The Week in Chess

Levon Aronian beat Hikaru Nakamura by outplaying him in a Queenless middlegame from the Ruy Lopez. Nakamura was not at his best even offering a draw close to the end in a position that was close to lost, presumably thinking he had got over the worst. This result left Aronian a point clear of the field at the end of the day.

World Champion Magnus Carlsen was frustrated by his own play which led to a loss against Alexander Grischuk after nearly 7 hours of play. Carlsen wasn't that happy with his position out of the opening but found the nice idea 17.b4 which was praised by Grischuk who felt he had to give up a pawn for counter play. Carlsen underestimated the move 26.Ra3 and after giving up his extra a-pawn found himself under pressure eventually having to shed a pawn in time trouble. The resulting endgame was closer to a draw than a win according to Grischuk but he managed to make some progress. Later Carlsen recovered to bring the game closer to a draw but in a position where he needed study like accuracy he was very short of time and made the final blunder to a loss.

The remaining three games were drawn. Viswanathan Anand felt he played inaccurately and had to gave up his queen for a kind of fortress against Wesley So. This bold judgement seemed to be correct. So has found the event very tough and described the event as a University where he is paying with his rating points. Fabiano Caruana got a pleasant position against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave but the Frenchman seemed to play accurately after that and to find his way to equality. Anish Giri thought he played slightly inaccurately against Veselin Topalov's solid opening choice but then found a way to equality.

Round 7 Standings: Aronian 5pts/7. Giri, Grischuk, Carlsen, Vachier-Lagrave 4pts, Topalov, Nakamura 3.5pts, Caruana, Anand 2.5pts, So 2pts.

Round 8 pairings Monday 31st Auugst 2015: Grischuk-Vachier-Lagrave, Giri-Caruana, So-Topalov, Aronian-Anand, Carlsen-Nakamura.