The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi lead the Chess24 Legends of Chess with 14 points from 15 after 5 rounds of the online event. Vladimir Kramnik moved into third place with a victory over Ding Liren.

Magnus Carlsen was given a very hard time by Vasyl Ivanchuk being beaten with black in Game 1 and being under pressure in game 3. Ivanchuk also had a decent advantage in the final Armageddon but once he ran short of time Carlsen took over and won the game. Carlsen thus dropped his first point and this allowed Ian Nepomniachtchi to catch him after he defeated Peter Svidler. Anish Giri won the final rapid game against Boris Gelfand following three draws to win their match. Vladimir Kramnik beat Ding Liren 2.5-1.5 in a match of much incident, Kramnik had a moment of excruciating chess blindness and just dropped a rook, in game two when Kramnik was slightly better Ding lost after becoming disconnected. Kramnik won the fourth game to win the tie. Peter Leko allowed himself to be checkmated in a winning position in game one of his match against Viswanathan Anand but struck back in game four to win the match, then Leko played an extremely smart Armageddon game against Anand where he played the long game very quickly and Anand yet again didn't play fast enough and lost.

Round 5 Results: Nepomniachtchi 3-1 Svidler, Carlsen 3-2 Ivanchuk, Kramnik 2.5-1.5 Ding Liren, Giri 2.5-1.5 Gelfand and Anand 2-3 Leko

Round 5 standings: 1 Carlsen 14pts, 2 Nepomniachtchi 14pts, 3 Kramnik 10pts, 4 Svidler 9pts, 5 Giri 8pts, 6 Gelfand 6pts, 7 Ivanchuk 5pts, 8 Leko 4pts, 9 Ding Liren 3pts, 10 Anand 2pts,

Round 6 Sunday 26th July 2020

11am: Ding Liren-Carlsen

3pm: Anand-Nepomniachtchi Leko-Giri Gelfand-Kramnik Ivanchuk-Svidler