The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi had already secured places in the final phase of Chess24's Legends of Chess when they met in Round 8 of the preliminaries. Carlsen dominated the struggle getting better positions out of the opening in all of the games. Nepomniachtchi frustrated Carlsen in Games one and three with excellent and resourceful defence but Carlsen did bring home the full point in game two. This victory was one of the very best games of the entire event. In game four Carlsen, only needing a draw with white, allowed himself to be pushed around a little too much in seeking to keep the game quiet and after the shot 20...Rxc1 Carlsen did not put up his usual level of resistance even though this should not have been winning. In the Armageddon Carlsen had black and needed a draw but had less time. In a fantastic display of online speed chess Carlsen at the 20 second mark played around 6 or 7 moves in no time using pre-move and was never in serious danger of losing on time. All his experience playing bullet chess definitely came in handy.

Peter Svidler won a very convincing first game against Vladimir Kramnik where he was given the initiative just out of the opening and won an impressive game. After that Svidler had to save two extremely poor, practically lost positions, before a final nervy draw won him the match. This result may have already got Svidler enough points to qualify for the next phase, especially as Kramnik plays Carlsen in the final round tomorrow.

Vasyl Ivanchuk beat Anish Giri in a surprisingly good Armageddon performance to win the match 3-2. Earlier Giri won an excellent game with black in game two and Ivanchuk struck back with the same colour in game three. Ivanchuk's recent wins have moved him up the standings but I believe he's still too far away to qualify for the next phase. Ding Liren won the basement battle against Viswanathan Anand 2.5-0.5 and Gelfand and Leko traded wins in games two and three before Gelfand won the Armageddon.

Round 8 results: Ian Nepomniachtchi 2.5-2.5 Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik 1.5-2.5 Peter Svidler, Anish Giri 2-3 Vasyl Ivanchuk, Viswanathan Anand 0.5-2.5 Ding Liren and Peter Leko 2-3 Boris Gelfand

Round 8 Standings: 1 Magnus Carlsen 22pts, 2 Ian Nepomniachtchi 19pts, 3 Anish Giri 15pts, 4 Peter Svidler 14pts, 5 Vladimir Kramnik 12pts, 6 Vasyl Ivanchuk 11pts, 7 Boris Gelfand 9pts, 8 Peter Leko 6pts, 9 Viswanathan Anand 6pts, 10 Ding Liren 6pts.

Final Round 9 pairings: Boris Gelfand-Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding Liren-Peter Leko, Vasyl Ivanchuk-Viswanathan Anand, Peter Svidler-Anish Giri and Magnus Carlsen-Vladimir Kramnik.