Carlsen and Ivanchuk victorious in round nine

Carlsen on clear second place. Report and replayable games

Another adventurous round in 2008 Morelia Linares super tournament! Even if Aronian-Anand ended in somewhat disappointing draw after the curious opening, the other games kept us glued for the chairs, with Carlsen and Shirov battling for almost 7 hours! Shirov ultimately blundered just when he was close to reach a draw. Leko-Ivanchuk had interesting development, where black castled short and actually attacked his opponent from the Caro-Kann. Topalov enjoyed microscopic advantage against Radjabov, but had to agree to a draw after black's precise endgame play. Replayable games bellow, report to be updated soon.

Round 9 results:

Levon Aronian - Vishwanatan Anand draw
Veselin Topalov - Teimour Radjabov draw
Peter Leko - Vassily Ivanchuk 0-1
Magnus Carlsen - Alexei Shirov 1-0

Round 9 standings:

1. Vishy Anand 6.0
2. Magnus Carlsen 5.5
3. Levon Aronian 5.0
4. Veselin Topalov 4.5
5-7. Teimour Radjabov, Alexei Shirov and Vassily Ivanchuk 4.0
8. Peter Leko 3.0

Levon Aronian was curious about Radjabov's novelty from yesterday's round and decided to try the same 10. Qe4 against Vishy Anand. Anand improved black's play with 10...Bc6 and attempted to give the pawn back in order to achieve good pieces' play. With pair of bishops in his hand, Aronian tried to gain the initiative, but gave up pretty quick by allowing Anand to push liberating 25...d5. With 25. Rad1 the game would be played on.

Teimour Radjabov is really confident about his Ruy Lopez Janish gambit. Here he played it on Veselin Topalov's 1.e4. Bulgarian used Cuban recipe 7. Qd3 and earned some advantage in the view of more active rook. Radjabov demonstrated excellent endgame technique and reached a well deserved draw.

Vassily Ivanchuk managed to gain early initiative against Peter Leko as, imagine, black side in Caro-Kann. A few moments of Leko's hesitation with Bc1, Qc2 and Ne5 were enough for Ivanchuk to setup wonderful position. Further penetration on the back rank, combined with pawn sacrifice, caught Leko all tied up. Black's energetic play steadily increased the advantage until the final blitzkrieg against white king.

The game between Magnus Carlsen and Alexei Shirov was probably the longest in this tournament to day. It started as Shirov's favorite Arhangelsk Ruy Lopez, but he burned too much time to make a mistake with 19...c6. Carlsen quickly jumped on the opportunity and took the advantage with series of strong moves. Simple 19...Ra8 would have been roughly equal. Later on, Carlsen refuses to take a piece en price, because position was just too complicated and he couldn't be sure if Shirov has perpetual check somewhere. Shirov gives his best during the horrible zeitnot, but Carlsen was the one to reach the time control with significant advantage. Developments after 43. Rd8 allowed Shirov to count on reduction to the theoretically drawing R+N vs R endgame. 43. Rc5!? might have been better way. Shirov is fantastic endgame player, and he held the position according to his plans, until one awful blunder on 79th immediately lost him the game.

Goran Urosevic

Round 10 pairings:

Vishy Anand - Magnus Carlsen
Alexei Shirov - Peter Leko
Vassily Ivanchuk - Veselin Topalov
Teimour Radjabov - Levon Aronian

Join us on Saturday at 10:00 EST / 16:00 CET for the live commentary on the 10th round of Morelia-Linares. See you there!