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Magnus Carlsen had a narrow escape in the penultimate round of the London Chess Classic today when he overreached against Michael Adams and allowed the English super-grandmaster to sacrifice a piece for a dangerous attack. It looked like Magnus would lose and endanger his chances of appearing at the top of the January 2010 FIDE Rating List but Michael Adams missed his chance and the game petered out to a draw, ensuring that Magnus stayed top of the table.

Vladimir Kramnik moved up to within one point of Carlsen and consigned Nigel Short to last position after a scrappy game. The Russian unfurled a new move, 8 Bg5, against Short’s Nimzo-Indian set-up and the English number one struggled against his well-prepared opponent. There may have been a missed opportunity to get back into the game with 25…Qxa2 for Short but thereafter Kramnik made no mistakes.

David Howell and Hikaru Nakamura drew after most of the pieces were hovered off the board by move 33. Nakamura tried a kingside counter-offensive with Black but Howell resisted stoutly, reaching a drawn opposite-coloured bishop endgame.

Luke McShane seemed to be doing very well against Ni Hua until move 29 when his Nd6 move was answered by Bc6. From that point on, his bad bishop was a major handicap and the Chinese super-GM played very well and ground him down to score his first win in London.

Note: today’s games start at 12 noon, London time, two hours earlier than usual

Standings and Crosstable after round 6

All games in PGN  Replay: Round 1  Round 2  Round 3  Round 4  Round 5  Round 6  Round 7

Daily Best Game prize of €1,000 in round 6 was awarded to Vladimir Kramnik for his win over Nigel Short. Each day you can email your choice to gotd@londonchessclassic.com.