January 24, 2008
@ 12:38 AM

Carlsen The leader of the tournament has choosen "Volzhyn" Gambit  against Van Wely. A terribly tragic finish of the game, for Loek van Wely. He had reached a completely winning position, but without much time on the clock, but Carlsen had even less, and in a ridiculous timescramble, White's position went from plus 5 something to minus 5 something. A stroke of unexpected luck for Carlsen, who’s now clear first again with 6.5 out of 9. And, to be honest, his defeat against Leko yesterday was highly unfortunate, so now the scales are in balance again. Some short comments by Carlsen.

Ivanchuk,VKramnik couldn’t get through a solid Gelfand today and Topalov managed to create enough counterplay to hold the draw despite being an exchange down. Ivanchuk beat Eljanov and it took longer than it was expected. He outplayed his opponent and won a pawn, but then Eljanov started to defend quite well - but to no benefit.

Adams vs AronianIn game Adams vs Aronian: Adams played is not very dangerous for Black, when he knows what he’s doing, and so this game has already ended in 21 moves. Understandable for Aronian, who’s on shared first and played Black, but Adams could have shown some more fighting spirit.

 

Anand vs LekoAnand-Leko was even quieter than we thought, and they are already back in their hotel rooms as well. And so another White game is gone for Anand, right when he started to have some chances for the tournament victory too, but perhaps he has faith in his coming Black games against Van Wely and Carlsen. In the last round he’s White against Kramnik...

 

Games round 10