The Week in Chess

Gata Kamsky won the only decisive game of the day beating joint leader Alexander Morozevich in 40 moves. This leaves Ruslan Ponomariov and Veselin Topalov sharing the lead on 4.5/7.

Morozevich seemed to get the better of a very peculiar Sicilian Dragon which remained closed and almost like a Benoni. Then Morozevich went wrong, possibly he just overlooked one move but after 20...Nf6 it became level then 24...Bd7? was a terrible error 25.Bh4! and Morozevich's position quickly became unplayable.

Nakamura-Radjabov was a Chelyabinsk Variation of the Sicilian where Nakamura ground away without getting anything looking like an advantage.

Giri-Caruana was an 8.Rb1 Gruenfeld with very typical play that may prove instructive and typical but never departed from equality.

Leko-Mamedyarov was a Cozio Def. Deferred, Ruy Lopez where Leko had a theoretical advantage for a while but it seems that Mamedyarov then had a slight edge before the draw was agreed.

Veselin Topalov rather lost the theoretical battle against Ruslan Ponomariov in a Nimzo-Indian after his 16.Rb2 turned out to be too slow. Ponomariov then tried for 72 moves to convert a small technical advantage before having to settle for a draw.

Karjakin-Kasimdzhanov was a Mieses Variation, Scotch which was roughly balanced throughout.

I didn't get to see any of the press conferences of the day and the archive wasn't up when I wrote this.

Round 7 Standings: Ponomariov, Topalov 4.5pts, Karjakin, Morozevich, Caruana 4pts, Kamsky, Nakamura 3.5pts, Giri, Mamedyarov, Leko 3pts, Kasimdzhanov, Radjabov 2.5pts

Round 8 Pairings Fri 25th Apr 2013 Kasimdzhanov-Radjabov, Ponomariov-Nakamura, Morozevich-Topalov, Mamedyarov-Kamsky, Caruana-Leko, Karjakin-Giri