Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen remain in first place at the Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Both players drew their game in the 8th round. In fact only one encounter in the A group ended decisively: Vugar Gashimov won his first game, with Black against Anish Giri. Going into the second rest day, Pentala Harikrishna still has a half-point lead over Alexander Motylev in the B group while Hans Tikkanen caught Maxim Turov in first place in 'C'.

Right from the start of the 8th round, all attention went to the A group's game Anish Giri versus Vugar Gashimov. It started as a Najdorf Sicilian and soon got very sharp, with White putting a bishop on d5 while there was a black pawn on e6, and then Black not taking it but instead letting his rook on a8 taken!

As it turned out, it was all theory, and quite old theory. However, the reputation of the line isn't very good - the move 10.Bd5!? hasn't been played by strong players. Interestingly, in the database two games by Italian IM Stefano Tatai can be found, one from 1970 and one from 2011!  The question is, why Giri decided to go for it. He commented in a rather joyful manner:

The highlight of my play, preperation...! I knew one correspondence game, I looked at it this morning and it looked interesting.

Anish Giri got inspiration from a correspondence game, but his sharp play backfired completely

Vugar Gashimov, who won his first game in the tournament and with it the Piet Zwart Prize, said:

I had this position in my analysis some months ago. I remembered that Black is better.

Gashimov wasn't sure how his analysis went exactly, but behind the board he seemed to be playing all the right moves.

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The tournament leaders both drew their games. Levon Aronian was the first, against Veselin Topalov. The Bulgarian could have won Black's queen, but apparently he agreed with his opponent that the resulting position would be fine for Black.

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Aronian:

I didn't know much about it but it felt very natural to play Nc6. If he plays e4 instead of e3, Nxf4 and Black is better I think.

Levon Aronian: an easy draw against Veselin Topalov

Magnus Carlsen again played on for quite a while in a dry endgame position against Teimour Radjabov, and did manage to get a slight advantage. However, the Norwegian also felt that this time he "overpressed" a bit. The two analyzed for some time afterwards; something that's quite rare these days.

Teimour Radjabov drew with White against Magnus Carlsen

At some point our camera was ready to shoot a press conference by Gata Kamsky. We had everything set up as the American was completely winning against Boris Gelfand, and it had been quite a nice game, suitable for the demo board.

The Houdini evalutation on the official website went from -5.90 to -6.18 during several half moves, but then the American just didn't see how to finish it off. Gelfand escaped, and commented:

I played another poor game. I saw I could lose two or three times but luck was on my side today.

Kamsky:

To be honest at the beginning I had some idea what I was doing but as the game progresses I was getting completely out of my mind and in the end I realized I see absolutely nothing. Just making solid moves and a draw!

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The two draws in Navara-Van Wely and Caruana-Ivanchuk were quite spectacular as well. We'll give the final part of one of these:

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In the B group the daily prize went to Vladimir Potkin, who played a fine game with Black against Dimitri Reinderman, full of little tactical nuances.

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Jan Timman lost his third game in a row, against Lazaro Bruzon. The Cuban probably could have won earlier, but the game was decided when Timman again missed a relatively easy tactic.

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The C group's top encounter between Matthew Sadler and Maxim Turov ended in a draw and this gave Hans Tikkanen the opportunity to catch Turov in the standings.

Maxim Turov and Matthew Sadler split the point

Games group A, round 8

Tata Steel 2012 | Grandmaster Group A | Pairings

Tata Steel 2012 | Grandmaster Group A | Round 8 standings

Games group B, round 8

Tata Steel 2012 | Grandmaster Group B | Pairings

Tata Steel 2012 | Grandmaster Group B | Round 8 standings

Games group C, round 8

Tata Steel 2012 | Grandmaster Group C | Pairings

Tata Steel 2012 | Grandmaster Group C | Round 8 standings