The Week in Chess

Hikaru Nakamura goes into the second rest day on 4.5/6 half a point clear of Boris Gelfand in the Tal Memorial in Moscow.

Nakamura has played Anand in 11 times in standard time control games only having white twice yet has gone to a +3 score. Playing 3...g6 in the Ruy Lopez Nakamura got a sharp battle and soon got the advantage. The players traded into a favourable Knight and Pawn ending for Nakamura. Anand's 31.Nc8+ seems to lose by force in an already very difficult ending and indeed Nakamura had a choice of winning methods, Nakamura was somewhat annoyed with himself he missed 34...Ne1+ trading into a trivially winning King and Pawn ending but he was winning anyway forcing resignation on move 45.

This is likely to be Anand's last event before the World Chess Championship match in November. Whilst it isn't a definite predictor of future results Anand needs to score some points to stop this becoming a complete disaster.

Boris Gelfand got a small advantage in the Catalan against Magnus Carlsen who traded down into a solid if a little bit passive late middlegame/ending. Carlsen thought that he hadn't been particularly accurate "It got perhaps a bit more uncomfortable than it should have been." but eventually the game ended in a repetition. It might have appeared that Carlsen avoided a repetition but it was confirmed by Gelfand he would have played Qa3-b2 if Carlsen hadn't deviated on move 27 presumably because he thought this a stronger move.

Dmitry Andreikin got a small but tangible advantage against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov even a pawn down but later after recovering and then grabbing a pawn he lost the initiative and actually had to show a small amount of care to get his draw.

Fabiano Caruana seemed to walk into some very deep Vladimir Kramnik preparation in the Berlin Defence leading to quite an irrational position. Caruana however managed to play well enough to force Kramnik to repeat.

Alexander Morozevich got a small but nagging advantage against Sergey Karjakin but despite grinding away for many hours he eventually had to settle for a draw.

Rest day Thurday.

Round 6 Standings: Nakamura 4.5/6, Gelfand 4pts, Mamedyarov, Carlsen 3.5pts, Andreikin, Caruana 3pts, Karjakin 2.5pts, Kramnik, Anand, Morozevich 2pts.

Round 7 Friday 21st Jun 2013: Carlsen-Morozevich, Nakamura-Gelfand, Mamedyarov-Anand, Kramnik-Andreikin, Karjakin-Caruana.