Tal 08: Gelfand still leads, Carlsen now second

The Eighth International Tal Memorial Chess Tournament is being held from June, 13 to 24, 2013, with a rest day on June 16. The rounds generally start at 15:00h (=3 p.m.) Moscow time, with the first round starting at 6 p.m. and the final round at 1 p.m. Accommodation is in the Ritz-Carlton, Moscow, Tverskaya str. 3, while the event takes place in the in New Technologies Center Digital October, Bersenevskaya Embankment 6, in Moscow. The tournament has ten invited players and is a round robin with time controls of one hour and 40 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds for each move starting from move one. Full information on special rules, regulation, prize money, etc. can be found in our initial report.

Round eight express report

Anand, Vishy - Kramnik, Vladimir ½-½
This variation of the Nimzo has not given White good results in the recent past. Black has managed to find a few ways of creating complicated counterplay, though in occasions they also are able to eliminate White's play and transpose into drawish endgames. This was what happened today as Kramnik had no problem holding a double rook endgame in which he was down a pawn for a very brief amount of time.

A large crowd gathered to see the postmortem, where Kramnik explained how to neutralize the Nimzo.

Andreikin, Dmitry - Karjakin, Sergey ½-½
Andreikin's 16.b4!? was an interesting sacrifice that Karjakin did not dare accept. Had he accepted it he would've gained a pawn but his queenside would have been under enormous pressure. Instead, Karjakin decided to give a pawn up himself, with the idea of trying to hold on to the game by liquidating the queenside and exploiting White's crippled pawn structure. Karjakin was able to do this and even regain his pawn, after which neither side had winning chances.

Gelfand, Boris - Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar ½-½
Mamedyarov was able to equalize easily out of the opening, and in queenless middlegame that almost certainly was headed towards a draw the players decided to repeat moves and spare everyone the mandatory mass simplification that would have followed otherwise.

Caruana used his opponent's time pressure to full effect and was able trick Morozevich.

Morozevich, Alexander - Caruana, Fabiano 0-1
After obtaining some play against Fabiano's crippled pawns on the kingside, Morozevich decided that the best plan of action was to launch a direct assault on the monarch... despite the lack of queens on the board! Maybe this was inspired by Gelfand's mating net from yesterday's game against Nakamura. In any case Morozevich's attack was not as successful. He snatched a pawn thanks to it but his pieces were in awkward positions while his opponent's bishops dominated the board. Caruana played the tricky 37...c4!? in time pressure and Morozevich panicked. Taking the pawn would have given Black nothing more than a perpetual, but he let the c-pawn go without any piece being able to stop it. Caruana sacrificed a piece in a simple combination that forced the pawn to a queening square and Morozevich resigned.

Carlsen now has chances to win the tournament, for example if he wins tomorrow and Gelfand only draws.

Carlsen, Magnus - Nakamura, Hikaru 1-0
Nakamura's handling of the opening was not good. Carlsen obtained a nearly decisive positional advantage by placing strong pawns on d5 and e5 that were supported by a magnificent knight blockading on c4. Carlsen's technique was somewhat sloppy after that, as there was no reason to allow Black's exchange sacrifice on e5 which at least let him breathe by eliminating the strong central pawns. This sacrifice would have been even stronger if Nakamura played it earlier, on move 30, after which a large portion of White's advantage would have dissipated. As it was Carlsen's exchange was still a strong advantage, he played a good endgame and converted the full point.

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All pictures by Etery Kublashvili

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.