Ivanchuk Beats Nakamura At Tal Memorial
Three rounds of deadlock were finally broken in round seven at the Tal Memorial when Vassily Ivanchuk took full advantage of some poor opening and middlegame play from Hikaru Nakamura to win with the black pieces.
So with just two rounds remaining Ivanchuk joins Aronian, Nepomniachtchi, Carlsen and Karjakin in a five-way tie for first place on 4/7 points.
The other games in round seven were not without interest or fighting spirit, but all ended as draws.
In such a close contest, the tie-break calculation could be vital. In the case of tied scores, the following tie-break methods are used:
- Number of games with black
- Result of direct encounter
- Coya system
- Sonnenborn-Berger
- Number of wins
The players who will have had 5 blacks and 4 whites when the tournament is completed are: Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi, Svidler, Karjakin and Gelfand.
To many draws in the Moscow 'hood? Who you gonna call? I-van-chuk!
Best of friends? Vishy Anand (left) and Magnus Carlsen at the post-match press conference
Lev Aronian (left) and Sergey Karjakin were evenly matched in their game
Ivanchuk and Aronian take a close interest in Kramnik's game with Gelfand
The standings after seven rounds:
| Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2802 | 4 |
| Nepomniachtchi, Ian | RUS | 2730 | 4 |
| Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2826 | 4 |
| Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2763 | 4 |
| Ivanchuk, Vassily |
UKR | 2775 | 4 |
| Anand, Viswanathan |
IND | 2811 | 3½ |
| Svidler, Peter | RUS | 2755 | 3½ |
| Kramnik, Vladimir | RUS | 2800 | 3 |
| Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2758 | 2½ |
| Gelfand, Boris | ISR | 2744 | 2½ |
The pairings for round eight:
| Magnus Carlsen |
v | Ian Nepomniachtchi |
| Levon Aronian |
v | Peter Svidler |
| Vladimir Kramnik |
v | Sergey Karjakin |
| Vassily Ivanchuk |
v | Boris Gelfand |
| Vishy Anand |
v | Hikaru Nakamura |
The pairings for round nine:
| Hikaru Nakamura |
v | Magnus Carlsen |
| Boris Gelfand |
v | Vishy Anand |
| Sergey Karjakin |
v | Vassily Ivanchuk |
| Peter Svidler |
v | Vladimir Kramnik |
| Nepomniachtchi |
v | Levon Aronian |
Chess.com will have live coverage of the final round (round 9) at www.chess.com/tv.
The 2011 Tal Memorial runs from 16-25 November in Moscow. 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.
