LCC R8: Kramnik, Polgar win, Anand-Nakamura a very tense draw

The 2012 London Chess Classic is taking place in the Olympia Conference Centre from Saturday, December 1st until Monday, December 10th. Games start each day in general at 14:00h London time, except for round four (16:00h) and the final round (12:00h). Time controls are classical forty moves in two hours, then twenty moves in one hour and thirty minutes for the rest of the game. A win is counted as three points, a draw as one, and a loss zero. Tiebreaks: 1) number of wins, 2) number of wins with black, 3) result of the individual game between the tied players. In the unlikely event that there is still a tie then: 4) 2 x 15'+2" games, and if necessary 5) Armageddon game: 6'+2" vs 5'+2" with draw odds for black. If there is a tie involving more than two players then the Rapid games will be conducted as a double round all play all.

Round eight express

By GM Alejandro Ramirez

Carlsen holds a commanding lead and was happily sitting on the sidelines doing commentary – but there was still a brilliant fight boiling in the tournament hall as his closest pursuers battled it out. The pride of many of the players is on the line, and for a few the idea of stealing the tournament away from Magnus is still possible. The games were all hard fought, and wonderful.

Vladimir Kramnik-Gawain Jones 1-0
Big Vlad has had a tournament that is nothing short of brilliant. With a performance above 3000 he really is showing that he is at the peak of his game. His rating will jump to a huge 2811, and although it isn’t anywhere near Carlsen yet, he has obtained a solid second spot in the live ratings list.

This game against Gawain Jones was very much a mopping-up operation, as Kramnik used a harmless variation against Jones, who was simply outclassed. An exchange sacrifice to obtain a super powerful light-squared bishop and some passed pawns was enough to bring home the point.

Luke McShane-Judit Polgar 0-1
If there is one thing that marks world champions, it is that they never give up. Judit may never have obtained the Women’s World Championship title, but there is no dispute in the community that she could have had it anytime she wanted. This game was just a show of Polgar’s tenacity and fighting spirit – she was aggressive from the outset and following one or two bad moves from McShane she quickly capitalized and destroyed White’s defenses.

Judit Polgar with her first win in this tournament

Levon Aronian-Michael Adams ½-½
Another weak performance by Aronian with the white pieces left him struggling throughout the entire game. After losing a pawn in the middlegame he went into full defense mode, and he was able to hold the draw in the end against an Adams who kept trying to find ways to win. Levon cannot be happy with the way things went in this game or are going in the tournament, and he hopes to finish on a high note.

Armenian GM Levon Aronian at minus one losing 11 rating points on the FIDE list

Vishy Anand-Hikaru Nakamura ½-½
A funny piece of trivia is that exactly one year ago, this exact same match-up occurred. Hikaru Nakamura turned 25 today and was again Black against the World Champion. Last year saw Hikaru turn 24 and brilliantly destroy Vishy, but today it seemed that Vishy was going to obtain his revenge. A somewhat strange Najdorf gave approximately equal chances to both sides, which eventually led into a strange endgame where Vishy had two rooks and two passed pawns against Hikaru’s knight, bishop, rook and two passed pawns.

A critical moment in the game at move 32 (Anand played 32.Nc3 instead of 32.Raf1)

A number of inaccuracies occurred, and the evaluation pendulum swung violently from one side to the other. In the end, it is possible to say that White missed his winning chances with 46.h5?, while Hikaru missed his chances by not playing perfectly like a computer in the resulting queen vs. rook and pawns endgame. Eventually White managed to create a fortress which concluded a very exciting draw.

Magnus Carlsen analysing the games with Lawrence Trent and Nigel Short for the
spectators in London, for the official live coverage and on Playchess.com

Julian Hodgson and Magnus as a special guest in the VIP room

Pictures by Frederic Friedel and Pascal Simon for ChessBase

Replay all the games of the round

Standings (London scoring)

Standings (traditional scoring)

Carlsen's rating record

The current live ratings show Magnus Carlsen at 2862.4 points, a point lower than on the previous day. Garry Kasparov has congratulated the Norwegian on breaking Kasparov's decade-long record of 2851. However, we have received some relevant information on the matter from James Satrapa of Australia:

Point taken, Jim. We will compare Carlsen's live rating progress to Kasparov's all-time live rating high of 2857 – until January 1st, when we will switch to comparing Carlsen's official FIDE rating to Kasparov's all-time official FIDE rating record of 2851. Here are the live ratings after round eight of the London Chess Classic.

Top ten Live Chess Ratings [Update 09 December 2012, 20:21 GMT]

#	Name	Rating	+/–	Games	Chart	Age
1	Carlsen	2862.4	+15.6	6		22 (30.11.1990)
2	Kramnik	2810.9	+12.9	6		37 (25.06.1975)
3	Aronian	2803.7	-7.6	5		30 (06.10.1982)
4	Radjabov	2793.0	0.0	0		25 (12.03.1987)
5	Caruana	2780.6	-1.4	11		20 (30.07.1992)
6	Karjakin	2780.3	+5.3	11		22 (12.01.1990)
7	Anand	2771.1	-2.7	5		42 (11.12.1969)
8	Topalov	2771.0	0.0	0		37 (15.03.1975)
9	Mamedyarov	2766.4	+2.4	11		27 (12.04.1985)
10	Ivanchuk	2766.0	0.0	0		43 (18.03.1969

Postgame analysis of the games by the players

Vishy Anand - Hikaru Nakamura London Chess Classic 2012 Round 8

Vladimir Kramnik - Gawain Jones London Chess Classic 2012 Round 8

With plus four and a 3000 performance into the final round: Vladimir Kramnik

Luke McShane - Judit Polgar London Chess Classic 2012 Round 8

Daniel King: Play of the day

Andrew Martin Play of the Day (Anand-Nakamura)

Live video coverage and commentary

Watching the games live

You can watch the live stream with video and GM commentary on the official web site

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Pairings and results

The games – except for rounds four and nine – start at 2 p.m. or 14:00h British time = 15:00h CET, 17:00h Moscow, 7:30 p.m. Chennai, 22:00h Beijing, 01:00 a.m. Melbourne, 03:00 a.m. Auckland, 6 a.m. San José, 9 a.m. New York. You can check your location here. Naturally the games will be covered live on the official web site (below) and on Playchess. The games of round four begin two hours later, those of the final round two hours earlier.

Watch the live stream from the London Chess classic here.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN All ChessBase reports on the LCC 2012 (+ 2011, 2010 and 2009) The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client and get immediate access. Or you can get our latest Fritz 13 program, which includes six months free premium membership to Playchess.