Caruana leads in Norway after 8 rounds ahead of his game with Carlsen - 8
By this point the tournament has almost completely been derailed by Magnus Carlsen's troubled tournament. Ever since Carlsen lost from a winning position against Gukesh he's been completely off. He clearly doesn't want to be there.
In Round 7 Carlsen forced a quick draw against Nakamura and won the subsequent tie-break, then in round 8 he drew in the classical game and then just dropped a piece against Wei Yi. It seems highly likely he'll announce a retirement from classical chess following this, a long break might be in everyone's interests, most of all Carlsen's, but I really hope and expect such a retirement not to be permanent. I looked up how many published games Carlsen has played since the start of 2024, it's just over 1000, almost all blitz. That's just a few more games than Fischer and a few less than Capablanca had published over their entire careers. Most of these games might fairly be described as meaningless. I'm not sure this isn't the real heart of his problem. Also there has been a lot of discussion recently about the general population's ability to concentrate for extended periods of time in the face of targeted distraction from many sources. I know that's a problem for me.
The second important story of the event is that of the World Champion, Gukesh, he won another important game in Round 7 beating Arjun Erigaisi for the first time but then he lost quite badly to Hikaru Nakamura. Fabiano Caruana leads in spite of blowing a winning position against Arjun Erigaisi in Round 8. Caruana had beaten Wei Yi in Round 7.
The women's event is also all over the place Humpy Koneru is back in the lead a point clear of Anna Muzychuk and Ju Wenjun, but honestly anything can happen in the final two rounds.
Rest Day 4th June.
Round 9 Thursday 5th June: Nakamura vs Erigaisi, Gukesh vs Wei Yi, Carlsen vs Caruana.
Women's: Vaishali vs Khademalsharieh, Ju Wenjun vs Anna Muzychuk Lei Tingjie vs Humpy Koneru.