The Week in Chess

Levon Aronian remains a point clear of Anish Giri and Sergey Karjakin after they all drew in round 7 of the Tata Steel Masters heading into the rest day on Monday. The only winners of the day were Loek van Wely who beat Hikaru Nakamura and Richard Rapport who beat Pentala Harikrishna.

Levon Aronian played enterprisingly against Boris Gelfand with black and was at one stage optimistic about his chances but in the end was in no mood to take any risks when leading the tournament as the game finished in a draw.

Loek van Wely was relieved to finally collect the full point against Hikaru Nakamura after messing up so many good positions. Van Wely played very well but it's also clear Nakamura is well short of his best in this event.

Sergey Karjakin careless got himself into trouble against Wesley So after 24...Bxg2?! (24...R2c6 and draw agreed soon) Karjakin sacrificed an exchange and after 27.Be7 realised he had done a "silly thing". So thought it a tough game where he at first over-pressed but was satisfied with the draw after a tough game.

Richard Rapport scored his second win of the event beating Pentala Harikrishna who did not react well to the unusual 5.Qf3 in the Caro-Kann. Rapport's admitted his technique wasn't perfect but he never really spoiled anything.

Anish Giri faced one of the most colourfully named openings the Frankenstein Dracula Variation of the Vienna played by Fabiano Caruana. Giri admitted it was a very long time since he looked at the theory and that he kept changing his mind move to move and this led to a lost position. Giri kept on fighting and eventually found some counterplay sufficient to draw.

Arkadij Naiditsch was forced to work extremely hard to draw against Leinier Dominguez Perez from most probably a lost position. 52.Bc3 seems to have been a mistake allowing the amazing 53.Rxa2 but it took nearly another 40 moves to secure the draw.

Round 7 Standings: Aronian 5.5, Giri, Karjakin 4.5, Caruana, Dominguez, So 4.0, Harikrishna, Van Wely, Rapport, Nakamura 3.0, Gelfand 2.0, Naiditsch 1.5

Round 8 Tue 21st Jan 12:30GMT: Giri-Aronian, Karjakin-Gelfand, Dominguez-So, Van Wely-Naiditsch, Harikrishna-Nakamura, Caruana-Rapport.

B-Group Round 8 Standings: Jobava 6.5/8, Saric 6.0, Muzychuk 5.5, Timman 5.0, Bok, Wojtaszek 4.5, Reinderman 4.0, Duda, Troff, Brunello, Yu 3.5, Zhao 3.0, Van Delft 2.5, Goudriaan, 0.5