Svidler In Pole Position At Russian Champs
Peter Svidler scored his third win of the 2011 Russian Superfinal to lead by a point with just two rounds remaining.
Svidler's victim in round 5 was Artyom Timofeev, who misplaced his queen allowing Svidler to trap it and claim victory.
Defending champion Ian Nepomniachtchi achieved his first win of this year's championship, beating Alexander Morozevich in an ending that looked like it should have been drawn.
Elsewhere there were shades of the candidates matches as Alexander Grischuk got nowhere with the white pieces against a well-prepared Vladimir Kramnik, and Alexander Galkin never looked likely to win against Sergey Karjakin.
The standings after five rounds:
| Svidler, Peter | 2739 | 4 |
| Morozevich, Alexander | 2694 | 3 |
| Karjakin, Sergey | 2788 | 2½ |
| Grischuk, Alexander | 2746 | 2½ |
| Nepomniachtchi, Ian | 2711 | 2½ |
| Kramnik, Vladimir | 2781 | 2½ |
| Galkin, Alexander | 2598 | 2 |
| Timofeev, Artyom | 2665 | 1 |
Peter Svidler trapped his opponent's queen to win the game
Games begin at 15:00 local time (11:00 UTC). The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30 second increment from the start.
The official website (in Russian) is here. Live game relay at this link. Live video coverage here.
