The Week in Chess

The nineth round of the Sinquefield Cup saw three draws for the first time. I had predicted this at the start as all the major issues had been settled but in fact, in spite of the obvious tiredness of many of the players, at least two of the game might, even should, have finished decisively.

Fabiano Caruana had already secured first place but still had the motivation of posting an incredible score of 9.5/10 with a win today. Hikarua Nakamura chose the Berlin Defence that he'd lost to the previous day and Caruana was the one to be surprised by a novelty. Both players then seemed a bit hesitant in a complicated middle-game and in the run up to first time control there were inaccuracies from both, finally on move 40 Caruana had a winning position but perhaps nervous at making time control he failed to find 40.Rxg6+ sacrificing the exchange with a crushing position. Caruana had no explanation but this was a tough game and surely he has had an emotionally tough event with records on his mind. Nakamura said that he would just be happy to put the entire year of 2014 behind him.

"Fabiano's getting tired, I'm just not playing well enough." Magnus Carlsen

"In this particular moment, I didn't see it" Caruana.

Magnus Carlsen too missed a chance to win against Levon Aronian in a Lasker Variation of the Queen's Gambit. Aronian looked very solid until he played 25...b5?! which was certainly complicated but it turned out that Carlsen was able to handle the complications to get an advantage, eventually a pawn in a tricky rook and pawn ending. Eventually Carlsen achieved a winning position but then got a bit careless. Something that he was obviously more than a little upset about.

46.Kc2! would have won and Magnus Carlsen was very critical of his own lazyness in not completely checking all the variations (it was his first thought). He didn't blame tiredness when asked.

"Not too much for me, I feel OK, it's just a stupid slip today, I had 20 minutes today."

After this in spite of the computer engines saying he was winning and three extra rook pawns Aronian brought home a correct draw after the inferior 46.h6.

Veselin Topalov had the slightly better of the struggle against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in spite of having the black pieces but this was the first game to finish, in a draw.

Round 9 Standings: Caruana 8/9, Carlsen 5, Topalov, 4.5, Vachier-Lagrave, Aronian 3.5, Nakamura 2.5

Round 10 Pairings: 1 Aronian-Caruana, Topalov-Carlsen, Nakamura-Vachier-Lagrave