London Chess Classic, Day 1: Two Draws

The Caruana-Nakamura and Vachier-Lagrave - Aronian matches both started with draws, but both games were interesting and close to finishing with a winner. Caruana went for an enterprising attack against Nakamura, and the latter's one slip in a very complicated position gave Caruana one chance to cash in. He missed his unobvious chance, and an otherwise very well played game by both sides finished in a draw. In the other semi, MVL was outplayed in the opening and early middlegame, and while Aronian may have been winning at one point his opportunity was also well-hidden, and Vachier-Lagrave managed his own Houdini act to escape.

The games are here. I haven't annotated MVL-Aronian at all, but the notes to Caruana-Nakamura are substantial. Enjoy.