The Chess Mind

The players get their one and only day off tomorrow, Christmas day, so it's a good moment to take stock. The standings are:

1. Rublevsky 4.5
2-4. Jakovenko, Svidler, Zvjaginsev 4
5-6. Bareev, Morozevich 3.5
7. Kramnik 3
8-11. Tomashevsky, Motylev, Khalifman, Dreev 2
12. Volkov 1.5

The players have nicely stratified themselves into three groups: those from first through sixth, who are all playing quite well; those from eighth through last, who probably wish they could just leave at this point; and Kramnik, whose inconsistent form has continued. After a first-round loss to Svidler which was more to Svidler's credit than Kramnik's detriment, he managed to win twice in good form. Unfortunately, in round 6 everything fell apart. At first Kramnik had what seemed to be a safe edge against Bareev, but he was slowly outplayed and then even blundered on consecutive moves.

If you're curious about this anti-masterpiece, you can replay it, as well as five other lightly annotated games from this event, here. [Note: you'll need to scroll down to get from one game to another, rather than having access to all the games through a single board.]