Tata R13: Karjakin, Wang score, Carlsen wins Wijk by 1½ points

75. Tata Steel Chess Tournament

This event is took place from January 12-27. The venue was as usual the traditional De Moriaan Center in the Dutch sea resort of Wijk aan Zee. The tournament had three Grandmaster Groups, each with 14 players, held as full round robins (each competitor plays against every other). The rate of play for all three groups was 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and finally 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30 seconds/move increment starting with the first move of the game.

Round thirteen report

By GM Alejandro Ramirez

Sadly, every good thing must come to an end. Tata Steel 2013 was a fun event for the spectators, full of hard fought games. The players uncorked opening novelties, fought harshly for every half point and almost every game played is worthy of study.

Hou-Leko was a very theoretical Marshall. The Hungarian knows the ins and outs of this defense and he proved it yet again by achieving a relatively comfortable draw against the Chinese player. Despite being down a pawn, the opposite colored bishop endgame is typical of the Marshall and it is almost impossible to win.

Hungarian GM and former World Championship challenger Peter Leko

Anish Giri missed a golden opportunity to beat the world's number one player. After a dubious opening it was clear that the pawn structure heavily favored White. Giri kept applying pressure and won a pawn, but he had to find the important defensive resource 28.Qa3! Instead of this he allowed Magnus Carlsen to sacrifice a piece to force a perpetual and the game ended in a draw.

The return of the Dragon was rather unsuccessful in the game between Sergey Karjakin (above) annd Loek van Wely. Black's position was arguably always slightly worse, but certainly it was lost after Loek missed a simple tactic with 23...a4? allowing 24.Bxf7+! and the game was over.

Hikaru Nakamura (above left) played another irregular opening, this time against Pentala Harikrishna. However he found himself with a worse position very quickly. Black never had more than slight edge, and even had to be a little careful in the endgame to force a draw.

L'Ami-Sokolov became an intriguing rook endgame that seemed to give Black good winning chances. However White's defensive technique was superb and Sokolov was forced to agree to a draw.

Wang Hao (above) played a very nice positional game against Anand. He gave a textbook example of why bishops are superior to knights in open and semi-open positions. In this case the power of the rooks combined with the bishops and a majority in the queenside allowed him to achieve a winning endgame. The World Champion tried to create an initiative out of nothing... he even sent his king on an offensive march via f5-f4-g3! However all of this was to no avail as White's position remained solid and the passed a pawn trotted to victory.

Video grab from the live feed, where Anand resigns the game

Levon Aronian (above right) was much more successful against his rival in the fight for second place. With Anand out of contention all the Armenian needed was a draw, but he came very close to winning. Fabiano Caruana misplayed the white side of a Berlin Defense and quickly found himself in trouble. Black eventually sacrificed the exchange to achieve powerful passed pawns on the queenside. Unfortunately for Aronian he took a little too long in creating play with these pawns and Caruana was able to create some counterplay with his rooks. Eventually the Italian was forced to give up a whole rook for the two passed pawns, but he had managed to simplify all of the other remaining pawns from the position. Aronian tortured Caruana in the resulting rook and bishop against rook endgame but unsuccessfully. A very hard fought draw does earn the Armenian second place in Tata Steel.

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Final standings

Live world ratings as of 27 January 2013, 17:26 GMT

GM Danny King Play of the Day – Anish Giri vs Magnus Carlsen

Video impressions from round thirteen by Vijay Kumar

Results of the B and C Groups

Sergei Movsesian drew against Alexander Ipatov, while the other two leading players won their games: Richárd Rapport beat GM Predrag Nikolic with black, while Arkadij Naiditsch worked until late in the afternoon – the last game in the entire event to finish – nursing a queen and pawn ending against Sipke Ernst to victory. Both GMs have 9.0/13 points, but Arkadij ist listed in first place because of the better tiebreak.

Final standings in the B Group

In the C Group Italian GM Sabino Brunello won his game against IM Miguoel Admiraal, while GM Fernando Peralta, who shared the lead with him, drew against GM Alexander Kovchan. That left Brunello as sole winner of the group, with 11.0/13 points and a stunning 2764 performance – which means he will appear with 27 additional rating points on the next FIDE list. Alexandra Goryachkina drew against the strong Icelandic IM Hjorvar Gretarsson, while Lisa Schut and Mark van der Werf lost their games, so that Alexandra is not at the bottom of the table with Lisa but has climbed past Mark and is in third-last position. The 13-year-old WGM will, however, shed 16 rating points in the next list.

Final standings in the C Group

Interviews with players after round thirteen

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN: Group A – Group B – Group C 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.

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