Dubai: World champion Magnus Carlsen won his last three rounds in a row to grab the solo lead, with eight points from 10 rounds of the World Rapid Chess Championship at the Dubai Chess Club in Dubai on Tuesday.

Carlsen beat Grand Masters Yuriy Kryvoruchko of Ukraine, Sergei Movsesian of Armenia and former solo leader Fabiano Caruana of Italy to set the pace in the 15-round Swiss System tournament. Five rounds per day are scheduled in the 15-round Swiss System tournament, with games lasting around an hour each round.

Also alone in second spot with 7.5 points was Levon Aronian of Armenia. Aronian essayed the Queen’s Gambit Accepted against top seed Hikaru Nakamura of the USA and, after an early exchange of Queens, started a pawn storm on the kingside and reached an endgame of opposite coloured Bishops. Nakamura was going to lose his piece when he resigned on the 70th move.

Caruana, who had led the last three rounds, used the Philidor Defence, but Carlsen created a passed a pawn, which he promoted to a Queen on the 38th move.

Caruana and six others follow with seven points each: former world champion Viswanthan Anand of India, Russians Ian Nepomniachtchi, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Alexander Grischuk and Peter Svidler and Chinese GM Yu Yangyi.

Anand scored 3.5 from five games, beating GM Zahar Efimenko of Ukraine and compatriot Pentala Harikrishna.

Anand drew with GM Sergei Movsesian of Armenia, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam and Sergey Karjakin of Russia. Karjakin used the English Opening and Anand forced a draw by three-time repetition of position on the 33rd move.

Nepomniachtchi lost to Caruana in the sixth round then drew his last three games against GMs Sergey Karjakin, Hikaru Nakamura of USA and Alexander Grischuk of Russia.

Russian Peter Svidler, after losing to GM Loek van Wely of the Netherlands in the sixth round, won his last three rounds to catch up with the leaders as he beat Russian Evgeny Najer, Mateusz Bartel of Poland and Frenchman Laurent Fressinet. Svidler played the Ruy Lopez and centralised his King. In a minor piece endgame, Svidler’s Knight was about to capture pawns when Fressinet resigned on the 47th move.

Tomashevsky kept pace by beating GM Georg Meier of Germany, then crushing the Slav Defence of Le Quang Liem of Vietnam. The Russian was up three pawns in a Rook and Pawn endgame when Le Quang Liem resigned on the 48th move.

The other player on seven points, Yu Yangyi of China, who suffered two losses the day before, won his last four games against GMs Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus, Nikita Vitiugov of Russia, Frenchman Etienne Bacrot and Russian Aleksey Dreev. Yu routed the Caro Kann Defence of Alexey Dreev of Russia. Dreev was under attack when he decided to give his Queen for two pieces on the 21st move, but resigned on the 33rd move.

In round 11, Carlsen was set to face Aronian, while Caruana plays Svidler. At stake are $200,000 (Dh73,446) in cash prizes for the top 24 places.

For live game updates, visit the official website http://dubai2014wrb.com/en.