Tata 11: Giri and Timman take silver

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 eleven - Masters

Daniel King's Highlights of Round 11

Nakamura getting some encouraging words from Kasparov before the round

Nakamura, Hikaru ½-½ Giri, Anish
Nakamura had a fair amount of extra material but Giri's powerful blockading bishop did not allow him to make any real progress. Giri defended well and was probably never that much worse.

Nakamura has a big challenge coming up: Zurich starts in one week!

Naiditsch, Akradij 1-0 Rapport, Richard
Rapport's opening was rather ridiculous this time around and he got a simply lost position out of it. Naiditsch just had to make a few normal moves to make Rapport look like an amateur. Despite his good showing in the event, with fighting and exciting chess, Rapport does have to learn to control himself.

Naidtisch's impressions of his tournament and his game

Karjakin, Sergey ½-½ Dominguez Perez, Leinier
A well calculated tactical shot in the opening netted Dominguez an extra pawn. Karjakin fought on but his compensation was murky at best. Dominguez was however unable to convert his advantage, which transformed into a safer king in a rook and queen endgame which must have been winning for him at several points

Dominguez on his problems converting...

So, Wesley ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano
A very long theoretical line of the Grunfeld ended in a draw as Black's powerful passed a-pawn compensated for him being down a rook for a bishop and a knight.

Aronian, Levon 0-1 Van Wely, Loek

 

Gelfand, Boris 1-0 Harikrishna, Pentala
Gelfand finishes the tournament off with two wins in a row. This one was aided by his opponent as in a game that was maybe marginally unpleasant for Harikrishna, the Indian miscalculated the pawn endgame horribly and had to resign only a few moves after entering it.

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Final Masters standings

Round thirteen - Challengers

Zhao Xue's tournament was pretty close to a disaster. With only 4.5 points she lost 18 Elo

A story similar to the Master's almost happened in the Challenger's as Brunello could have taken down Saric. The Croatian player was better for most of the game but after sacrificing a piece it was not so clear that he had enough for it. Brunello misstepped, however, and Saric got a draw.

Saric's impressions on his win of the tournament and next year's challenge

The Chinese duel in Wijk Aan Zee ended in favor of Yu Yangyi who simply put played a very nice game against Zhao Xue's Caro-Kann defense. Bok's minor pressure in the double rook endgame was never truly significant and Muzychuk defended well enough to get a draw.

Muzychuk can be quite satisfied with her fourth place and +17 Elo

Timman also had a very minor advantage, this time against Wojtaszek, but it also was insufficient for real conversion chances. Jobava's strange version of the Benoni allowed him to equalize against Troff, but certainly not more than that and a draw was reached after both sides exhausted their options.

Goudriaan played a completely unsound positional sacrifice against Duda, and although the Polish player played far from exact it was still good enough to win. The game finished with a picturesque mate.

Finally Reinderman proved the power of White's position in the Catalan positions in which Black takes on c4 and holds on to the pawn. Van Delft had to find the most accurate defensive moves and it was one slip that was enough for his position to fall down like a house of cards.

Final Challengers standings

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Photos by Fabrice Wantiez

Schedule and results

Grandmaster Group B

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.