Ivanchuk, Nepomniachtchi and now Carlsen

Vassily Ivanchuk

Ivanchuk equalized easily and pressed in the endgame, but was unable to cash-in his pawn up advantage. Magnus Carlsen managed to win a confusing game against Boris Gelfand where it was the Israeli who made most of the running. The World number one now joins the leading group.

Boris Gelfand seemed to be doing very well, with a daring attack that won the exchange for a couple of pawns. However, Carlsen held off Gelfand's active rooks and eventually the extra pawns were worth more than the exchange. In particular the pawn on b7 gave the Norwegian additional tactical possibilities.

Aronian won the exchange, but Kramnik had reasonable drawing chances. In fact the Armenian made such a meal of the position that he ended up on the worst side of the draw.

The game between the leaders seemed to be heading towards a draw when Nepomniachtchi weakened himself with an unecessary pawn break. Ivanchuk then manoeuvred round to pick off a pawn, but this proved to be insufficient in the knight endgame.

The other two draws were relatively uneventful.

Here is a summary of the second round games:

White	Country	Rating	Result	Black	Country	Rating	Moves	Opening description
Magnus Carlsen	NOR	2826	1-0	Boris Gelfand	ISR	2744	38	Slav Defence 4.e3
Sergey Karjakin	RUS	2763	0.5-0.5	Hikaru Nakamura	USA	2758	43	Sicilian Najdorf 6.Be2
Peter Svidler	RUS	2755	0.5-0.5	Viswanathan Anand	IND	2811	23	Caro-Kann Advance
Ian Nepomniachtchi	RUS	2730	0.5-0.5	Vassily Ivanchuk	UKR	2775	76	Sicilian Sveshnikov
Levon Aronian	ARM	2802	0.5-0.5	Vladimir Kramnik	RUS	2800	49	Queen's Gambit Tarrasch

The table after the second round:

Place	Name	Country	Rating	Points
1-3	Magnus Carlsen	NOR	2826	1.5
1-3	Vassily Ivanchuk	UKR	2775	1.5
1-3	Ian Nepomniachtchi	RUS	2730	1.5
4-7	Viswanathan Anand	IND	2811	1
4-7	Levon Aronian	ARM	2802	1
4-7	Sergey Karjakin	RUS	2763	1
4-7	Hikaru Nakamura	USA	2758	1
8-10	Vladimir Kramnik	RUS	2800	0.5
8-10	Peter Svidler	RUS	2755	0.5
8-10	Boris Gelfand	ISR	2744	0.5

Details of the first round:

White	Country	Rating	Result	Black	Country	Rating	Moves	Opening description
Hikaru Nakamura	USA	2758	0.5-0.5	Boris Gelfand	ISR	2744	34	Queen's Gambit Declined 5.Bf4
Viswanathan Anand	IND	2811	0.5-0.5	Sergey Karjakin	RUS	2763	42	Nimzoindian 4.Qc2
Vassily Ivanchuk	UKR	2775	1-0	Peter Svidler	RUS	2755	61	Grünfeld 4.e3
Vladimir Kramnik	RUS	2800	0-1	Ian Nepomniachtchi	RUS	2730	53	English Symmetrical
Levon Aronian	ARM	2802	0.5-0.5	Magnus Carlsen	NOR	2826	57	Queen's Indian 4.g3 Ba6

More information from the official site:

http://www.russiachess.org/

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