In what turned out to be good day for Chess fans, the Shamkir Chess tourney saw 3 decisive games with Anand Carlsen & Caruana winning their respective games.
Anand beat Adams
Vishy Anand continued his good run and beat Michael Adams of England. Anand opened with a rare 1.c4 and sacrificed an exchange. Anand nicely maneuvered his pieces to bring home the full point
Carlsen beat Kramnik
World champion Magnus Carlsen handed Vladimir Kramnik his 3rd successive loss, a rare for the former world champion. Magnus uncorked an opening surprise and Kramnik was left to do a lot of thinking over the board. Kramnik made a small tactical mistake after which he had to play most part of the game with his Rook and Bishop against Magnus’ Queen. It wasn’t too difficult for Magnus to win the game thereafter.
Fabiano beat Wesley
Fabiano Caruana beat Wesley So with the Black pieces. Other two games i.e. Mamedyarov vs Mamedov and MVL vs Giri were drawn.
Points after round 7
Magnus 5.5
Anand 4.5
Wesley, Caruana 4
Mamedyarov 3.5…
Round 8 pairings
| Adams | 2746 | – | Giri | 2790 |
| Kramnik | 2783 | – | Vachier-Lagrave | 2762 |
| Wesley | 2788 | – | Carlsen | 2863 |
| Mamedov | 2651 | – | Caruana | 2802 |
| Anand | 2791 | – | Mamedyarov | 2754 |