Deadlock At Tal Memorial Continues
What would Mikhail Tal make of it? For three successive rounds at the Tal Memorial all the games have been drawn. That's 15 games in total without a decisive result.
The previous two rounds prior to today's deadlock have had some sparkling chess, so one could certainly not accuse the players of slacking, but there surely comes a point when blood must be spilt to satisfy Caissa!
With just three rounds remaining the joint leaders are still Lev Aronian, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin.
Sergey Karjakin and Ian Nepomniachtchi are among the leaders
World Champion Vishy Anand has drawn all his games so far
The standings after six rounds:
| Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2802 | 3½ |
| Nepomniachtchi, Ian | RUS | 2730 | 3½ |
| Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2826 | 3½ |
| Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2763 | 3½ |
| Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2811 | 3 |
| Ivanchuk, Vassily | UKR | 2775 | 3 |
| Svidler, Peter | RUS | 2755 | 3 |
| Kramnik, Vladimir | RUS | 2800 | 2½ |
| Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2758 | 2½ |
| Gelfand, Boris | ISR | 2744 | 2 |
The pairings for round seven:
| Vishy Anand | v | Magnus Carlsen |
| Hikaru Nakamura |
v | Vassily Ivanchuk |
| Boris Gelfand |
v | Vladimir Kramnik |
| Sergey Karjakin |
v | Lev Aronian |
| Peter Svidler |
v | Ian Nepomniachtchi |
Chess.com will have live coverage of round 9 at www.chess.com/tv.
The 2011 Tal Memorial runs from 16-25 November in Moscow, with one rest day on 21 November. Games start at 15:00 local time (11:00 UTC), except the last round which is 2 hours earlier. The time control is 40 moves in 100 minutes, followed by 20 moves in 50 minutes, then 15 minutes to finish, with a 30 second increment from the start of the game. The total prize fund is €100,000 with the winner receiving €30,000.
The official site (in Russian). Pictures from Chess-News.ru.
