Tata Steel Chess 2020: Five players atop after two rounds
White completely dominated in the second round of Tata Steel Masters 2020 winning 4 games out of 7. There are five leaders after two rounds with heavy favorites Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana still at the 50% mark. Iranian sensation Alireza Firouzja had a chance to grab the sole lead as he was clearly better after the opening in his game against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. In the Queens Gambit Accepted Duda somewhat surprisingly went for the line with an early queen exchange, but the opponents still found a way to set fire on board. Firouzja came up with a creative 9…Ng4 novelty and Duda’s reaction probably wasn’t precise. Black won a pawn, but it seemed that White was only slightly worse before Duda put his king in front of the whole army with 23.Kc4?! Firouzja cemented his advantage and could have got clear winning chances had he foiled the activation of the white knight with 26…g5! Alireza opted for a natural rook move instead and Duda managed to save half a point for the second day in a row. Another Round 1 winner Jorden Van Foreest suffered his first defeat in a game against Jeffery Xiong, but once again he played fearlessly. In a typical Sicilian set-up, he went for an ambitious pawn breakthrough/sacrifice with 13…b5!? and 15…d5! Van Foreest moved his bishop to f6 one move too late and found himself in a worse position. He still had his chances in sharp complications later but went astray with kamikaze 29…Bf2+ and 30…Bh4. Xiong won a piece and the game. Russian up-and-coming stars Vlad Artemiev and Daniil Dubov also caught up with Firouzja. Dubov easily crushed Vladislav Kovalev after the Byelorussian decided to sacrifice a central pawn in an unpleasant position hoping for an active counterplay in the endgame. It was nothing more than an illusion though, and Dubov converted in style. Kovalev was unlucky to start with two Black games, but he seems out of form with 0/2 and that can be fatal in this kind of event. Artemiev outplayed his compatriot Nikita Vitiugov in a clear positional style. At some point, Vlad could have gone for a nice “little combo” with 27.Rd8+! but he was completely dominating in the center and on the queenside anyway. Unfortunately, even the greatest chess players can become a victim of a hallucination on a bad day, and this was the case for Viswanathan Anand today. He miscalculated when making decision to sacrifice a bishop with a tempting 12…Bxf2+. Anand was right that he was winning a piece back immediately but probably missed that his knight would be trapped in the White’s camp after that. Easy win for World Fischer Random champion Wesley So and frankly speaking he hasn’t even done that much to achieve it. (FIDE.com – Future analysis proved that the position was still completely unclear if Anand would have played 22…Nxg2! as after 23.Rxg2 Rxg2+ 24.Kxg2 Qe2+ 25.Kg3 Rf8! Black’s attack was sufficient for a draw) There were two more draws in Round 2. Yu Yangyi didn’t have any ambitions having White against Magnus Carlsen and was trying to exchange all pieces as soon as possible. Anish Giri and Fabiano Caruana played probably the best game of the round on a level which can be achieved only by few players on the Earth – Giri put heavy pressure on his opponent and even won a pawn in the endgame, but the former world title challenger defended brilliantly and was never in real danger. Official site: https://www.tatasteelchess.com/Photo: Alina l’Ami Tata Steel Masters 2020 Standings after Round 2: 1-5. Xiong, So, Artemiev, Dubov, Firouzja – 1½;6-10. Caruana, Duda, Giri, Carlsen, Van Foreest – 1;11-13. Anand, Vitiugov, Yu, Yangyi – ½;14. Kovalev – 0.
WWCC Game 6: Goryachkina puts pressure with black
The sixth game of the match, the last one to be played in Shanghai, ends in a draw. This leaves the score in 3-3 before the championship takes a short break and moves to the next host city: Vladivostok. Play will be resumed on Thursday, January 16. Arkady Dvorkovich, FIDE President, and Lu Lin, vice-secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai Sports Bureau, made the first symbolic moves of Game 6. Ju Wenjun, a predominately 1.d4 player, reverted to 1.e4, a move she played in Game 2 of the match. The Berlin variation of the Ruy Lopez was repeated until move 10, with Ju opting for Re1. Ju failed to achieve much out of the opening with lethargic 17.b3, 18.c4, and 19.Bb2. With calm and measured play, Aleksandra Goryachkina managed to outmaneuver her opponent. By move 30 it became clear that Black would be playing for a win. Yet, similar to some earlier games of this match, Goryachkina was not able to build on her advantage. By the time players passed the first time control, the worst was behind Ju, and she was on the road to a draw. Nevertheless, Goryachkina made Ju sweat for it. Game 6 turned out to be the longest one of the match: it surpassed 100 moves.For the last 60 moves, Ju had to be extremely careful, while Goryachkina was playing with no risk waiting for her opponent to slip. Ju was visibly tired, her hand at times trembling. The game finally ended two moves shy of a 50-move draw rule. At the post-game press conference, Goryachkina said that she felt she was slightly better but just couldn’t find the decisive moves for a win. Ju was unhappy with her play and felt fortunate to escape with a draw. Stray observations: this was Goryachkina’s second consecutive game in which she was the only one pressing for a win. This must have felt great for her, following a loss in Game 4. It was also the first game where White was clearly worse. The stretch of four games in which Goryachkina had 3 black was akin to a test: she started with a loss but has done better than many expected, fully recovering in the last two games, and it feels like she has started dictating play.The break in the match—it’s moving to Vladivostok in Russia—is likely to benefit both players. Goryachkina is going home where large crowds are expected to support her, while Ju is getting the much-needed breather after six very long and draining games. Official website: https://wwcm2020.fide.com Text: Michael Friedman Photos: Zhang Yanhong, Lewis Liu, Michael Friedman Contact: press@fide.com Photos in high resolution are available for the press at our official Flickr account.
Tata Steel Chess 2020: Young guns take the lead
After several rapid and mix events, traditional Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2020 in Wijk aan Zee looks like a window into the glorified past of chess. A true classical super-tournament presents an interesting combination of established stars and ambitious newcomers in which every round is sure to deliver a lot of amazing encounters. Sometimes spectators and chess analytics will need to spend a lot of hours to understand the real nature of the players’ plans and concepts. The first round of the Masters event played on January 11 didn’t disappoint. 16-year old Alireza Firouzja was the first one to score a full point after he outplayed Challengers 2019 winner Vladislav Kovalev from Belarus with White. In a very well-known position of Zaitsev variation of Ruy Lopez Kovalev opted for dubious 16…c4 (instead of popular and standard 16…Nd7). Probably it was not a result of preparation, but a clear mix-up as Black was in trouble right away quickly losing two pawns without any compensation. Firouzja was ruthless in converting a clear opportunity into a win. Another leader after Round 1 is probably even more unexpected. Jorden Van Foreest is by far the lowest-rated participant of the event, but it didn’t stop the local hero from starting with a victory. His game against the World Cup semifinalist Yu Yangyi from China quickly transformed into a rook endgame where Black had to accurately defend his weak pawns. The endgame sharpened up rapidly and definitely needs much deeper analysis to understand what was really going on. One thing is clear though – after a few mutual inaccuracies, Yu was one to divert from a clear draw (44…Re8 45. Rxa7 Kg6! 46. Ra6+ Kg7 or even simple 44…e3) in favor of a suicidal maneuver 44…Kg4? 45.b6 Kf3? It was a point of no return for Black. The other five games were drawn but not without a fight. The most uneventful game was surprisingly played by World Classical, Rapid & Blitz Champion Magnus Carlsen. Facing the crowd favorite Anish Giri he chose an extremely rare line in the English opening (4.Qb3) but this approach did not pay off – Magnus did not get even a slight advantage; actually it was Carlsen himself who had to be accurate to reach a draw on move 25. Anand – Artemiev and a battle of American superstars Caruana – So ended in draws pretty quickly also. Wesley So seemingly had no problems equalizing in Gruenfeld while Vladislav Artemiev held his own in Caro-Cann where his two bishops were so strong that Anand decided to sacrifice an exchange and force a draw at some point. Youngsters Jeffery Xiong and Daniil Dubov were both out for the blood in their Sicilian showdown. When both white rooks paid a visit to an e7 square right in the center of Black’s defensive fortifications it became clear that it would be a tough day for Dubov. Being a pawn down (and for a few moves even two pawns) Russian GM was looking for some counterplay to escape and somehow succeeded. Xiong probably missed some chances, but the dubious “Miss of the Day” prize goes to Nikita Vitiugov who replaced Ian Nepomniachtchi two weeks before the event. Vitiugov who had a very successful 2019 was very close to starting 2020 with another excellent win, this time against Polish finest Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Vitiugov outplayed his opponent in Najdorf Sicilian and was winning prosaically with 30.c4 – instead, he decided to sacrifice an exchange and still had a huge advantage as his monstrous bishops were completely dominating black lonely knight, but after the time trouble GM from Saint-Petersburg let his advantage slip away (the clearest chance was probably Be3-c5-e7 maneuver), lost his key passed pawn and had to accept a draw. One more miraculous save by Jan-Krzysztof! In Round 2 Duda will examine one of the early leaders Alireza Firouzja. Their battles are always very interesting for the spectators – less than two weeks ago they exchanged blows in World Rapid & Blitz Championship in Moscow with Duda winning in the rapid game and Firouzja retaliating in blitz. Official site: https://www.tatasteelchess.com/Photo: Alina l’Ami