Kramnik leads half-way at Tal Blitz

After the first half of the huge Tal Blitz tournament in Moscow, Vladimir Kramnik leads with 11 points out of 17 games. Tal Memorial winner Ivanchuk, defeated Anand in the tiebreak final last year, who is defending his blitz title, is shared second with "wild card" Magnus Carlsen. Tomorrow the second half will be played.

Although officially it's not the blitz world championship anymore (this will be organised in Kazachstan later this year), the Tal Blitz 2008 did attract a huge amount of world famous grandmasters again. The qualifying stage, played August 27-28, had the following final table:

[TABLE=368]

The first 14 qualified for the final stage, The first 4, plus the 10 participants of the Tal Memorial, qualified for the final stage, an 18-player round-robin played in two legs: 17 rounds today and 17 rounds tomorrow. Besides the 14 qualifiers, Anatoly Karpov, Magnus Carlsen, Peter Svidler and Vladimir Tkachiev got special invitations.

After the first 17 games it's Vladimir Kramnik who took a slim lead of just half a point - he's followed by Carlsen and Ivanchuk:

[TABLE=369]

Below you can replay all games of the first leg, played today:





Links:

• Official website
• Games in PGN