The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen moved within half a point of Wesley So (on 6 points) after a regulation win against Loek van Wely. Carlsen obtained a nice advantage out of the opening, won a pawn and eventually converted without any real problems. He shares second place with Pavel Eljanov and Wei Yi.

Leader Wesley So and Levon Aronian drew rather quickly in a sharp theoretical QGD Ragozin where all the pieces were traded off.

Pavel Eljanov missed yet another opportunity to catch the leader when he lost control of a winning position against Dmitry Andreikin (probably grabbing one exchange too many rather than dealing with white's passed pawns) and in the end the game finished in perpetual check.

Wei Yi pushed hard for a win against Baskaran Adhiban in the final game to finish but failed to convert what surely should have been a winning advantage at some stage.

Radoslaw Wojtaszek was held to a draw rather comfortably by Sergey Karjakin in a Queen's Indian. Likewise Anish Giri didn't get much if anything against Richard Rapport. Ian Nepomniachtchi failed to convert a very advantageous position against Pentala Harikrishna.

Markus Ragger and Ilia Smirin lead the Challengers. Gawain Jones lost to Jeffery Xiong who is a also half a point off the lead and right in contention after a slow start.

Round 9 standings: 1st Wesley So 6pts, 2nd Carlsen, Eljanov, Wei Yi 5.5pts, 5th Aronian, Adhiban, Karjakin 5pts, 8th Harikrishna, Giri 4.5pts, 10th Andreikin, Wojtaszek 4pts, 12th Rapport, Nepomniachtchi 3.5pts, 14th Van Wely 1.5pts

Round 10 pairings: Aronian-Rapport, Van Wely-Giri, Harikrishna-Carlsen, Adhiban-Nepomniachtchi, Eljanov-Wei Yi, Karjakin-Andreikin, So-Wojtaszek.