Shirov again!

Sixth seed Alexei Shirov is leading the tournament with a perfect 2/2. Half-a-point behind are the in form duo Carlsen and Nakamura, both of whom won exciting games today.

Shirov won his second game and so took the lead by grinding down young Caruana in a rook and opposite-bishop ending. Not particularly convincing as Caruana surely should have defended this better, but effective on the day.

Nakamura was in his element as he played some flamboyant sacrifices in an exciting Najdorf against Van Wely. A fantastic struggle that I will no doubt analyze soon.

Carlsen and Smeets had a theoretical tussle in the Anti-Meran gambit with twenty-plus moves of theory leading to a complex middlegame which Carlsen turned in his favour. I think that 23...Kb7 is a clear improvement for Black, but no doubt Carlsen was also ready for that!

The overall results in the A-group were as follows:

Viswanathan Anand IND (2790)0.5-0.5Nigel Short ENG (2696)
Hikaru Nakamura USA (2708)1-0 Loek van Wely NED (2641)
Magnus Carlsen NOR (2810)1-0 Jan Smeets NED (2657)
Vassily Ivanchuk UKR (2749)0.5-0.5 Sergey Tiviakov NED (2662)
Alexei Shirov ESP (2723)1-0 Fabiano Caruana ITA (2675)
Vladimir Kramnik RUS (2788)0.5-0.5 Peter Leko HUN (2739)
Sergey Karjakin RUS (2720)0.5-0.5 Leinier Dominguez CUB(2712)

Here are the January 2010 ratings (updating the old ratings given yesterday) of the A-Group players.

SeedNameCountryRating
1Magnus Carlsen NOR 2810
2Viswanathan Anand IND 2790
3Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2788
4Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 2749
5Peter Leko HUN 2739
6Alexei Shirov ESP 2723
7Sergey Karjakin RUS 2720
8Leinier Dominguez CUB 2712
9Hikaru Nakamura USA 2708
10Nigel Short ENG 2696
11Fabiano Caruana ITA 2675
12Sergey Tiviakov NED 2662
13Jan Smeets NED 2657
14Loek van Wely NED 2641
Round 2 Anand-Short
© E.Echecs

In the B-Group Giri again wins against one of the highly fancied players. We have also modified the ratings in groups B and C which are now completely up-to-date.

Erwin l'Ami NED (2615) 0.5-0.5 Wesley So PHI (2656)

Varuzhan Akobian USA (2628) 0-1 Arkadij Naiditsch GER (2687)

Parimarjan Negi IND (2621) 0.5-0.5 Anna Muzychuk SLO (2523)

P Harikrishna IND (2672) 0.5-0.5 David Howell ENG (2606)

Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu ROM (2681) 0-1 Anish Giri NED (2588)

Dimitri Reinderman NED (2573) 0-1 Tomi Nyback FIN (2643)

Ni Hua CHN (2657) 1-0 Emil Sutovsky ISR (2657)

Robson wins his second game in the C-Group.

S Swaminathan IND (2323) 0.5-0.5 Sjoerd Plukkel NED (2279)

Li Chao-b CHN (2604) 0.5-0.5 Daniele Vocaturo ITA (2495)

Robin v Kampen NED (2456) 0.5-0.5 Benjamin Bok NED (2322)

Kjetil Lie NOR (2547) 0-1 Zhaoqin Peng NED (2402)

Nils Grandelius SWE (2515) 0-1 Stefan Kuipers NED (2340)

Abhijeet Gupta IND (2577) 0.5-0.5 Marya Muzychuk UKR (2447)

Ray Robson USA (2570) 1-0 Robin Swinkels NED (2495)

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