Vishy Anand on good road

The Indian star has clear point lead

Vishy Anand quickly drew his 9th round game, but his lead extended to full point ahead of Boris Gelfand. Marshall attack was the safest bet for Levon Aronian's opening choice and we were expecting to see more Anand novelties, the kind of what knocked Peter Svidler in 5th round. He indeed played the unique 16. Kf2!?, but after Aronian's accurate Qd7!, had to trade on d5 and contest to draw.

Anand and Aronian in Mexico

The pressure was now on Gelfand and Kramnik to try and catch Anand. Boris Gelfand easily equalised in Nimzo-Indian against Alexander Grischuk and was probably waiting for draw offer which never came. Instead, Grischuk went with cunning Qa2, placed his queen for exchange. Gelfand thought this was faster way to make a draw and naively swapped the queens. From then on, Grischuk quickly grabbed both open files and Gelfand went down in deep rook endgame.

Alexander Morozevich chose good opening strategy against Vladimir Kramnik. He transposed the English opening into some kind of Benoni setup where pawn is on e3 instead of e4. This gives less of the center control but also no targets for black to play on. It was wise decision as Kramnik rarely played this kind of opening with black pieces. Couple of more odd-looking moves, like g4, and Kramnik went astray. Later, Morozevich started to build mating net and Kramnik resigned after his only hope, passed d-pawn, was stopped.

Kramnik and Morozevich in Mexico

Peter Svidler delighted the fans by playing first Sicilian defence in this tournament. The English attack was natural choice for white Peter Leko, but timely 16...d5! neutralized all of the white's play and Leko had to play accurate moves in order to secure the draw.

Round 10 is seeing big derby Vladimir Kramnik - Vishy Anand, which is likely to be the last chance to stop the Indian on his road for the World Championship title. Other pairings are Aronian-Grischuk, Gelfand-Leko and Svidler-Morozevich. Join us at Chessdom for the live coverage and commentary by IM Kalin Karakehayov.

World Chess Championship Index

List of annotated games in round 7 report