Grenke Classic 2017: Aronian misses win in exciting finale

Grenke Classic 2017: Levon Aronian misses win in exciting finale

All photos by Georgios Souleidis

4th Grenke chess classic came to an end today in Baden-Baden, Germany. The seven-round super-GM tournament nearly ended with chess fans and lovers leaving with one thing in mind: Levon Aronian won it all! Today Caruana and Aronian stole the show while the other games finished in a more or less dull draw, though a lot of high-level nuances and rich outcomes could be learned from them.

Video impressions of the last round 

Tied for second, Fabiano Caruana was determined to break the winning streak of the Armenian to secure second place for himself and score an important prestigious victory against the tournament winner. On the other hand, relaxed after his 4th consecutive victory Levon Aronian had the title in his pocket coming to this game and had no intention of letting Caruana spoil his fantastic run. Not today!

Determined to rock the boat, Fabiano Caruana nearly forgot to bring his own lifesaver

The players played an ‘expected’ 1.e4 e5 and soon Fabiano went for an Italian where he chose a fashionable line with a4.  Aronian responded in a flamboyant style and went for an old fashioned Hungarian set-up by retreating his bishop to e7 and then maneuvered his knight to d7 and put his king to h8 to prepare for f5. At least that was the idea, but none of these plans materialized as Fabiano, naturally tried to open up the game in reaction to Aronian’s somewhat passive though ambitious set up. Aronian handled matters well and a queenless middle game ensued where Aronian was up a pawn but his pawns were doubled on e-file and exposed to white’s attack. At this point a quick draw would have been in order had Caruana not ventured with his knight into Black’s camp with 22.Nxe6? followed by 23.b3?? Suddenly his knight was trapped, and he had no choice but to give it up for two pawns.

Picture this scenario: Caruana was down a knight for two pawns in an endgame against Aronian who had converted four consecutive endgames in the previous four rounds. One could expect nothing but another brilliant win for Aronian and a dreamlike finish for the Armenian with a 3000+ performance for the champion. However, Caissa can be a fickle mistress and once again, the royal game was displayed as a sport and not a science as human stress and drama took over!

Fabiano Caruana vs Levon Aronian

A topsy-turvy game indeed!

An interview with the winner, Levon Aronian

It was the opposite side of the spectrum, the battle to see who did not finish last

George Meier tried his best not to tie for last by surprising Matthias Bluebaum  and it seemed at some point that the former had already created something but it probably required machine-like precision to extract something out of white’s position and Bluebaum eventually forced a draw with a perpetual.

Hou Yifan and Naidtisch played an interesting line in the French Defense where the queens came off the board and things seemed dull. However, then material became unbalanced where Hou Yifan was an exchange up for a pawn but Black’s pieces were solid and Naiditsch was never in any danger.

Hou Yifan finished with 50% against an elite field, and has to consider this a successful mission 

Wild Man Magnus faced MVL and made a go for it, but anxious to score a win, he missed his window

The World champion caused a lot of trouble for MVL and the engines showed a tangible advantage for white around move 30. However, this could be due to his bishop vs. knight, plus a strong passer on d5. Nevertheless, Magnus Carlsen rushed to convert his advantage and instead things fizzled out and the game ended in a draw.

Final standings

Pairings and schedule

Links

• Official tournament site
• All games in PGN or Replay them directly here (many analyzed)

You can use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.