Ivanchuk Regains Sole Lead At Amber
Vassily Ivanchuk (pictured) celebrated his 41st birthday today by defeating Jan Smeets in their fifth round rapid game at Amber to regain the sole lead in the overall standings.
Magnus Carlsen had briefly led after winning his blindfold game against Sergey Karjakin, but this result was reversed in their rapid game to bring Carlsen's seven-game winning streak to an end.
Yet again, it was a round with mostly decisive games, and lots of action. Boris Gelfand, Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler all scored 2-0 wins today.
The full results in round 5:
| Blind | Dominguez-Gelfand | 0-1 |
| Gashimov-Grischuk | ½-½ | |
| Kramnik-Ponomariov | 1-0 | |
| Blind | Karjakin-Carlsen | 0-1 |
| Aronian-Svidler | 0-1 | |
| Smeets-Ivanchuk | ½-½ | |
| Rapid | Gelfand-Dominguez | 1-0 |
| Grischuk-Gashimov | 0-1 | |
| Ponomariov-Kramnik | 0-1 | |
| Rapid | Carlsen-Karjakin | 0-1 |
| Svidler-Aronian | 1-0 | |
| Ivanchuk-Smeets | 1-0 |
The standings after round 5:
| Ivanchuk, Vassily | UKR | 7½ |
| Gelfand, Boris | ISR | 7 |
| Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 7 |
| Kramnik, Vladimir | RUS | 6 |
| Grischuk, Alexander | RUS | 5½ |
| Svidler, Peter | RUS | 5½ |
| Gashimov, Vugar | AZE | 5 |
| Ponomariov, Ruslan | UKR | 4½ |
| Karjakin, Sergey | UKR | 4½ |
| Aronian, Levon | ARM | 3½ |
| Smeets, Jan | NED | 2 |
| Dominguez Perez, Leinier | CUB | 2 |
Some games from round 5 are below. All games are available at the official site.
