Sinquefield 02: Topalov new leader

2015 Sinquefield Cup This super-GM single Round Robin brings together some of the best players in the world. This is the second leg of the Grand Chess Tour. The players – Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Fabiano Caruana (USA), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Viswanathan Anand (India), Wesley So (USA). The venue is the Chess Club and Scholastic Center at 4657 Maryland Avenue, Saint Louis, MO 63108. Tickets can be purchased at the Saint Louis Chess Club.

Round Two

Daniel King shows the highlights of round 2

Today’s round did not start with the fireworks and spectacular sacrifices of yesterday, but it ended up having an incredible amount of excitement.

MVL was unable to put pressure on Aronian

The first game that finished today was a relatively dull draw between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Levon Aronian. The Frenchman tried to repeat a Ragozin that Topalov used against the Armenian player in Norway, but Levon was not one to be surprised. He came into round two with a good improvement by solidifying his position and making it very difficult for MVL to make any real threats. The resulting endgame was equal; White’s control of the a-file didn’t give him any advantage as Black was sufficiently active with his king. The game ended in a draw soon afterwards after only an hour and a half of play.

Giri vs. So was also a solid draw

The next game to finish was also a draw: a very blocked position arose from the English opening in Anish Giri vs. Wesley So. Perhaps the Dutch player had a very small advantage from the opening with the superior pawn structure, but it wasn’t much. Eventually So was able to position his pieces well and advance the queenside pawns, while Giri did not create any real threats. The game was drawn in an opposite colored bishop endgame.

Anand starts with 0.0/2, but he isn't the only one

Grischuk mentioned this is his first win against a top-10 player this year, but more importantly:
in 15 years of encounters, this was his first win ever in classical time controls against the Indian.

The first decisive game of the day was the match between Alexander Grischuk and Vishy Anand. The Russian played the “correct bishop opening”, as he calls it, and obtained a slight edge after Anand’s inaccurate and somewhat strange development. Grischuk was in severe time trouble, but with the positional pressure. Anand tried to complicate the game, but he ended up making mistakes while playing quickly. Grischuk punished the mistakes accurately and won the game.

The clock was extremely important today in this match

Fabiano Caruana against Magnus Carlsen was a heartstopper. In a position that was very interesting, both players simply let their clock run out way too low. An unbelievable time scramble occurred, with both players falling to mere seconds to make their final moves. The engine evaluations kept changing wildly as the game became a bullet battle. On move 40, Caruana made a horrific blunder with only seconds left on his clock. He resigned as soon as he made time control.

Magnus chilling with yours truly

Finally, Veselin Topalov became the sole leader of the 2015 Sinquefield Cup. He played an excellent pawn sacrifice against Hikaru Nakamura, taking a commanding control of the dark squares in return for the lost material. Nakamura could not hold his position together and was forced to return his material, but his position was not good: Topalov’s bishops were dominant. After much maneuvering, Topalov reached a winning endgame thanks to a cute zugzwang and converted his win.

The leader of Sinquefield 2015 and the Grand Chess tour: Veselin Topalov

Standings

Round Two Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Photos by Lennart Ootes

Pairings

Games start at 1 p.m. local time (20:00h CEST, 22:00h Moscow, Thursday 12:30 New Delhi, 03:00h Tokyo, 04:00 Canberra – check your location here).

Playoffs, if necessary, will be on the 2nd at 1pm.

The games will be broadcast live on Playchess, with expert analysis (see schedule below).

Broadcast Schedule

Links Official tournament site Download all games on 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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.