Grenke Classic 2017: Magnus scores; Levon leads

Grenke Classic 2017: Magnus scores; Levon leads

All photos by Georgios Souleidis

Video highlights of round five

The fifth round of the Grenke Chess Classic saw some important developments in the crosstable of the tournament. With two rounds to go and a full-point lead, Armenian Levon Aronian is the clear favorite to win this event, his first super-tournament scalp in quite some time. His lead over the field came as he once again demonstrated his endgame skills to dismantle Latvian (now representing Azerbaijan) Arkadij Naiditsch position, when the latter’s opening adventure went wrong very early in the game. Aronian had a huge developmental plus over Naiditsch and at some stage it seemed that material loss was inevitable for black but Naiditsch somehow managed to maintain the balance. While he prepared to finally bring his king to safety, Aronian decided to take drastic measures and sacrificed an exchange for a pawn to keep the king stuck in the center.

Once more, Levon Aronian showed his endgame chops as he converted an opposite colored bishop ending with ease (or made it look easy!)

Despite the awfully looking situation of black’s king, the lack of enough material on the board should have given Naidtisch some chances to maintain the balance but time pressure and constant difficulties posed by Aronian drained Naiditsch and he buckled and decided to go for an opposite color bishop ending down a pawn. Usually, an opposite colored bishop just a pawn down should be possible to hold but in this case Aronian had two strong f- and e- pawns which he had no problem pushing forward while contorlling Black’s 2 vs 1 majority on the queenside and with this he masterfully converted his advantage.

Levon Aronian vs Arkadij Naiditsch (annotated by Tiger Hillarp-Persson)

This tournament has not been going the way the World Champion had hoped for. Despite his excellent chances against Aronian in round one, and his healthy plus against Bluebaum, Magnus Carlsen got himself into trouble in the third round against Hou Yifan and in the fourth his opening fizzled out very soon and the game ended in a draw against Caruana.

Magnus Carlsen tilted things in his favor after Georg Meier erred in the opening

Today, Magnus had a super solid but out of shape German George Meier with black pieces. Playing the Grunfeld, he may have caught Meier off-guard, or the German simply forgot his preparation, as he soon ended up being on a much worse fianchetto Grunfeld where Carlsen was a healthy pawn up. Further down the road, Carlsen traded his rook for a knight and two pawns and exploited white’s king safety by nicely placing his knight on d4 and queen on d5. The position was technically winning and despite Meier’s resilience, the world champion converted comfortably to reach +1 after five round, thus joining Hou Yifan and Fabiano Caruana in a tie for second place.

Georg Meier vs Magnus Carlsen (annotated by Elshan Moradiabadi)

Magnus comments on his win, and his forthcoming game against Naiditsch who has scored a couple of times against him in the last couple of years.

Caruana-MVL was a wild Najdorf where both players showed a great desire to win the game. The game was a rich one but I do not see any exact point where things could go in the way of either player.

Hou Yifan opted for 1.d4 in order to push as hard as she could against Mathias Bluebaum but Bluebaum’s preparation in the Ragonzin proved sufficient and the game soon petered out into a draw.

Standings after five rounds

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.