Yesterday I said that not winning your won games is a bad sign. Bad sign means you’ll lose sooner rather than later and that happened to Dominguez today against Karjakin. I cannot imagine a more pensioner opening than this:

Karjakin-Dominguez, white is only 24 years old, not 104.

Pieces were traded, but white had the bishop pair and was pressing. Nothing grave would have happened if black didn’t take the poisoned pawn on d4. Mostly it feels like a curse, not winning won games.

Another player who was punished for not winning yesterday was Grischuk, who lost on time while making his 60th move, the last one, in his game with Gelfand. This was very cruel and tragic, as Grischuk seemed to be lost in the rook endgame, but managed to escape and in the moment he lost on time the position was dead draw. But Caissa never really liked adrenaline junkies, remember the zeitnot addicts Reshevsky, Korchnoi and now Grischuk – they always seem to be held back because of their addiction. This win made Gelfand the sole leader with 2.5/3.

The other games were drawn – Radjabov was unambitious against Svidler (who used the same line Kramnik used to surprise Kasparov in the 7th game of their match in 2000). Like Kasparov, Radjabov didn’t dare to go along the most critical lines and the game petered out quickly.

Tomashevsky got some typical Grunfeld (OK, so it’s not forgotten, also thanks to Grischuk who played it against Tomashevsky in round 1) pressure against Kasimdzhanov in view of the passed d-pawn. Kasimdzhanov said he wasn’t very comfortable, while in his opinion experienced Grunfeld players like Gelfand would know where to put the pieces, but in practice he did quite well and held the draw.

Andreikin got his first half a point against Mamedyarov. He played the Meran-Chebanenko Slav (this is just my name for the a6,e6 hybrid) and was comfortable throughout, perhaps he could have tried for more at several points. But after 0/2 the first that comes to mind is not to make it 0/3.

So we have a motivated-as-ever-when-it-comes-to-the-World-Championship-cycle Boris Gelfand leading the pack. It’s still early to tell, but if he can keep his level (and this depends on his physical condition) then he’ll be the man to beat.