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Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian played draw with Fabiano Caruana in Round 8 of GRENKE Chess Classic. As the Chess Federation of Armenia reports, American decided to avoid the Berlin mainlines by playing 5Re1 and later temporarily gave up a pawn for piece activity. However, after Aronian returned the pawn with 17…d6 all the pieces were soon swapped off and a draw by repetition was agreed on move 32.

Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen came out fighting for his first ever game against Nikitia Vitiugov - incredibly these two players had never met before; not only in classical chess, but also in rapid or blitz. The World Champion got the slightest of advantages out of a topical Ruy Lopez and tried for many hours to convert what was a trademark Magnus edge in the ending.

However, Vitiugov never showed a sign of weakness and held Carlsen to a 65-move draw without too much trouble.

In the final round Aronian will face Matthias Blübaum of Germany.