2017 Tata Rd13: Deserved Winner

The elite Tata Steel tournaments in Wijk aan Zee are underway and take place from January 13-29, with two main tournaments, the Masters with both Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin as headliners, as well as Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Anish Giri, Baskaran Adhiban, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Richard Rapport, Dmitri Andreikin, Wei Yi, Pavel Eljanov, and Loek van Wely. All rounds in Wijk aan Zee begin at 1.30pm, except for the last round on 29 January 2017, which begins at 12.00pm. Both rounds on the Chess On Tour days start at 2.00pm.

All photos by Alina l'Ami from the official website. Games annotated by GM Georg Meier and Alejandro Ramirez.

Masters tournament

What an exciting conclusion to Wijk aan Zee! The traditional Tata Steel tournament has a certain magic to it, in all the years I've had the pleasure of covering this event, or playing in it once, it simply does not seem that there was a single dull edition! Even today, the last day of the event, was marked with fighting and aggressive chess.

Quick review of round 13

Quick impressions of the last round

A legend stopped by today, Anatoly Karpov not only visited,
but joined Yasser Seirawan in the commentary booth!

We start the day with the quickest game, and quite honestly, a bit of a letdown as it determined the winner of the 2017 Tata Steel too early. Ian Nepomniachtchi went all-in, but Wesley So just tore him to pieces, as Georg Meier shows us:

Danny King analyzes the game of the day

Nepo wielded his Rapier without any Aegis, and his king was the one that was demolished

Wesley So, as gracious a winner as one can imagine

Georg Meier with the full insight:

This left other important games in the mix fighting for second place. The most highly anticipated game before the tournament was likely the Carlsen-Karjakin rematch from the World Championship, and it was quite a sharp affair. The World Champion essayed an early piece sacrifice, and through the material imbalance chaos was created on the board. White pushed a bit too hard, turning a slightly better position into clearly worse, and Sergey Karjakin found himself with some winning chances, but was unable to convert.

These guys used to play each other back in the 80s!
Now they are enjoying some top level chess by the new generation.

This game got a bit more attention than the other boards. Even Jeffery is watching!

Down the list on the people fighting for second, Levon Aronian suffered a very big setback as he was soundly outplayed by Dmitri Andreikin. I especially enjoyed the final winning maneuver:

Every player here is dangerous!

Meanwhile Wei Yi committed total suicide against Radoslaw Wojtaszek. The young Chinese refused a three-fold repetition when he had the chance, trying to play for the win. Then it was the Polish player's turn to refuse another three-fold some moves later, and this chaotic position arose:

A grueling fight to the bitter end

With just these results, Carlsen secured second place in the tournament, a full point behind So. Tied for third were Aronian and Wei Yi, also joined by another winner today, Adhiban Baskaran. To put that game in a nutshell, Rapport played a Rapport opening, got a horrible position, and lost with little fight.

Adhiban Baskaran won 29 points and shared third in Wijk aan Zee. Not bad for a qualifier from the Challengers!

The game between Anish Giri and Pavel Eljanov was relatively balanced all throughout. True, Giri enjoyed a small advantage the entire game, but it's hard to say he had a clear winning idea at any point. Last, but not least, Loek Van Wely scored his first win of the tournament by completely blowing Pentala Harikrishna off the board. A bad opening by the Indian player landed him in hot water very quickly, and the Dutch player mopped up with good technique.

Anna Rudolf, the press officer, with her good friend Sopiko Guramashvili

Welsey So's family has been a huge influence in his meteoric recent rise

Some young ones snuck in to catch a glimpse! Or to attract the camera's attention...

There is no doubt that Wesley So has exhibited the best chess out of anyone in the World the past couple of months. His clean victories in London and Wijk aan Zee have catapulted his rating to new heights. He won another 14 rating points in Tata Steel, which would still put him behind Fabiano Caruana, but since his compatriot is having a terrible Gibraltar Open (losing to Nigel Short today and dropping 10 rating points) it is now the Filipino-American that sits as the number two player in the World in the live rating list.

Current Masters standings

Challengers tournament

The Challengers had a thrilling end. With several players still trying to win the tournament and qualifying for next year's Masters (be next year's Adhiban!), the pressure was on. It truly came down to a bit of luck for everyone, especially considering the strange tiebreak situations that could arise.

Lu Shanglei was winning against Gawain Jones. He wasn't winning once or twice, but basically most of the game, and it was out of some combination of sheer luck and magic that Jones was able to save the game. With this result, Jones moved to 9.0/13.

A bit of luck never hurt anyone. Gawain had very bad luck losing to Swiercz at the end of the 2016 Millionaire.
Some kind of chess Karma?!

Ragger had a solid draw against l'Ami, a game in which nothing much happened except massive trades. With this result, Ragger also moved to 9.0/13. Now for the interesting part.

This kid's live rating is 2673. He is 16 years old.

Ragger needed Smirin or Xiong to win to shake up the tiebreaks

If Jeffery Xiong or Ilia Smirin won their games, they also would have reached 9.0/13. Smirin was simply annihilated by Canada's Eric Hansen, and there was never a question that Smirin was going down. That left the complicated game between Jeffery Xiong and Benjamin Bok. The players fought it out, but White was simply never better, and the game ended in a draw. Had Jeffery won, we would've had a mess in our hands, but with these results, the tiebreak was clear: direct encounter. Jones defeated Ragger in the tournament and he qualifies for the 2018 Masters!

l'Ami was solid with 7.0/13

Sopiko Guramashvili went 13 games without winning one. The author of this article also knows exactly how that feels like (2005 Wijk aan Zee) and thus, sympathizes heavily.

And, the qualifier to the Challengers is van Foreest. No, not Jorden, but his brother, Lucas!

Current Challengers standings

Schedule, pairings, and results

Tata Steel Masters 2017

Tata Steel Challengers 2017

Links Official tournament site All Masters games in PGN All Challengers games in PGN 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 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.