Tal Memorial Rd7 – Ivanchuk breaks the gridlock

Sixth Tal Memorial in Moscow This event is a ten-player round robin event, is taking place from November 16th to 25th in Moscow, Russia. Time control: 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves, and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.

Results

Round seven

The start of the round shows the audience, stage, and the two displays, one of which
shows even the same video broadcast online viewers are able to enjoy.

The players are well-practiced in dealing with the initial rush of photographers, and
take their time, drinking juice, or pondering their opening moves a bit more than needed.

Fortunately for the audience, one of today's games did not end in a draw. Unfortunately it was less the result of brilliant play from one player than an extremely offday for the other. The ever combative Nakamura just couldn't seem to get his game under control and mostly alternated between close to equal to worse for the better part of the game.

Hikaru Nakamura was unable to get into the groove of things in round seven

Ivanchuk was not in his "one mistake is all it takes" form either, but a final series ended the American's chances of an eleventh hour reprieve.

Ivanchuk joined the leaders at 4.0/7

GM Alejandro Ramirez annotates:

Karjakin has long been an ultra-positional player, but in this year's Tal Memorial has
shown great creativity and boldness.

As things stand, Aronian is positioned to take over the no.2 spot in the world, though
the London Chess Classic may yet change that.

Karjakin was behind several of the most spectacular and creative games in the tournament, however Aronian's novelty 12...Bc5!? dampened his enthusiasm as he dealt with the new situation.

The clash of the titans was not quite what it was hyped to be

It was a solid game, just not the most ambitiously played

The biggest name encounter was of course the game between Anand and Carlsen, however the game proceeded much as Anand's previous ones in this event, and was the quickest to finish after 29 moves.

Both Candidates played a good game, though neither was able to gain an edge

Gelfand and Kramnik had a more intriguing fight, and though it ended in a draw, they both played energetically in a balanced position, maximizing each other's chances to go astray.

Round seven games

You can relive the entire round, or follow the next, in high definition in this extraordinary broadcast page provided by the Russian Chess Federation. All the pictures above are screen grabs from this video.

Standings after seven rounds

Remaining Playchess commentator schedule

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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