Nils Grandelious became the sole leader of the Tata Steel Masters 2021 after two rounds of exciting chess. One could hardly predict such a feat given that a month ago the Swede was not even among the participants.
In Round 2 Grandelius beat Jan-Krzysztof Duda in a very convincing manner after the Pole misplayed the opening. Nils drove a pawn-wedge on f3 and obtained a menacing attacking position. To save his king, Jan-Krzysztof gave up a piece and threw in the towel just ten moves down the road.
The winner of Tata Steel 2020 Fabiano Caruana scored a full point after beating Alexander Donchenko and now sits on +1 together with Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri. The game was decided on a short stretch between moves 17 and 20. After playing four suboptimal moves (it seems 20.e6 was the last straw) Alexander fell under a crushing attack by Fabiano, parted with an exchange but only postponed the inevitable.
All other encounters were drawn. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave got an extra pawn and very promising position against Alireza Firouzja but was not precise enough when converting his substantial advantage. After 30.Nc4 Alireza regained a pawn, traded most of the pieces, and reached a draw.
David Anton gained a half-point in the game with the World Champion. The Spaniard was hovering around equality throughout the opening and the middlegame but eventually found himself a pawn down in an unpleasant ending, the type of position that is very hard to handle against Magnus. To his credit, Anton held his ground and earned a hard-fought draw. As Carlsen pointed out after the game, he missed a defensive idea 55.Kf5. Magnus was going to meet it with 55…Re1, but it fails to 56.Rxg5 Rxe3 57.Kf4!
In the Dutch derby Jorden Van Foreest vs. Anish Giri, the former spurned repetition but ended up in a slightly worse endgame. Nevertheless, White’s position was solid enough to seal a draw in a rook endgame.
Arian Tari put tremendous pressure on Radoslaw Wojtaszek and was very close to the victory but the Pole managed to wriggle out of a fix in an endgame with opposite-colored bishops.
Pentala Harikrishna did not get anything out of the opening with White against Andrey Esipenko. Moreover, the Indian had to demonstrate some accuracy in an endgame to secure a draw.
Standings after Round 2: 1. Nils Grandelius – 2; 2-4. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and Anish Giri – 1½; 5-10. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Pentala Harikrishna, Jorden Van Foreest, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Andrei Esipenko, David Anton – 1; 11-13. Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Alireza Firouzja, Arian Tari – ½; 14. Alexander Doncheko – 0.
Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit – Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2021
Official website: tatasteelchess.com/
