Medias Kings Rd8: three draws, Carlsen leads with two games to go

ROMGAZ and the Chess Club Society "Elisabeta Polihroniade” of Bucharest are staging a double round robin tournament with six top GMs: the world's second highest ranked player, Magnus Carlsen of Norway; Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk, currently the world's number five; Sergey Karjakin, former child prodigy and youngest GM of all time; top US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, clear winner of this year's Wijk aan Zee tournament; Teimour Radjabov, one of Azerbaijan's top GMs, and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, the best Romanian player. The competition is taking place from June 11th to 22nd 2011 in Medias, Romania.

Round eight results

Commentary by GM Dorian Rogozenco

Although in the eighth round of the Kings‘ Tournament all the games finished in draws, all the games were well-fought. Ivanchuk-Nisipeanu was a fantastic battle of a very high quality. The game started with 1.c4 c5 (the English Opening) and then transferred to a sharp line of Sicilian Kan Variation. Ivanchuk’s 13.Na4 forced Black to go for big complications. Nisipeanu sacrificed a pawn and started to play against the white king stuck in the center. Both players did their best and after wild complications the game finished in a draw by repetition.

Ivanchuk vs Nisipeanu, with tournament president Elisabeta Polihroniade looking on

Radjabov-Carlsen saw another Queen’s Gambit Declined. The game confirmed its reputation of being a rock solid opening. White failed to get any advantage and the game was drawn on move 29 after some short and interesting complications in the end.

Nakamura on the white side against Karjakin seemed to have some opening advantage in the Petrosian Variation of the Queen’s Indian. However, Karjakin’s play was precise, and after Nakamura made a slight inaccuracy on move 24, the Russian succeeded in fully solving all problems. The draw was agreed on move 47.

Hikaru Nakamura vs Sergey Karjakin in round eight

Click to replay the games on a full JavaScript page or download them in PGN

All photos by Ionut Anisca

Standings after eight rounds

Schedule and results

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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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