Grand Prix: Nakamura Leads After Round 8

After a few quiet days, the Grand Prix in Élancourt heated up again on Monday with four decisive games. Hikaru Nakamura was worse throughout his game, but defended well and even won as Vassily Ivanchuk lost on time in a drawn position. The American grandmaster is the sole leader now as Boris Gelfand lost to Fabiano Caruana. Alexander Grischuk won his white game against Anish Giri, and Etienne Bacrot won with Black against Ruslan Ponomariov. Tuesday is a rest day.
The top of the standings at the Grand Prix was shaken up considerably on Monday as tournament leader Boris Gelfand lost for the first time, against the number three in the leaderboard, Fabiano Caruana. Hikaru Nakamura, who was half a point behind Gelfand, took over the lead as he got one half point thanks to good defense, and another half point because Vassily Ivanchuk handled the clock badly and lost on time in a drawn ending. Going into the second and final rest day, the American is now half a point ahead of Caruana & Gelfand. Behind them, Etienne Bacrot is on "plus one".
As so often, Ivanchuk was involved in a dramatic game. The Ukrainian got a slight advantage in a 5.d3 Ruy Lopez due to an inaccuracy by Nakamura on move 17. But then, after reaching the time control, Ivanchuk spent almost an hour (!) on his 41st move, trying to calculate a forced win. In the end he went for 41.Kg2 (a move he could have made "after a minute", as he said himself) and Nakamura held everything together while sacrificing his f-pawn. In huge time trouble Ivanchuk allowed some complications and his flag fell five moves before the second time control.