.

The leader, Boris Gelfand, drew with Vassily Ivanchuk in just 25 moves, but it was extremely interesting and saw the players break new ground. After 4.g3 Ba6 5.b3 b5 in a Queen's Indian, Gelfand played the relatively rare 6.Nbd2, to which Ivanchuk replied with the extremely rare 6...c5. Gelfand's response was a novelty, sacrificing a pawn with 7.d5. Such ideas are common, especially in the Queen's Indian, but with a knight on d2 and the pawn on b5 it was a genuinely different setting. Both sides had plenty of options along the way, so it would be interesting to see other players take up this variation. After a complex middlegame, the players repeated moves, and this was not a matter of laziness or fear: the repetition really was best for both players.

Alexander Grischuk's game with Michael Adams was instructive for those who play closed systems against the Ruy. Adams' 16...c4 inaugurated a typical idea for Black in the Ruy, though in an unusual setting. (The normal setup sees Black play ...d5 to create a center where both players' center pawns are attacking each other.) This more or less sacrificed a pawn to get the bishop pair and control of d5 with a light-squared bishop against an extra but isolated d-pawn. Adams drew without any special difficulty.

The draw between Peter Leko and Anish Giri was interesting as well. Leko gave up a pawn for a nasty initiative as White in a Byrne Attack Najdorf (sometimes mislabeled the English Attack, but that's only when Black meets 6.Be3 with ...e6; when it's ...e5 then American GM and former Candidate Robert Byrne gets the credit). It looked like Giri might be in some trouble, too, but 18...a5! was just the thing to spark his counterplay, and came just in the nick of time. Leko decided to keep things safe after that, and the result was a heavy piece ending where neither side could make any progress without serious risk to his king's safety.

On to the decisive games. Hikaru Nakamura lost his third straight game to Wang Hao. He played a Reti and the position soon locked up. In the trench warfare that ensued, the most important pawn break would be ...f5, so Nakamura might have considered (and probably did consider) 34.g4 (not just restraining Black, but with the idea of pushing on to g5) as well as meeting 34.Nb1 Bxd5 with 35.cxd5, even though it's a pawn sac. On move 37, Nakamura's 37.Bc1 either missed or underestimated Wang Hao's "sweeper sealer" 37...e4! 38.dxe4 f4, followed by the second sac 39.g5 f3! Black was clearly better by this point, but not yet winning in case of 40.Bh3. Short of time, Nakamura grabbed the pawn with 40.Bxf3, and after 40...Be5 was lost. Black finished off with a series of power shots and gained the full point after his 47th move.

Rustam Kasimdzhanov played a rare line against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's Meran and seemed to obtain an advantage, but he couldn't figure out what to do with it. One thing it seems he definitely should not have done was allow Mamedyarov's pawn to f3. There were plenty of inaccuracies and outright errors after that (notably, 29...fxg2 won pretty much on the spot - 30.Bxg2 Ng4 being the most obvious and straightforward point), but White's weak kingside eventually cost him the point.

Finally, Veselin Topalov won a nice game with White against Leinier Dominguez. A slow strangulation-style game finished in a more characteristically Topalovian way, as he gave up a piece for what was eventually three pawns. As those three pawns were far advanced, connected passers and Dominguez's bishop had little to do, White won in comfort.

That was round 6; on to round 7. Dominguez-Leko, Wang Hao-Topalov, Giri-Grischuk and Ivanchuk-Kazimdzhanov were all drawn; the last one, incredibly, in just 11 moves. If there's any mystery to this game it's around Kasimdzhanov's decision not to go for more with 7...Nb3. Then Black's queen has the c5 square, thus ruling out the "perpetual" in the game. The engines don't think White's compensation is sufficient, but judging by the speed with which the players finished I'm sure they know perfectly well what the engines have to say, and know that in the end White is doing alright.

As for the decisive games, there were two. In one of them, Mamedyarov-Nakamura, both players continued their trend from yesterday: Mamedyarov won again to reach clear second, while Nakamura lost again and fell into a tie for last. Mamedyarov just outplayed Nakamura from the jump in a Fianchetto King's Indian, and although Mamedyarov often failed to prosecute his advantage as cleanly as he might have, he never let Nakamura catch back up, either. After 33...Qxc5(?), White's advantage was decisive, and there were no further hiccups. 37.Rxf4 was a nice shot, and Mamedyarov handled the final tactics perfectly.

This would have put him into a tie for first, were it not for Gelfand's managing to win once again. Adams decided to put Gelfand's 2...Nc6 Sicilian to the test with the Rossolimo, but instead of an immediate swap on c6 (a la several of the Anand-Gelfand world championship games) he allowed Black to play ...Nge7 first and to recapture with the knight. Adams' position was certainly more pleasant to the eye and seemingly easier to play, but Gelfand's position relied on the power of the bishop pair. If he could unravel on the kingside, then the bishops (plus potential pressure down the c-file) could give him an advantage. Adams thus hastened to open the board before Black could finish his development, and with 24.c5 gave up a pawn. He never quite had enough, but he maintained some compensation until 34.Ng5?, a tactical error that allowed Gelfand to liquidate to a won rook ending.

Winning the game, Gelfand moved to plus three and maintained his lead over the field. He has 5/7, Mamedyarov has 4.5, while Grischuk, Topalov and Leko all have 4. Here are the round 8 pairings, with player scores in parentheses:

• Leko (4) - Grischuk (4)
• Gelfand (5) - Giri (3)
• Kasimdzhanov (2.5) - Adams (3)
• Nakamura (2.5) - Ivanchuk (3)
• Topalov (4) - Mamedyarov (4.5)
• Dominguez (3) - Wang Hao (3.5)