The Chess Mind

I'll be unavailable to blog until late Saturday at the earliest, so this overly brief recap will have to do until then. A pity, because it was an extremely eventful round, with Carlsen finally losing his lead in the tournament. He had White against Anand, but - thanks again, Judit - now that he's on a roll, it's trouble for the rest of the field. The world champion defeated Carlsen, and now they're tied at +2.

They're joined at that score by Radjabov, who defeated tail-ender Gelfand with his signature opening, the King's Indian Defense. (Gelfand loves queenside openings, but as long as Radjabov's playing the Schliemann he really ought to make an exception.) Yet +2 isn't good enough at this point, as Aronian defeated van Wely, and enjoys solo first at +3. Three other players are at +1, so with two rounds to go the tournament is far from decided.

Round 11 Results:

Aronian - van Wely 1-0
Ivanchuk - Adams 1/2-1/2
Polgar - Eljanov 0-1
Topalov - Mamedyarov 1/2-1/2
Gelfand - Radjabov 0-1
Leko - Kramnik 1/2-1/2
Carlsen - Anand 0-1

Standings after Round 11:

1. Aronian 7
2-4. Radjabov, Carlsen, Anand 6½
5-7. Kramnik, Adams, Ivanchuk 6
8-10. Mamedyarov, Topalov, Leko 5½
11-12. Polgar, Eljanov 4½
13. van Wely 4
14. Gelfand 3½

Pairings for Round 12:

van Wely - Anand
Kramnik - Carlsen
Radjabov - Leko
Mamedyarov - Gelfand
Eljanov - Topalov
Adams - Polgar
Aronian - Ivanchuk

Other Groups:

In Group B, Movsesian continues to lead, but his 8/11 score is only good for a half-point over Short and Bacrot. In Group C, Caruana extended his lead to a full point over the chase pack; he has 8 points, while Reinderman, Nijboer and Negi have 7. Finally, in the Honorary Group Korchnoi made a colossal blunder in a dead drawn* ending against Ljubojevic, just trying to hard to win. Portisch meanwhile defeated Timman, which means that the winners caught the losers: Korchnoi and Ljubojevic lead with 3-2, while Portisch and Timman trail at 2-3.

* Positions can be objectively "dead", but experience teaches us over and over again that if a player really sets his mind to losing a game, there is almost no force in the whole of reality that can stop him.