M-Tel R8: all games drawn
In round 8 of the M-Tel Masters in Sofia all games ended in a draw. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov executed the first move in Dominguez-Topalov, which turned out to be the most interesting game of the day. With two more rounds to go, Carlsen and Shirov lead with 5 out of 8, followed by Topalov who has half a point less.The 5th M-Tel Masters takes place May 12-23 in a glass pavilion on the square in front of the National Theatre Ivan Vazov in Sofia, Bulgaria. It's a six-player double round-robin with Carlsen, Dominguez, Ivanchuk, Shirov, Topalov and Wang Yue playing. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves and then another hour to finish the game. "Sofia rules" will again be used, so draw offers can be made only through the chief arbiter in the case of a threefold repetition, perpetual check or a theoretically draw position.Round 8
In all honesty not much can be said about today's eighth round. In both Ivanchuk-Carlsen and Shirov-Wang Yue, the players quickly reached a drawn ending that was played out for another thirty moves or so without much happening.Dominguez-Topalov was better; from yet another 6.h3 Najdorf it seemed that Black didn't have any problems in the early middlegame. Instead of going for a haunt on pawn g5 (which might have been a bit risky), Topalov sacrificed an exchange for full control over the dark squares. Quite a logical concept since White had weakened his king's position with b2-b3, but it wasn't enough for an advantage, and just before the time control the Bulgarian decided to force the draw.Game viewer
Click on the pairings at the top of the board to reveal a drop down list of all the games. Click on the arrow under the board just once, then the arrow keys of your keyboard also work.[TABLE=717] [TABLE=728]
Magnus Carlsen, still leading the field...
...together with Alexei Shirov
FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov arrived in Sofia today...
...for a meeting with the board of directors of the Grand Slam tournaments.
At the meeting opportunities for collaboration between FIDE and the Grand Slam will be discussed.
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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