Tata 10: Aronian and Saric win a round in advance

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.

Round ten - Masters

Full report to follow...

Rapport-Nakamura

Rapport's odd openings continue as he chose a delayed version of the Larsen Attack with 1.b3, opting to play it instead after 1.Nf3 c5. This proved to be a bad idea as Nakamura quickly seized the initiative. He made an enterprising sacrifice with 15...Nxe3!? which would have completely tied White's position down if taken. However Rapport didn't accept the gift, but ended up with a completely lost position instead.

Hikaru Nakamura shares his impressions of his game

Caruana, Fabiano - Naidtisch, Arkadij 0-1

A tense struggle was on the board as Black's awkward pieces were held together by a powerful passed pawn on c3. It is unclear which side was better until Caruana horribly blundered with his 32nd move. It is not so clear exactly what Caruana missed, but he is known to make these kinds of mistakes once in a while, costing him very precious points.

The German grandmaster explains how it feels to score his first win in the tournament

Van Wely - Gelfand, Boris 0-1

Gelfand's pair of bishops compensated for his weakened pawn structure, but I have the feeling once the light squared bishops came off the board White had a slightly more pleasant position. Van Wely quickly went for the counterattack on the kingside pounding on Black's weak h5 pawn, unfortunately for him it was not weak enough to take and his major pieces ended up tangled on the kingside without play. A further disregard for king safety ended up with the Dutch's king mated on h4.

Short interview with Gelfand after the game 

Giri, Anish - Karjakin, Sergey ½-½

not much to say here. draw.

Anish explains why he was not especially happy to draw 

Harikrishna, Pentala - So, Wesley ½-½

So's Berlin proves to be solid again and Harikrishna was not even close to breaking through at any moment.

Pentala Harikrishna agrees that Wesley So equalized very quickly 

Dominguez, Leinier - Aronian, Levon 0-1

An incredible result that not only clinched the win for Aronian a round in advance, but takes him to a lofty 2833 Elo on the live ratings, with space for a bit of history. In effect, if Aronian wins his game tomorrow against Van Wely, he will finish with 9.0/11 and 82% score which would surpass Carlsen's record of 81% when he won with 10.5/13.

Daniel King's Play of the day

The secret to Aronian's success in his own words

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Masters standings after eleven rounds

Round twelve - Challengers

Jobava's normal opening did not net him anything this time, but through some clever knight maneuvers he obtained a big advantage. Reinderman sacrificed an exchange which Jobava strangely did not take - this resulted in a position in which White's knight on c4 was quite powerful. His problem was that Reinderman was allowed to open the kingside, and once this happened White's knight went from being useful to useless as he could not defend his own king.

Yu Yangyi obtained good play against Saric from a Paulsen Sicilian and the game seemed to be headed towards a draw auntil the Chinese grandmaster decided that he was going to make a useless clump of pieces on the a-file and which had no way of defending a vulnerable kingside. Saric advances to an impressive 9.5/12

Wojtaszek was in the worse side of an opposite colored bishop endgame but never had any real losing chances. Muzychuk won a very double edged game against Brunello when the Italian missed a pretty tactic that simply cost him the game.

Timman had serious winning chances agianst Van Delft, and arguably even in the final position he could have pressed on for a win, but a draw was sufficient for the Dutch legend and it gives Saric the pass to the Master's tournament next year.

Goudriaan's strange version of the Najdorf paid off as Troff was unable to find a productive plan while his opponent simply marched up the board on the kingside which ended up mating Black.

Duda and Zhao Xue's game started out wild and crazy with a pawn sacrifice followed by a counter pawn sacrifice, but it fizzled out to a drawn opposite colored bishop endgame with some rooks.

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Challengers standings after twelve rounds

Schedule and results

Grandmaster Group B

Commentary schedule on Playchess