Mamedyarov joins Caruana in the lead after beating Kramnik in Candidates Round 6 - Games and Results
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov joined Fabiano Caruana in the lead after defeating Vladimir Kramnik. However Kramnik will probably regard this as a completely self inflicted loss, he totally equalised with black but then thought with 28...h5 he was creating winning chances. Instead a few moves later he blundered horribly with 34...Rdc8 saying that he calculated the resulting position with his rook on c8 instead of c7, but even that seems bad for him. He just seemed to lose all objectivity for a short while. Kramnik dropped his h-pawn for nothing and was completely lost, he resisted for a long time, even finding a mating idea when a rook for queen down but he was never given a saving chance..
This means that Caruana and Mamedyarov share the lead on 4/6 on +2 a point clear of a group on 50% Kramnik, Grishuk and Ding Liren.
Wesley So finally showed what he is capable of against Levon Aronian in a Marshall Ruy Lopez. Aronian was well prepared but was outplayed eventually missing that his 33...Rf8 loses material to 34.Re2! Aronian resisted a long time but the game was gone. Wesley So will be glad to get out of the basement and back into the tournament with this win.
Ding Liren got nothing as white against Sergey Karjakin's Gruenfeld and the game was drawn in 18 moves.
Round 6 standings: 1st Caruana 4pts, 2nd Mamedyarov 4pts, 3rd Kramnik 3pts, 4th Grischuk 3pts, 5th Liren Ding 3pts, 6th Wesley So 2.5pts, 7th Aronian 2.5pts, 8th Karjakin 2pts
Rest day: Saturday 17th March 2018
Round 7 Sunday 18th March 2018 14.00 GMT: Grischuk-Mamedyarov, Kramnik-Ding Liren, Karjakin-Wesley So, Aronian-Caruana