The Mikhail Tal Memorial in Moscow ended perhaps as the legendary former world champion would have wanted it: a dramatic final round and half the field in the running for first place, and all kinds of surprises and shocks right to the very last moves of the tournament.

Going into the final round, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov proved to be the surprise package by being in clear first, half a point ahead of frontrunner Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin, with Wang Hao, Alexander Grischuk and Hikaru Nakamura another half point behind.  But nerves got the better of the Azeri, as he blew his big chance for a super-tournament victory with an horrific loss to out-of-form Boris Gelfand - a result that lifted the Israeli out of the cellar.

Wang Hao then proceeded to also blow a promising position against Karjakin, as the newly-minted Russian showed great determination and resources to hang on for the half point, as he salvaged his position to join Mamedyarov and Aronian in the clubhouse on 5.5/9. The scene was then set for the Nakamura - who up to this point had been the revelation of the tournament - to join them in equal first, as he slowly outplayed Grischuk.  But - to the disappointment of the extremely large ICC audience willing him on to a phenomenal performance on Russian soil - all his hard work ended in vain at the end of an 85 move epic, as  he erred to give his Russian rival the draw.

In the end, by virtue of a second set of tiebreaks (the first eliminating Mamedyarov), Aronian and Karjakin couldn’t be separated and thus shared the title.