The 8th round of the FIDE World Candidates Tournament 2016 was held today at the DI Telegraph in Moscow, Russia.
The game between the two American players saw the Anti-Berlin Ruy Lopez where white gave up the light-squared bishop and castled long. Both sides started marching the pawns towards enemy kings. As Hikaru Nakamura said after the game, it was either win or lose in brilliant fashion. As it happened, white king used the opponent’s pawns as shelter and black’s attack stalled. With free hands to develop his own attack, Fabiano Caruana swiftly brought the victory home.
Levon Aronian and Anish Giri revisited the slightly forgotten Anti-Moscow Semi-Slav opening. White showed aggressive intentions in the opening, however black was able to exchange the queens and calmly complete the development. Aronian tried in all ways to unbalance the position but Giri was up to task to hold the draw.
Viswanathan Anand easily equalised in the opening from the black side of Ragozin Queen’s Gambit. Veselin Topalov opted for the slow build-up to push e3-e4, but after realising that it won’t come that easy, he went for massive exchanges. In the resulting ending black was relying on several small factors – weak d4-pawn and better coordination of the queen and knight. White was extremely solid and after making no progress black agreed to a draw on move 51.
The game between the two Russian players saw an ultra-sharp line of the English opening. At some point Sergey Karjakin pushed the opponent’s pieces back and assumed the initiative. Peter Svidler grabbed a pawn and braced for defence. However, instead of keeping the pressure on, black rushed to regain the material, allowing his opponent to gain a new momentum. From then on Svidler played for a win, coming very close to scoring, but a couple of inaccurate moves let his opponent of the hook.
Round 8 results:
Svidler – Karjakin 1/2
Caruana – Nakamura 1-0
Aronian – Giri 1/2
Topalov – Anand 1/2
After eight rounds of play Karjakin and Aronian are joint leaders with 5 points each. Anand and Caruana share third place with 4,5 points. There follow Giri (4), Svidler (3,5), Nakamura (3) and Topalov with 2 points.
Round 9 games are on schedule for 21st March at 15:00 Moscow time:
Topalov – Svidler
Anand – Aronian
Giri – Caruana
Nakamura – Karjakin