Corus Round 7 - Movsesian In Joint Lead

Sergei Movsesian (pictured) has left it relatively late in life to break through at the very top levels of chess, but the 30 year-old moved into a share of first place in Round 7 at Wijk Aan Zee by beating Vassily Ivanchuk (who at 39, has been among the elite for around 2 decades now!)

Very well done to Movsesian, but can someone please tell Ivanchuk to stop getting into ridiculous time trouble in most of his games?  Yet again he had to blitz out his last 10-15 moves and this time they were not good enough.

In the only other decisive game in the A Group, Morozevich' luck changed as his opponent Jan Smeets let a good position slip away and eventually blundered in the ending.  Gata Kamsky disappointingly failed to convert a winning position against Daniel Stellwagen when he failed to avoid a series of checks.

Although there have been a lot of exciting games so far, there have also been some non-games such as today's 15 move draw between Adams and Radjabov, and an 18 move draw between Karjakin and Aronian.  Fans and sponsors can't have classic encounters in every game, but they should at least expect a real game.  There are already rest days scheduled during the Corus tournament, so there is no excuse for the players to effectively 'pass' and not bother to play.

Elsewhere, there were plenty of decisive games in the B Group, where Nigel Short won a fine game against Kasimdzhanov to take the sole lead on 5/7.  It was also nice to see the veteran Henrique Mecking get his first win of the tournament against Sasikiran.

In the C Group, Tiger Hillarp Persson beat Eduardo Itturrizaga to join Wesley So in the lead on 5/7.  But spare a thought for Manuel Bosboom whose spectacular Queen sacrifice deserved to work, but he eventually lost his game.

The results in round 7:

The standings after round 7: