Carlsen settled for a fairly solid line of the Queen's Gambit, as a loss would have enabled Boris Gelfand to catch him up. A tactical flurry occurred and this led to dynamic equality with queen and knight apiece.
| White | Rating | Country | Result | Black | Rating | Country | No. Moves | Opening |
| Wang Yue | 2752 | CHN | 0-1 | Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu | 2672 | ROU | 66 | King's Indian Defence |
| Boris Gelfand | 2752 | ISR | 0.5-0.5 | Magnus Carlsen | 2813 | NOR | 33 | Queen's Gambit Declined |
| Teimour Radjabov | 2740 | AZE | 0.5-0.5 | Ruslan Ponomariov | 2733 | UKR | 30 | Closed Italian |
In the other draw, Ponomariov employed ...a5 followed by ...Ra6-e6 in order to nullify any White opening pull. In the final, somewhat blocked, position neither side could really undertake anything positive.
Nisipeanu's win came from a King's Indian Defence, fianchetto variation, where simplification enabled Black's king to become the most active. Indeed this was the key factor throughout the endgame and enabled the Rumanian to tip the balance in his favour.
| Position | Name | Country | Rating | Pre-tournament rating change | World Ranking | points (from 8) |
| 1st | Magnus Carlsen | NOR | 2813 | - | 1 | 6 |
| 2nd | Boris Gelfand | ISR | 2741 | -9 | 11 | 5 |
| 3rd | Teimour Radjabov | AZE | 2740 | - | 13 | 4 |
| 4th | Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu | ROU | 2672 | +11 | 59 | 3.5 |
| 5th | Ruslan Ponomariov | UKR | 2733 | -4 | 18 | 3 |
| 6th | Wang Yue | CHN | 2752 | +3 | 8 | 2.5 |
There was no change at the top, but Nisipeanu has moved up to fourth with his win.
The ninth round can be followed live at 1.30 pm (London), 2.30 pm (Paris) or 3.30 pm local time on Thursday after tomorrow's rest day. The last round on Friday will start two hours earlier.
For this possibility and other information see the Official site
