The Week in Chess

The sixth round of the Sinquefield Cup saw the leaders Aronian and Carlsen draw to lie on 4/6. Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Hikaru Nakamura are a half point back.

Hikaru Nakamura played a brilliant attack against Wesley So in the King's Indian launching a devistating attack against his king and finishing in checkmate. Afterwards he critical of So's preparation saying that black's prospects were much better than computers give.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave surprised Veselin Topalov in a long line of the Petroff which put him in the driving seat after 18.e6. MVL admitted that he didn't remember the game with the Sicilian being the focus of his preparation but said that it was the obvious move. Topalov praised the way that MVL finished the game off.

Levon Aronian was disappointed not to put more pressure on fellow leader Magnus Carlsen who traded into a totally drawn endgame.

Fabiano Caruana's aggressive play looked very threatening against ALexander Grischuk but good and fast defence from the Russian allowed him to take control on the board and on the clock. Grischuk said he prepared for 10 hours for the game including this line and almost overslept for the start of the game. He said he was finding good ideas quickly at the board and was obviously very happy with his play.

Anish Giri and Viswanathan Anand drew a mildly interesting struggle in 32 moves.

Round 6 standings: Carlsen, Aronian 4pts, Giri, Vachier-Lagrave, Nakamura 3.5pts, Topalov, Grischuk 3pts, Anand, Caruana 2pts, So 1.5pts.

Round 7 pairings: Carlsen-Grischuk, Nakamura-Aronian, Anand-So, Topalov-Giri, Caruana-Vachier-Lagrave. I will be in commentary with Jon Speelman on ICC for the round. Please join me.