Naka Leads, Karpov Struggles

With just one round to go in San Sebastian, Hikaru Nakamura (pictured) still leads on 6/8, half a point ahead of his nearest pursuer, Ruslan Ponomariov.  But with nerves jangling, there is still all to play for.

In round 7, Nakamura was lucky to escape with a draw after his choice of the Dutch defence was not a great success.  Then in round 8, he took a quick draw against Movsesian in just 17 moves.  Practical tournament chess, or wimpy cop-out?  Discuss...

Still, it was 4 moves longer than his 13-move draw with Ponomariov in round 6.  All this will no doubt be forgiven and forgotten if Nakamura manages to take first prize in this major event.

Meanwhile at the other end of the table on a rather embarrassing 1/7 is former world champion Karpov, who might want to re-consider playing against Kasparov again, if his form is this bad.

The standings going into the last round:

The final round draw pits Kasimjanov versus Nakamura, Ponomariov vs Vallejo, Granda vs Svidler, San Segundo vs Karpov and Movsesian vs Vachier-Lagrave.  Lots of nice pictures and live coverage of games at the official site.