Tata 11 (Group B): Timman forgives!

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 - Challengers

A dramatic day in Wijk Aan Zee Challenger's group as Jan Timman, the veteran and legendary chess player, had a clear chance to upset Jobava and win the game. A costly and strange blunder, surely due to fatigue, didn't allow him to convert his three passed pawns in the two rooks vs. a rook and two minor pieces endgame. The result allows Jobava to still fight for first place, and he has to consider himself lucky.

This paved the way for Saric, who beat Zhao Xue, to take the lead again with two rounds to go. A few mistakes by the Chinese player turned a position that was about even into a positionally hopeless situation. This happens often in the Italian/Spanish style of games when you are not careful with the positioning of your pieces.

Yu Yangyi lashed out against Muzychuk who exposed her king too much in a complex position. Because of this loss the Slovenian can hardly hope to win the tournament and qualify for the Master's group next year.

Brunello obtained sufficient compensation for his exchange against Wojtaszek, but little more than that, the Polish grandmaster patiently released his pieces from their confinement and won a technical endgame. Bok employed a well known attack against Van Delft's Scheveningen set-up but without too much success. He won a pawn that could easily have been recovered, but for some reason Black didn't do that and he ended up losing because of the missing material.

Goudriaan tried to refute his opponent's quick f3 Sicilian without any success, as Reinderman's bishops dominated the board and Black had only illusory threats. Troff's Catalan continues to not promise him any advantage and today he was simply outplayed by Duda.

No international tournament would be complete without a chess shop...

But this one is far more complete than normal travelling chess shops!

They sell all kind of chess sets

literally all kinds

including a 2500 euro one... can you guess why it's so pricey?

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Standings after eleven rounds

Photos by Joachim Schulze

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.