Leuven Grand Chess Tour

[LawrenceCooper]

Oops, has Anand blundered a piece on move 8? 9 Bxg8 Rg8 10 Qc4 looks rather awkward.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Anand's queenside rook certainly took an interesting route to g2!
Nakamura heading for a third successive loss.

[MJMcCready]

Anand is still holding on.

[MJMcCready]

More dodgy endgame play, this time Aronian at it.

[MJMcCready]

Oops, has Anand blundered a piece on move 8? 9 Bxg8 Rg8 10 Qc4 looks rather awkward.

Gustaffson said it wasn't so obvious but I thought it was, saw it straight away almost.

[MJMcCready]

Despite being a piece up on move 9 he still didn't win.

[Simon Brown]

Kramnik dropped a piece in a good position too.

[LawrenceCooper]

Kramnik dropped a piece in a good position too.

Another piece bites the dust in his next game

[Roger de Coverly]

Oops, has Anand blundered a piece on move 8? 9 Bxg8 Rg8 10 Qc4 looks rather awkward.

An oversight by chessbomb's Stockfish at move 5(!).

After 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. b4 f6 4. e3 e5 it's advocating the sacrifice 5. Nxe5 . That's not a stunning novelty, rather it's something that doesn't work, as demonstrated in a 1952 game at Hastings between Gerald Abrahams and ARB Thomas.

I suspect the idea of playing .. d4 against the c4 Reti and following it up with .. f6 is a strong one, but it still seems a work in progress to establish the main line.

[LawrenceCooper]

After losing a very good position vs Caruana Magnus has now blundered a piece against Nakamura

[LawrenceCooper]

After losing a very good position vs Caruana Magnus has now blundered a piece against Nakamura

1-0 after 17 moves.

[LawrenceCooper]

1 Anand, Viswanathan 7/10 2770
2 Caruana, Fabiano 6/10 2804
3 So, Wesley 6/10 2770
4 Topalov, Veselin 5/10 2761
5 Aronian, Levon 5/10 2792
6 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 5/10 2789
7 Giri, Anish 5/10 2782
8 Carlsen, Magnus 4/10 2855
9 Kramnik, Vladimir 4/10 2812
10 Nakamura, Hikaru 3/10 2787

[MJMcCready]

Bad start for Giri, poor game against Anand...well poor by his standards I mean.

[NickFaulks]

Bad start for Giri, poor game against Anand...well poor by his standards I mean.

Anand made the Giuoco Pianissimo look like a forced win for White.

[MJMcCready]

Kramnik - Carlsenin Round 9 has gone down a strange path. Black's set up is that of the St.George's Defence but since white has double fianchettoed, he seems fine.