The Chess Mind

As usual, most of the matches will be settled in tiebreaks. Many of those matches featured non-games, which, though disappointing for the spectators, is understandable for the players at the end of a long tournament without any (guaranteed) days off.

1st/2nd: Ponomariov and Aronian are tied at 1, but after two real, hard-fought games.

3rd/4th: Grischuk and Bacrot are also tied at 1, but after two non-games.

5th/6th: Ditto Bareev and Gelfand.

7th/8th: Rublevsky defeated Gurevich, winning their first game after his opponent blundered.

9th/10th: Carlsen and Kamsky are tied after a pair of fighting games. Carlsen won the first game with a sustained attack following a speculative knight sacrifice, while Kamsky outplayed his young opponent in the rematch.

11th/12th: There are various scenarios which might allow an extra player from this event into the Candidates' matches, so the battle for the 11th spot could turn out to be extremely important. That spot goes to Malakhov, who defeated Vallejo Pons in their first game with a fine positional effort and then held the draw comfortably in the sequel.

13th/14th: First van Wely and then Dreev won with the White pieces, sending yet another match to overtime.

15th/16th: Finally, Lautier and Sakaev mailed in a pair of short draws, so we'll see them tomorrow as well.