The Candidates..."woahh, we're half way there"

So we have reached the half way point and the two big favourites, Aronian and Carlsen, are still out in front with an impressive 5/7, a full 1.5 points ahead of their nearest rivals (Svidler & Kramnik).

However as we saw yesterday the winner of this tournament is hardly a foregone conclusion as Super Magnus, who until now had breezed his way to +3 (bar defending a slightly shakey position against Chuky), was in a bad way against Radjabov with the White pieces, but thanks to some tenacious defending managed to hold the draw. The key moment was whether the very natural looking 25...f2+, sacrificing a pawn to open up the f-file, was actually necessary. The machines seem to think otherwise.

Lev played a very interesting pawn sacrifice against Grischuk which granted him tremendous compensation, but erred on move 30 where he could have played 30.a4 to keep a stable advantage. The point was halved after Alexander managed to liquidate into a theoretically drawn ending.

Perhaps the most strange game yesterday was Gelfand-Kramnik, where after what looked like a wholly unsuccessful opening from Boris, Kramnik made one of the strangest moves in the tournament 18...Ne8?, after which the very natural 19.Nfg5! seems to be close to winning for White. Instead Boris played 19.Ned2? and shortly after the game fizzled out and a draw was a greed.

The Ivanchuk-Svidler game went down a theoretical mainline Scotch opening with neither player able to demonstrate an advantage. Draw agreed on move 30.

Game of today is of course the battle of the leaders Carlsen vs Aronian, and with only 6 games remaining a decisive result will put one of these guys as clear favourite to finish first.

Watch LIVE coverage of today's crucial battle from london2013.fide.com, you'd be mad to miss it!

-L