Sinquefield 08: Streak stopped, Event clinched.

2014 Sinquefield Cup This super-GM double round robin tournament is being played from August 27th to September 7th. It is billed as the strongest tournament in the history of chess. The players – Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Fabiano Caruana (Italy), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) – are the world's number 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 9, the average rating is 2802, making this the first ever Category XXIII tournament! The prize fund is US $315,000 in total, with the winner getting $100,000, the runner up $75,00, and the rest $50,000 – $20,000. The venue is the Chess Club and Scholastic Center at 4657 Maryland Avenue, Saint Louis, MO 63108. Tickets cost $15 per round, $65 for five rounds and $100 for all ten rounds.

Round Eight

He has finally been stopped, but he has clinched the tournament two rounds before its finish. Mathematically Fabiano Caruana can be called the winner of the Sinquefield Cup, 2014.

Nakamura, Hikaru 0-1 Topalov, Veselin
If one game was thought to be a Berlin Defense, it would probably have been the Caruana-Carlsen game, but since it was Nakamura-Topalov a sharp game could be expected even with this opening, and a sharp game we got.

Nakamura has had some trouble calculating this tournament, it is unclear why

Nakamura's handling of the position was simply not very good. His dubious knight maneuver to g5 left him underdeveloped and exposed to Black's bishops, and Topalov played basically perfectly. Strokes against White's pawns combined with Black's piece activity proved too much for the American who succumbed in a lost rook endgame.

Nakamura resigns in another disappointing game

Aronian, Levon ½-½ Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
MVL can count his lucky stars! Asked earlier in the tournament, when he lost his round yesterday, what his goals were, it was basically "I don't want to collapse". He almost did as he was completely destroyed against Aronian, but the Armenian managed not to convert.

MVL walking with his coach/second, legend Alexander Belivaksy

Maurice Ashley asked Aronian about the significance of Caruana's historic performance... the answer: "well, it will take the focus away from my bad play!". Aronian is always in a good mood, somehow, but he cannot be happy with letting MVL off the hook so easily in this game.

Caruana, Fabiano ½-½ Carlsen, Magnus
If there was ever a chance to go 8-0, it was this one. Caruana had Carlsen against the ropes, but he was not strong enough to convert; the time trouble factors and the tiredness from playing such a demanding tournament surely factored in. Full analysis below.

We guess 7.5/8 is not bad

Carlsen claimed not to be the underdog, but against a guy that has an incalculably good rating performance after seven games and with the White pieces, maybe he wasn't being totally objective.

Norwegian TV2 is here! They have two reporters on sight covering everything Carlsen does!

Alisa Melekhina is visiting the tournament, here she is engaged in a conversation with organizer Tony Rich

A few spectators following the event at the club. Can you name the 2600+ ones?

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Standings

Photos by Lennart Ootes and Kevin Duggin

Pairings

Games start at 2 p.m. local time (21:00h CEST, 23:00h Moscow, Thursday 0:30 New Delhi, 04:00h Tokyo, 05:00 Canberra – check your location here).

Playoffs, if necessary, will be on the 7th at noon.

The games will be broadcast live on Playchess, with expert analysis (see schedule below).

Broadcast Schedule

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.