The Week in Chess

Wesley So took the lead of the Sinquefield Cup by beating Veselin Topalov in Round 6. Topalov had expressed unhappyness with his form in spite of his lead and he was again unhappy in running down a position that was at least equal to a loss. Topalov criticised 28...b6 and 32...Re5 was much too ambitious and his position went downhill fast after that.

Levon Aronian made a mess of his opening against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and was struggling early on. The opportunist 25.Nxb7 was probably the very last chance to resist and MVL won in 49 moves.

Peter Svidler had stablised his tournament with three draws after two losses. He dedided to go for enterprising play against Ding Liren but it backfired to another loss. After the game Svidler said he should have preferred 12...Rb8 instead of 12...Re8 and was bitterly critical of 40...dxe4 instead of 40...dxc4 although that move loses also. Ding won in 59 moves.

Hikaru Nakamura faced a deeply prepared Fabiano Caruana in the Benoni. Caruana eventually forgot his preparation and stood slightly worse. Caruana chose to bail out into an endgame of Queen and 4 pawns vs 2 Rooks and 3 pawns for Nakamura which he though should be holdable with care. It seems he was right as after opening up white's king with g5 and h4 the draw followed soon after.

Anish Giri and Viswanathan Anand played an interesting game where both got into time trouble. Anand's nervous play led to an objectively lost position but Giri's 40.Rc8+ played with just 4 seconds left threw the advantage away. He simply didn't have time to calculate the winning 40.Ke3.

Round 6 Standings: Wesley So 4pts/6, Anand, Topalov 3.5pts, Caruana, Nakamura, MVL, Ding 3pts, Giri 2.5pts, Svidler 1.5pts.

Round 7 pairings: Svidler-So, Anand-Aronian, Topalov-Giri, MVL-Nakamura, Caruana-Ding