The Week in Chess

Leaders Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen drew in 33 moves. Ivanchuk's quiet treatment of the Ruy Lopez was unlikely to disturb Carlsen and this proved to be the case. Teimour Radjabov achieved a blocked position where only he could take action and he probed on both sides of the board before playing the natural b5 where Sergey Karjakin had to be accurate in finding the correct defensive setup which he did and the draw was agreed on move 90. Hikaru Nakamura beat Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu in a very interesting Ruy Lopez. It isn't really clear to me whether Nakamura just found the best way to create problems for Nisipeanu or if the Romanian just did it to himself but Nisipeanu was at least level on the run up to first time control although with only a few minutes left until he miscalculated the consequences of 60...f3 and was immediately in a lost position.