Tata Steel, Round 12: Aronian Secures the Lead.

Round 12 of Tata Steel tournament was not that wild like yesterday, but definitely it was not a "drawish" round. 

White	Result	Black
Karjakin S	½ - ½	Gashimov V
Topalov V	1 - 0	Giri A
Radjabov T	½ - ½	Ivanchuk V
Gelfand B	0 - 1	Aronian L
Navara D	½ - ½	Caruana F
Nakamura H	1 - 0	Van Wely L
Carlsen M	½ - ½	Kamsky G

Levon Aronian, the leader of the tournament, secured his position after he had beaten Boris Gelfand. Aronian, playing Black, met Gelfand's 1.d4 by d5 and soon after the game went into the Queen's Gambit Declined. Until move 7 it looked as if both players followed the game Lischer,T (1505)-Krueger,I (1306) Dortmund 2002, but then Aronian came up with a novelty, playing 7...Ne8 and two moves later he went for a "Stonewall" pawn structure. The position had been about equal until move 46 when Gelfand blundered and Aronian obtained winning position.

So have a look at the leaderboard. 
Aronian secured his position and leads the field with 8½ points. Radjabov and Carlsen with 7½ points share, just one round before the end of tournament, second and third place. 
There are three players with 7 points tailgating this couple - Radjabov, Nakamura and Caruana! 
The finish of the tournament can be very tense and interesting!