The Week in Chess

Levon Aronian said he was "Very happy with my performance so far" as he moved to 5/6 after beating one of his closest rivals Wesley So. Aronian played an English and made for a queenless middle-game. So gave up the two bishops on move 17 and only a few moves later white's two bishops made life difficult for him. 32...Nd8 was the decisive error but already So's pieces made a very poor impression.

Anish Giri said that he had the feeling that his game against Boris Gelfand was "far from good" and that Gelfand "played quite badly and I already deserved to win the game at some point" but then he started to miss "many, many defensive resources" and the game was drawn. Gelfand too felt that he hadn't played all that well on the run up to first time control but was pleased to find the drawing idea later on.

Sergey Karjakin joined Anish Giri on 4/6 after beating Arkadij Naiditsch in the final game to finish. Naiditsch is in last place and this looks like it is going to be a very long tournament for him as, certainly in the opinion of Baadur Jobava he defended very poorly and should have held.

Fabiano Caruana held a long ending against Pentala Harikishna although that always looked the likely result.

Loek Van Wely was disappointed not to beat Richard Rapport after blowing a winning advantage in the 5th and 6th hour where he missed "more and more".

Leinier Dominguez Perez was obviously disappointed to not convert his large advantage against Hikaru Nakamura and his opponent was likewise relieved.

Round 6 Standings: Aronian 5pts, Giri, Karjakin 4pts, Dominguez, Caruana, So 3.5pts Harikrishna, Nakamura 3pts, Van Wely, Rapport 2pts, Gelfand 1.5pts, Naiditsch 1pts

Round 7 Pairings Sun 19th Jan: Caruana-Giri, Rapport-Harikrishna, Nakamura-Van Wely, Naiditsch-Dominguez, So-Karjakin, Gelfand-Aronian.