Carlsen Maintains Lead At Medias
Round eight of the Bazna Kings tournament in Medias, Romania provided more fighting chess, but no decisive results.
Magnus Carlsen had the black pieces against Teimour Radjabov, and tried the fashionably reliable QGD, managing to find a clever way to force a perpetual check to earn a draw.
With the games Ivanchuk v Nisipeanu and Nakamura v Karjakin also ending all-square there was no change in the relative standings with two rounds left to play. Magnus Carlsen keeps a half-point lead.
The standings after eight rounds:
| Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2815 | 5½ |
| Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2776 | 5 |
| Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2774 | 4 |
| Radjabov, Teimour | AZE | 2744 | 3½ |
| Ivanchuk, Vassily | UKR | 2776 | 3 |
| Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter | ROU | 2659 | 3 |
Games start at 15:30 local time (12:30 UTC) except the last round which is 2 hours earlier.
The time control is 2 hours for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves, then 15 minutes to finish with a 30 second increment after move 60.
The official site with live broadcasts of the games is here, and the full draw can be found here.
