The Week in Chess

Fabiano Caruana's long hot streak came to and end with a loss to Dmitry Andreikin where he just played very badly. He was asked about it afterwards. "More or less all my moves were bad from the first to the last one. So that's what went wrong. I made so many mistakes and missed so many things. I think I had a decent position after the opening and I just slowly ruined it."

Caruana was almost equal out of the opening after surprising Andreikin with the Scandinavian Defence but his 17...Qe6 (17...Nxc4=) was bad, Andreikin's 18.Bf1 (18.Re1!) wasn't the best follow up but 23...c4? (23...h6) 27...Qe7? (27...Qc6) and finally in desperate time trouble 34...Qa7? (34...Qe8) were all significant mistakes. Caruana just didn't seem to be at the races today. He was lost at move 40 after which Andreikin's technique was enough. More in the PGN section with notes to the game and all the others in this round based on the press conferences.

Boris Gelfand pressed hard deep into a very difficult rook and pawn ending but just couldn't manage to beat Rustam Kasimdzhanov but the draw was enough to take him back into the joint lead.

Hikaru Nakamura had an appalling position after just 5 moves with white against Sergey Karjakin. I find it hard to believe 4.Qd3 will be seen again at the top level and in fact the refutation may have been known since pre-computer times. 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Bg5 Nbd7 4. Qd3 c5! (strangely modern praxis has preferred in order of popularity 4..h6, 4..c6, 4..e6 before 4..c5) and this is set to become the main line as computers like this and the white's position starts immediately to creek. 5.O-O-O Nakamura looked at this line beforehand but not 5...c4 claiming it wouldn't be the computer's top choice, but in fact it is. White is worse and as Nakamura found out it's even hard to find good suggestions for him. Karjakin didn't play the most incisively and after 16.gxf3 Nakamura would have been back in the game, 19...h5 would have won on the spot but Karjakin eventually just won by playing solidly.

Teimour Radjabov vs Leinier Dominguez was a theoretical struggle in a line the Cuban specialises in and Radjabov eventually had to bail out to a draw.

Both sides had opportunities in the draw between Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Evgeny Tomashevsky. Tomashevsky chose a risky line of the Slav and wasn't surprised by 4.g3 as his opponent had hoped. He was prepared up to 14...Bd6. 25.Bxc7+ would have left white with an advantage, 28...c5 may have been very good for Tomashevsky but the game was drawn a few moves later.

Peter Svidler tried to surprise Alexander Grischuk in a sideline of the Bb5+ Sicilian but instead was hit by many accurate moves which forced him to take a draw by perpetual before he stood worse.

All the games have notes in the PGN section with comments from the press conferences. There was also an excellent hour on the English broadcast with Alexander Grischuk talking chess and about the games.

Round 7 Standings: 1-2 Caruana, Gelfand 4.5pts 3-5 Karjakin, Kasimdzhanov, Radjabov 4pts 6-8 Tomashevsky, Nakamura, Svidler 3.5pts 9 Dominguez 3pts 10-12 Andreikin, Grischuk, Mamedyarov 2.5pts

Round 8 Pairings Friday 10th Oct 11am: Kasimdzhanov-Caruana, Grischuk-Andreikin, Dominguez-Svidler Tomashevsky-Radjabov, Karjakin-Mamedyarov, Gelfand-Nakamura