The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen leads the Tata Steel Masters going into the second rest day. Carlsen played a rarish variation of the Ruy Lopez against Sergey Karjakin and made the task of equalising look easy. There was a draw by repetition after 31 moves.

Joint leader Fabiano Caruana was defeated by David Navara in an endgame where he gradually drifted into trouble. Navara gave up the exchange temporarily (27...Kh6 may have been a way to try to make this permanent) and got a small advantage. Navara didn't really believe in his winning chances until around 37.Rd8. After that Navara kept the pressure on and Caruana's 49...Rxg3 was the final error.

Hou Yifan didn't find the right way to react to Loek van Wely's unusual treatment of the Sicilian defence and was beaten in 43 moves.

Pavel Eljanov pressurised tail-ender Michael Adams and eventually found his way to a winning advantage. After over 6 hours of play Eljanov started to go wrong and Adams pounced on a couple of inaccuracies to hold the draw. 63...Rxh7 sacrificing his bishop seems the most straightforward missed win for Eljanov.

The remaining games were drawn. Anish Giri had some small prssure against Evgeny Tomashevsky but couldn't find a way to increase his small edge. Ding Liren must have been quite alarmed by Wei Yi's quick play in an ultra-sharp position. Wei Yi clearly was playing deep computer preparation and Ding took a draw by repetition on move 27. Wesley So drew by perpetual check against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

Round 8 Standings: 1st Carlsen 5.5, 2nd Caruana 5, 3rd-5th Wesley So, Giri, Ding Liren 4.5, 6th-10th Navara, Wei Yi, Karjakin, Mamedyarov, Eljanov 4, 11th Hou Yifan 3.5, 12th-13th Tomashevsky, Van Wely 3, 14th Adams 2.5.

Rest day Monday 25th January 2016.

Round 9 Tues 26th Jan 2016 12:30pm GMT: Caruana-Karjakin, Wei-Navara, Mamedyarov-Ding, Van Wely-So, Tomashevsky-Hou, Eljanov-Giri, Carlsen-Adams.