Standings after 7 rounds
| 1-3. | Aronian, Levon | g | ARM | 2801 | 4½ |
| 1-3. | Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | g | AZE | 2763 | 4½ |
| 1-3. | Wang Hao | g | CHN | 2727 | 4½ |
| 4-6. | Nakamura, Hikaru | g | USA | 2741 | 4 |
| 4-6. | Karjakin, Sergey | g | RUS | 2760 | 4 |
| 4-6. | Grischuk, Alexander | g | RUS | 2771 | 4 |
| 7. | Kramnik, Vladimir | g | RUS | 2791 | 3½ |
| 8-10. | Shirov, Alexei | g | ESP | 2735 | 2 |
| 8-10. | Eljanov, Pavel | g | UKR | 2742 | 2 |
| 8-10. | Gelfand, Boris | g | ISR | 2741 | 2 |
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Wang Hao can be the 1st Chinese men’s world champion.
This is such a dull tournament! In every round at least half of the games deliberately go into drawish variants. Bring back M-Tel Masters I say!!
Lack of decisive games does not necessary mean dull games. The games have been very interesting. Just that there has been lesser errors. Just so if you dont know, they are using Sofia rules here.
People expect won games each time between equally strong top GMs. It would be interesting to see how those people fare against players who are roughly of equal strength in their own games!
Having said that, players like Nakamura, Aronian and others always fight to win. The fact that they had their share of draws do not diminish their fighting spirit. In chess there will always be more DRAWS than WON games between super GMs… heck even in your own games.
I was not talking about the results, but about the play. I find it a disgrace to play so cautiously and to choose ex-ante drawn variants in a tournament dedicated to Mikhail Tal. But that’s just a personal opinion. I understand that many people prefer to see GMs simply compare home preparations and go for variants that leave little to the human imagination. Aronian and Nakamura being clear exceptions, obviously.