Chess

[Federberg]

Interesting attack from Levon. Is he bluffing? Not surprised the engine evaluation is showing a big advantage for black, but this could be one of those positions where engines often get confused. 3 pawns down but super active pieces all trained on the black king looks viable to me. Can't see the tactics but that's why he's the 4th highest rated guy of all time I guess

 

[Federberg]

Ah! Draw by repetition. Caruana didn't want to test it. I don't blame him, but somehow I get the feeling that Carlsen, Nakamura and Topalov would have dared Aronian to prove that activity trumped material. Caruana better start making his move soon or he'll be left behind

 

[DarthFed]

Was thinking the same thing. All around boring day.

 

[Federberg]

yup!

 

[Federberg]

Lol! Is Anish trying to get rid of his boring tag today? Can't think of a worse (or better??) opponent to play this type of opening against that Toppy. This is going to be very interesting

 

[Federberg]

All the games look quite interesting today. Wonder if Sergey can get out of the hole he's in against Caruana. Vishy seems to be building up a decent kingside attack against Svidler, but somehow I think Peter should be able to swap pieces off to fizzle it out

 

[Federberg]

Lol! I got that wrong. A few moves later Svidler resigned!

 

[Federberg]

jeepers, but Sergey is a good defender!

 

[DarthFed]

Svidler was bent in the opening. Pretty wild game. All of them are lively today. Nice Benko Gambit game in Topalov-Giri. The latter has a slight edge but white should hold. Caruana-Karjakin is really wild. I'm not sure how white can save the game now but the engine is saying Qh4 draws. Got to admit I don't see how (and I hate not seeing it!!) Qc7 looked more natural to me. Qg4, Rg8 was played

 

[DarthFed]

Not a fun position for Nakamura but not sure how Aronian can break through here. The type of position where a player can easily overextend trying to find a win and end up dropping the game.

 

[DarthFed]

Nf8 is odd move by Giri. Long trip to b6 square and he may not have factored in a4 and a5 for Topalov. But at the same time Topalov's king is still tied down. Giri has a good chance here especially against someone not as sharp in the endgame as some of the other elite players.

 

[Federberg]

Svidler was bent in the opening. Pretty wild game. All of them are lively today. Nice Benko Gambit game in Topalov-Giri. The latter has a slight edge but white should hold. Caruana-Karjakin is really wild. I'm not sure how white can save the game now but the engine is saying Qh4 draws. Got to admit I don't see how (and I hate not seeing it!!) Qc7 looked more natural to me. Qg4, Rg8 was played

That's interesting. I didn't have a chance to do any analysis, but I rather thought it was Karjakin who was in trouble in that one. Did Capuana blunder at some point? I thought he was rook versus knight up in that one. Karjakin had 2 rooks vs Caruana's queen when I was watching.

 

[DarthFed]

Oh yeah Karjakin definitely was in trouble but he defended well and at one point it looked dangerous for white (at least to my eyes) but Caruana pretty easily drew the game. Be4 by Karjakin was a great find.

 

[Federberg]

yes that was the move. All today's games have looked pretty decent. Candidates coming alive

 

[Federberg]

oh Hikaru...

 

[Federberg]

he's not going to recover from that one

 

[DarthFed]

Busted by the touch move and in such a big tournament. He may have lost anyways (apparently Aronian said the position was always a win for white) but that ended the game on the spot. Naka would have to go on quite the terror to come back in this tournament and with such a strong field it will be tough to rip off 3 wins in a row or 4 of 5. And that's probably what it would take.

 

[Federberg]

Interesting.. based on Nepomniatchi's tweet Hikaru has form

 

[Federberg]

If Giri think's he can make a career of not having losing records against the top guys he is sadly mistaken. Shows very little ambition! Maybe I'm saying this because I find his type of nerdy arrogance a little annoying!

 

[Federberg]

Svidler threatening to steal a draw out of the jaws of victory yet again... Sigh!