London Chess Classic R8: Kramnik beats McShane for sole lead

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hello everyone,

Russian grandmaster and former world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik has gone into - what could be decisive - lead in the penultimate round at the London Chess Classic 2011 with a Black win over GM Luke McShane.

The other results results of Round 8 included three draws between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen, David Howell and Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura and Nigel Short.

As you know, the 2011 London Chess Classic is taking place in the Olympia Conference Centre from Saturday, December 3rd until Monday, December 12th, starting at 14:00h London time each day (final round 12:00h). Time controls are classical forty moves in two hours, then twenty moves in one hour and thirty minutes for the rest of the game. A win is counted as three points, a draw as one, and a loss zero. 

Standings after eight rounds have Kramnik at 15 points, Carlsen at 13 points, Nakamura and McShane 12 points, Anand and Aronian at 8 points each, Short at 5 points, Howell at 4 points and Adams at 3 points.

Won't you be there for the final round live streaming at the official website?

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