Status quo in Moscow

Fabiano Caruana beat Hikaru Nakamura in an all-American battle to take his tally to 4.5 points.

Fabiano Caruana shares second position with Viswanathan Anand.

Sergey Karjakin of Russia and Levon Aronian of Armenia maintained their joint lead at the end of the eighth round of the World Candidates Chess tournament in Moscow on Sunday. Viswanathan Anand continues to be in the second position, but he is now sharing it with American Fabiano Caruana, who posted his maiden victory of the tournament, over fellow-American Hikaru Nakamura.

Caruna and Anand, who had to split the point with Bulgarian Veselin Topalov, have 4.5 points each, half-a-point behind the two leaders. The day’s other games, between Aronian and Anish Giri of the Netherlands and Peter Svidler of Russia and Karjakin, were drawn.

Giri, who has lived up to his reputation by drawing all his eight games so far, has four points, while Svidler has 3.5. Nakamura is on three points and Topalov 2.5.

Six rounds remain.

The results (eighth round): Levon Aronian (Arm) 5 drew with Anish Giri (Ned) 4; Fabiano Caruana (US) 4.5 bt Hikaru Nakamura (US) 3; Peter Svidler (Rus) drew with Sergey Karjakin (Rus) 5; Veselin Topalov (Bul) 2.5 drew with Viswanathan Anand (Ind) 4.5.