However, 10 …b4 is interesting, and probaly he was afraid of the sac 11.Nd5.
Again one has to admit that only a home-Fritz preparation can defend against 11.Nd5.

This ends teh story that Bg5 line of the najdorf is a dead draw.

Obviously since there is only one winner throphy, they can’t give it to both, so it looks like this is the only thing for which tie-break criteria are used. But they still both won the tournament. Which is not the case in Linares and most other tournaments where they use tiebreaks. There is only one winner the one with the best tiebreakers , others are 2nd, 3rd, etc.!
Linares 2000 was a special case, since Kasparov and Kramnik were equal on all official tiebreaks criteria. When they tried to add either a blitz playoff or a coin flip Kasparov and Kramnik refused. Kasparov then ceeded the throphy to Kramnik, but not the tournament win! They were both winners! Here is the extensive report:
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/event/linares2000/linares10.html

But Corus actually has tiebreaks, which were needed in 2006 in both the A and B groups – from the tournament report ( http://www.coruschess.com/report.php?year=2006&report=13 ):
“In an amazing photo finish, Vishy Anand managed to win today, and catch up with Topalov, share first place and take the trophy on tie breaks.” [both scored 9/13 1.5 points clear of the field]
“Group B’s finish was also dramatic, when Almasi [leader before the final round] lost to Cheparinov, while both Motylev and Carlsen won, with Motylev taking first place on tie breaks.”
Motylev got the “automatic” invitation to the A group in 2007, but Carlsen was also invited – a logical and, certainly in hindsight, “right” decision by the organizers.

That’s different – Linares does have tiebreak criteria. Last years it was:
a) head to head (Grischuk and Ivanchuk drawn both their games)
b) number of wins (Grischuk had 3 wins compared to Ivanchuk’s 2)
c) score against opponents who scored 50% or more

In Corus there has never been a tiebreak criteria.

But you do have a point: If two or more share 1st place, who qualifies for Grand Slam final (assuming there will be one)?

But what exactly are they discussing about the position on the board – after move 9, well within established theory?

To my knowledge, Corus uses Sonneborn-Berger, which indeed should favor Kramnik over Carlsen (their direct result) as well as Shirov (very efficient against the lower half of the field, but two losses against the upper half).

Of course Carlsen already qualified by winning Nanjing – if he also wins Corus it would make more sense to pick whoever is second in Wijk (not far behind) than Topalov who was second in Nanjing, 2.5 points behind Carlsen. And all this assumes that Bilbao 2010 will actually take place, in Bilbao or maybe in another city. Any news on this? I find it a bit puzzling that “Grand Slam” and/or “Bilbao” wasn’t even mentioned yet …. .