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This event is taking place from January 12-27. The venue is as usual the traditional De Moriaan Center in the Dutch sea resort of Wijk aan Zee,. The tournament has taken place since 1938 and was known as the Corus Chess Tournament. The Indian company Tata Steel bought Corus (for US $7.6 billion) in 2006 and the chess event way renamed accordingly. The tournament has three Grandmaster Groups, which have 14 players and are held as full round robins (each competitor plays against every other). The rate of play for all three groups is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and finally 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30 seconds/move increment starting with the first move of the game.
| Group A: Round 4 - Tuesday January 15 | |
| Loek van Wely - Erwin L'Ami | 1-0 |
| Wang Hao - Hou Yifan | 1-0 |
| Hikaru Nakamura - Sergey Karjakin | ½-½ |
| Anish Giri - Peter Leko | ½-½ |
| Fabiano Caruana - Ivan Sokolov | 1-0 |
| Levon Aronian - Vishy Anand | 0-1 |
| Magnus Carlsen - Pentala Harikrishna | 1-0 |
What a round! The spectators must be very pleased, they saw everything they could ask for today! Magnus played like he was the best player in the world, Anand annihilated his opponent, Nakamura… well, let’s just look at them one by one.
The only dull game today was between Giri and Leko. An unusual Nimzo met a familiar treatment and the game went nowhere. But all the rest of the games, oh my, what action!
First of all, van Wely chose the Trompowsky to perhaps surprise Erwin L’Ami (above with his wife Alina), who reacted very aggressively. However his exchange sacrifice started with 17… Rhg8?! was suspicious, to say the least (actually, I’m giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming he sacrificed it instead of blundering), and van Wely converted without too much trouble.
Wang Hao played a model game in a classical Nimzo line. His powerful moves d5! and c4! back to back secured him a better structure and the advantage of having a powerful bishop against a dubious knight. Hou Yifan tried very hard, but the position was just not comfortable at all. After defending for a long time she blundered in what was already a very difficult position, and Wang Hao took the Chinese match up.
Caruana outplayed Sokolov in a Ruy Lopez. After building the strongest center ever it was simply impossible for the Dutch GM to hold on to all sides of the board, and after giving up two pawns the contest was over.
Nakamura-Karjakin was not the most exciting game over all, but the finale more than made up for it. After winning a pawn early on, White was under immense pressure from Black’s heavy pieces. This eventually led to a queen endgame in which Nakamura had a bunch of pawns, but Karjakin had a powerful passed d-pawn. Perhaps with not the most exact play Hikaru let his opponent advance the pawn too much, and was forced to give a perpetual himself.
Carlsen proved why he is world #1 again by playing a pretty whatever opening against Harikrishna. Shortly after the opening phase the Norwegian launched a rapid kingside attack. He shed pawns like they weren’t worth anything, and in exchange for them obtained a powerful passer on e6. His positional dominance allowed him to pluck Harikrishna’s queenside pawns one by one, and with the positional advantage of the e6 passed pawn and the material advantage the game was quite over.
The highlight of the day, however, is Aronian-Anand. A game better experienced by going through it yourself, as it is only 23 moves long and a complete demolition. There is plenty of analysis given below!
Photos by Nadja Wittmann
Anand: "This could easily be one of the best games I have played. To win a game like this against Levon, who is my nightmare opponent, as you probably know, is definitely wonderful. Funnily enough both my black wins against him have been real classics. I don't win that often, but when I do it is at least a good one." Watch the two video statements given immediately after the end of the game.
| Viswanathan Anand |
Levon Aronian |
Levon Aronian (see video statement below). "I think I ran into a theoretical trap. I was not aware of Bc5, which is very strong. Vishy said he had prepared it for somebody else. I should study openings better." Anand reminds us of the similarity of this game to Rotlevy-Rubinstein: "It was the same concept: bishop on b6, bishop on b7, and Rubinstein's version was even Rxc3 h3, but essentially the same idea: Qh4 and Qxh3 – all these ideas work."
The following annotation was sent to us from Wijk aan Zee by GM Efstratios Grivas:
And in case you can't get enough of this game, here's analysis by Kingscrusher Tryfon Gavriel
To follow soon...
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There is full broadcast of all games on the official site and on the Playchess server, which will provide live audio commentary of the most interesting games (free for Premium members) starting at 15:00h for each round, 14:00h for the final round. Commentary begins at approx. 3 p.m. and lasts 2 to 2½ hours, with breaks in between. A round-up show is provided at 8 PM server time. Commentary is available, by the following experts:
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| Loek van Wely |
Hikaru Nakamura |
| Magnus Carlsen |
Jeroen van den Berg |
| Fabiano Caruana |
Anish Giri |
Links
The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |
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