Candidates Tournament Round 10

The race for the finish line is underway at the London Candidates Tournament!  In round 10, Vladimir Kramnik scored his second win of the tournament by beating his compatriot Alexander Grischuk with the black pieces in a Berlin endgame. Kramnik popularised the Berlin when he used it successfully against Kasparov in their 2000 world championship match, and he used it to good effect again today.  Grischuk is known for his ability to play good moves quickly in time-trouble, but even he can make mistakes and 30.Bxd4 was a miscalculation which cost the game.

Vladimir Kramnik won his second game of the tournament to stay in contention

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Lev Aronian faced Vassily Ivanchuk and today's random opening from Chucky was the Budapest Gambit. "I just wanted to play it, so I played it" he answered, less than helpfully to an enquiry in the press conference after the game.

It wasn't the unusual choice of opening that did for Ivanchuk though, it was his familiar foe: the clock. Yet again, he ran very short of time and blundered in an otherwise reasonable position.  A shocking tournament for the Ukrainian, and Aronian was the latest beneficiary of his largesse.

Lev Aronian ponders his next move while Magnus Carlsen looks on

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Aronian's win put him temporarily back at the top of the standings, but meanwhile Magnus Carlsen was nursing a long-term advantage against Boris Gelfand deep into a tricky endgame.  Eventually, Carlsen established connected passed pawns that Gelfand was unable to stop, and it was another vital win for the Norwegian, keeping him in the tournament lead.

Magnus Carlsen kept ahead of the pack with another win

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The other game of the day was a short draw between Teimour Radjabov and Peter Svidler.  After a disastrous few rounds Radjabov was clearly content to settle for damage limitation, his only ambition being to stop the rot.

Teimour Radjabov has had a disappointing tournament

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The standings after 10 rounds

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The 2013 Candidates Tournament runs from 14 March - 2 April in London, with the winner earning the right to challenge current world champion Vishy Anand for the title.

The tournament is an 8-player double round-robin event and the venue is The IET at 2 Savoy Place on the banks of the river Thames. The total prize fund is €510,000 (approx 665,000 USD). 

All rounds start at 14:00 GMT, and the time control is 2 hours for 40 moves, then an extra hour added for the next 20 moves, then 15 minutes more with a 30 second increment to finish.

The official FIDE website coverage is at london2013.fide.com.