The pundits felt it would just be a matter of time before Anand picked up one or more of Black's pawns and converted a full point. Meier was also playing quickly, with the players reaching the time control with 30 minutes to spare.

Meier kept himself in contention and pushed his king rook pawn once Anand picked out the weak pawns on the queen side. It was a race ending in a dead heat as both players made queens simultaneously and the game was drawn on move 56. Out of a Ruy Lopez exchange, Naiditsch had everything running for him in the middle game as he developed a dangerous initiative against Caruana's King. However, at a key moment the German missed a brilliant tactical stroke that would have ended the game in his favour. Instead, Caruana crawled back in the game and slowly went on win amidst complexities. The game lasted 49 moves. In the other game of the day, Fridman was quite happy to hold fort against Adams after two successive losses. For the records it was a Nimzo Indian defense in which Adams equalised easily as black and the peace was signed in 37 moves. Results round 8: V Anand (Ind, 4.5) drew with Georg Meier (Ger, 3.5); Arkadij Naiditsch (Ger, 4) lost to Fabiano Caruana (Ita, 5.5); Daniel Fridman (Ger, 3) drew with Michael Adams (Eng, 3.5).