Corus Round 10 - Aronian Is The New Leader

Lev Aronian (pictured) won his third game of the Corus tournament in round 10, beating Adams with a well-prepared Catalan, to take the sole lead on 6.5/10.  He is one of only two players who remain undefeated so far.  The other is Magnus Carlsen, who finally managed his first win by overcoming Dominguez in a lively game.  That win moves Carlsen into joint third place with four others, behind Karjakin in second.

There was controversy at the end of the exciting game between Radjabov and Smeets, when Radjabov, in severe time trouble, knocked over Smeets' bishop on e8 whilst making his 39th move, Re7.

Smeets (also in time trouble) promptly re-started Radjabov's clock and told him to replace the bishop, but before he had time to do so, Radjabov's flag fell.  The arbiters eventually decided that the game be declared drawn, but it seems that this decision was based more on pragmatism than strict interpretation of the rules.  On the face of it, Smeets should have been awarded the game on the basis that Radjabov didn't correctly complete his 39th move before his flag fell.  Rule 7.3 of the official laws states:

If a player displaces one or more pieces, he shall re-establish the correct position on his own time. If necessary, either the player or his opponent shall stop the clocks and ask for the arbiter`s assistance. The arbiter may penalise the player who displaced the pieces.

So Smeets was within his rights to re-start Radjabov's clock, as is common practice, but the technically correct method nowadays is that the clocks be stopped to allow the pieces to be replaced.  However, Radjabov protested that Smeets had distracted him by speaking to him when re-starting his clock.  The only rule which may be applicable in this situation is rule 12.6:

It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever...

However, it is debatable whether telling your opponent to replace a piece he has knocked over (as an explanation for re-starting his clock) constitutes an unwarranted distraction or annoyance.  Perhaps this is an area of the rules that could be clarified!  It all seems like a good advert for 30 second/move time increments from the start of games.  There is video footage from Chessvibes of the incident and the arbiters' explanations for their decision here.

In the B Group Kasimdzhanov beat Vallejo Pons to rejoin the chasing pack on 6/10, just behind the leader Nigel Short.  Werle and Sasikiran both lost, to L'Ami and Efimenko respectively, leaving them both propping up the table on 3/10.

Just when you thought the C Group couldn't get any more savage, it does - In round 10 every single game was decisive!  Kudos to all the competitors in the group for their fighting spirit.  Swedish GM Tiger Hillarp Persson still leads by half a point from Wesley So of the Philippines.

The full results in Round 10:

The standings after round 10: