Tata 04: Rijksmuseum!

The 76th edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament takes place from 10 to 26 January 2014. The top players will compete in two groups (previously there were three), with twelve players in each, instead of fourteen. The structure of the amateur tournaments remains unchanged. Both groups start on January 11th 2014, with all rounds starting at 13:30h (1:30 p.m.) local time, except for the last round on January 26th, which begins at 12:00h. Two rounds will be played in Amsterdam and Eindhoven and will start at 14:00. The time controls are 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from the first move.

Today's round was played in the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch national museum dedicated to arts and history in Amsterdam and in the Netherlands.

Amsterdam is about a half an hour drive from Wijk aan Zee

The Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam, though originally the Museum opened in 1800 in The Hague

The I amsterdam sign with the museum in the background

Aronian and Gelfand dicussing some of the pieces seen at the musem

Karjakin and his girlfriend Galiya Kamalova

Dominguez and his wife Yanelys

More chess couples...

Anish Giri and his girlfriend Sopiko Guramashvili

as well as Loek Van Wely and his wife Lorena Zepeda

The players posing in front of one of the Rijksmuseum's most famous pieces: Rembrandt's The Night Watch

The piece can also be referred to by its proper name, which is not used anymore: The Company of captain Frans Banning Cocq and lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch preparing to march out. It's a mystery why the artwork was renamed.

Round Four

Daniel King shows Aronian vs Nakamura and Karjakin vs Rapport

So was able to hold a draw against Giri after being slightly, slightly worse the entire game

Giri, Anish ½-½ So, Wesley
Giri's Catalan was no surprise for So, who came well prepared. The symmetrical position did not promise White too many chances to play for the victory, but he held on to whatever he could and managed to obtain an extra pawn. However So was never in any real danger - by this point the bishops were of opposite color in an endgame and White's pawn was doubled and blockaded.

Naiditsch started with two losses but has stabilized with two draws in rounds three and four

Gelfand, Boris ½-½ Naiditsch, Arkadij
An interesting King's Indian were Black kept relying on his initiative to create counterplay. If it evaporated for some rason White's sounder pawn structure would have given him the victory. Gelfand was able to beat Black's pieces back, but unfortunately for him this cam at the cost of massive simplification and a weak d-pawn, which was enough for the German player to hold on to a draw.

Nakamura was close to a draw today, but a big mistake lost him the game

Aronian, Levon 1-0 Nakamura, Hikaru
Our friend, Georgian grandmaster Giorgi Margvelashvili is the guest annotator of the day:

George Marvelashvili George is an active grandmaster representing Georgia. He was born in 1990 and completed his title in 2010. He is currently a student at the University of Texas at Dallas finishing his Master's degree in Finance.

For the standings, this was the key game of the round

Karjakin, Sergey 1-0 Rapport, Richard
An intense game! Rapoprt used an unusual idea in thet Winawer French and it seemed to destabilize the usually well prepared Russian player. After Rapport's 7...f6 Karjakin spent fifteen minutes on his eighth move! The young Hungarian sacrificed a pawn and obtained plentiful compensation for it, but slowly he started to lose it. White's position became stronger and stronger until it was he who held the initiative, and with the material plus as well as board control Karjakin was able to convert an important win.

Rapport's opening experiment paid off, but he couldn't follow it up properly

Dominguez Perez, Leinier 1-0 Caruana, Fabiano
The Cuban grandmaster made an excellent show of how to convert minimal advantages. He started off by sacrificing the integrity of his structure for some activity on the queenside, which netted him a pawn. However this pawn was still a very crippled one as he had four sets of doubled, isolated pawns! He trated into a bishop endgame, still up a pawn, and he masterfully converted it.

Van Wely ½-½ Harikrishna, Pentala
The game of the day in which nothing really happened. A Catalan turned into a closed position with both players having opposite colored bishops and no targets.

Photographer, WGM and globetrotter Alina l'Ami

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Photos by Alina l'Ami and Nadja Wittman

Schedule and results

Grandmaster Group B

Commentary schedule on Playchess

Links Official tournament site All Master Section games All Challenger section games The games will be 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.