Aronian Claims Sole Lead At Amber
Lev Aronian claimed the outright lead after day 5 at Amber by beating Vugar Gashimov in their blindfold and rapid games.
In contrast, Magnus Carlsen came massively unstuck against Vassily Ivanchuk. Ivanchuk repeated his result against the Norwegian star in last year's event, beating him 2-0.
The manner of the defeats were also crushing, with Magnus losing his queen after 16 moves in the blindfold game and getting checkmated in the rapid. Ouch!
Gelfand and Kramnik swapped victories to end all square at 1-1, as did Topalov and Grischuk.
Karjakin and Anand drew twice, but Giri's blindfold win against Nakamura proved sufficient to win their match 1.5-0.5.
The results on day five:
| Blind | Ivanchuk-Carlsen | 1-0 |
| Gashimov-Aronian | 0-1 | |
| Giri-Nakamura | 1-0 | |
| Blind | Anand-Karjakin | ½-½ |
| Topalov-Grischuk | 1-0 | |
| Kramnik-Gelfand | 0-1 | |
| Rapid | Carlsen-Ivanchuk | 0-1 |
| Aronian-Gashimov | 1-0 | |
| Nakamura-Giri | ½-½ | |
| Rapid | Karjakin-Anand | ½-½ |
| Grischuk-Topalov | 1-0 | |
| Gelfand-Kramnik | 0-1 |
The standings after day five:
| 1 | Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2808 | 8 |
| 2 | Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2817 | 6½ |
| 3 | Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2815 | 6 |
| 4 | Grischuk, Alexander | RUS | 2747 | 5½ |
| 5 | Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2776 | 5 |
| 6 | Topalov, Veselin | BUL | 2775 | 5 |
| 7 | Gelfand, Boris | ISR | 2733 | 4½ |
| 8 | Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2774 | 4½ |
| 9 | Gashimov, Vugar | AZE | 2746 | 4 |
| 10 | Ivanchuk, Vassily | UKR | 2779 | 4 |
| 11 | Giri, Anish | NED | 2690 | 3½ |
| 12 | Kramnik, Vladimir | RUS | 2785 | 3½ |
A disaster for Magnus in the blindfold...
...followed by getting checkmated in the rapid!
And here's how I did it...Aronian grabs the lead after five rounds
Giri beats Nakamura in the blindfold game to win their match
After a hard fight, Grischuk blundered a rook in his blindfold game with Topalov
Kramnik hatches a cunning plan...but his queen sacrifice backfires against Gelfand
Photos: Association Max Euwe
