Most of the discussion the past few days has focused on Anish Giri and Alireza Firouzja, who have been leading the tournament from the very start. Entering the round, Giri was in clear first with 4.5/6, with Firouzja in clear second with 4. The illusion of a two-horse race was demolished in round 7. Giri lost to Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who now also has 4.5 points - as does Dommaraju Gukesh, who beat Max Warmerdam.
Had Firouzja drawn Vidit Gujrathi, he’d have made it a four-way tie, and with a win he’d have been in sole first place. Instead, he lost, too, and was caught by Vidit as well as Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, who drew with Jorden Van Foreest. So there are three players with 4.5 points, and three with 4 points, and while we’re at it there are four more players with 3.5 points. 10 of the 14 players are within a point of the lead, so it’s hardly a “two-horse race”.
Giri’s loss was mostly due to 22…b5. Black understandably sought counterplay to distract White from his plan of piling up on Black’s d-pawn, but it ultimately resulted in further queenside weaknesses White managed to exploit later on. The ending was a textbook case of a good knight vs. a bad bishop, and Abdusattorov probably enjoyed every minute of it.
Firouzja’s troubles were self-inflicted. In one sense that’s trivially true, as one cannot win a chess game without the opponent making mistakes. But the substantive point is that Vidit didn’t put any pressure on Firouzja; rather, Firouzja chose an iffy line (at least it’s “iffy” as far as I can tell; perhaps extremely deep analysis will show that the line is fine) but forgot what to do. His 14th move was a blunder (he may well have mixed up 14…Qa4+ with a line where …Qa4+ is played on move 16), and Vidit was able to defend and then convert his substantial material advantage.
Gukesh won a Magnus Carlsen-style game. Warmerdam was well-prepared and reached an equal ending that should have been a comfortable draw, but the sloppy 35…h6? gave Gukesh a free pawn. It was still drawn after that, but the degree of difficulty was considerably greater. Warmerdam defended very well for a long time, but finally made the fatal error on move 53.
To the draws: Parham Maghsoodloo vs. Ian Nepomniachtchi was a good fight with neither player missing any big chances. Wei Yi vs. Ding Liren was a non-game; perhaps Wei Yi was discouraged from his loss in the previous round to Firouzja and wanted to call it a day against the tournament’s top seed. Pragg had some chances against Van Foreest, but a couple of wasted tempi let Van Foreest tidy up his kingside and perhaps even have the better position when the draw was agreed. Alexander Donchenko’s game with Ju Wenjun was similar: Donchenko may not have been better, but he enjoyed the initiative until he wasted two tempi on moves 23 and 24. Fortunately for Donchenko, Black’s edge was too small to matter, and the game quickly petered out to a draw. (All the games of the round, with my comments, are here.)
The players have one more round before their next rest day, on Monday. Here are the pairings:
Vidit (4) - Donchenko (2)
Warmerdam (3.5) - Praggnanandhaa (4)
Ju Wenjun (3) - Gukesh (4.5)
Nepomniachtchi (3.5) - Abdusattorov (4.5)
Giri (4.5) - Wei Yi (3.5)
Firouzja (4) - Ding Liren (3.5)
Van Foreest (2.5) - Maghsoodloo (2)