Tata Steel Rd10: Caruana closes in on Carlsen

The 78th Tata Steel Chess Tournament takes place from January 15 to 31, 2016, in the coastal village of Wijk aan Zee, North Holland. It is one of the most prestigious events in the international chess calendar. The "Wimbledon of Chess" attracts the very best chess grandmasters in the world, along with thousands of amateur players, live event visitors and online visitors from around the world. The tournament has two main player groups, each with 14 players. They are known as the Tata Steel Masters and the Tata Steel Challengers. You will find the schedule, starting times, pairings and results at the bottom of the page.

Round ten

All photos by Alina L'Ami from the official Facebook page

Masters

The 10th round of the Tata Steel Masters was played in the Dutch Railway Museum (Spoorwegmuseum)
in Utrecht. The round was opened by Utrecht mayor Jan van Zanen. (Click on photo for high-res)

The players had the opportunity to visit the legendary Orient Express train (click for high-res)

The venue was packed with fans, a fact that was much appreciated by the players

The game of the day, at least for sporting reasons, was Anish Giri against Magnus Carlsen

It was a feast for the photographers

Anish Giri is the only player with a positive score against Magnus. Although he did not win,
nor did he lose and his score remains intact.

After his game was over, Magnus Carlsen joined the live commentators where he stayed
for nearly half an hour commenting the games that were running.

Here is the full video of Magnus Carlsen commenting the games of his rivals. Great stuff!

The draw between Carlsen and Giri gave Caruana the chance to close the gap somewhat.
He took full advantage and after a mistake in the opening, Wei Yi never got a chance.

Fabiano Caruana - Wei Yi

Fabiano Caruana in a short interview after his game

No less impressive was Michael Adams who fought a game with opposite-side castling and
attacking, and he scored an impressive win over Sergey Karjakin

Sergey Karjakin - Michael Adams

Michael Adams shares his impressions of the game

Pavel Eljanov was expecting a draw with Hou Yifan, when the Chinese player blundered it
all away in two moves after which there was no saving it

The Masters tournament wasn't the only event held in the Dutch Railway Museum

The children loved the idea and were quick to embrace chess on a train

There were plenty of chess-related activities surrounding it all

Replay round ten Masters games (with times per moves)

Standings Masters

Challengers

By IM Sagar Shah for ChessBase India

5.0/6 - things were looking pretty good for Adhiban at the 2016 Tata Steel Challengers. And they got better when the 23-year-old from Chennai got the better of the co-leader Alexei Dreev in the seventh round to lead the tournament with 6.0/7. A slightly lucky draw in the eighth round round against Erwin l'Ami saw Adhiban still being the sole leader with 6.5/8 - half a point ahead of Eltaj Safarli. But what happened next must have thrown Adhiban completely off balance.

Jorden van Foreest has proved again and again that he is not a player to be messed with

In the ninth round he faced the talented Dutch soon-to-be GM Jorden van Foreest. Adhiban had the white pieces and was high on confidence. But it is one thing to be confident and play objectively and quite another to just go for some tempting line of play that may or may not work.

Instead of taking fxe6, Adhiban played Bd2. Jorden confidently picked
up the pawn on f5 with exf5. Now Nxf5 doesn't make much sense as
after Bxf5 Rxf5 Nxd4 the bishop on c4 starts to hang. Hence Adhiban
went Bd3 but after g6....

...he found nothing better than to sacrifice his knight for the pawn on
f5. But this was more out of desperation than anything else. Van Foreest
picked up the piece with gxf5 and after a few moves...

...with the knight coming to g6, Black had consolidated and from there
on it was one way traffic. Adhiban tried hard but the position was just
impossible to defend.

A heart-breaking loss for Adhiban who was now joined by Eltaj Safarli
on the same score - 6.5/9

The way people react to a loss decides the level of their greatness. Some people after a loss are just not able to maintain their balance. They feel dejected and depressed and this shows in their next games. These are the guys who usually say that the first half of their tournament was great but the second half was terrible.

And then there are people like Adhiban. Every loss motivates them to play stronger. They cannot wait for the next game to begin and stamp their authority on the opponent. Such players are hard to find but believe me when I say that this is a quintessential quality to become a great champion.

When Adhiban lost to Jorden van Foreest, he must have gone back to the room and prepared really hard for his next encounter. And he must have relished the opportunity to meet the tournament co-leader Eltaj Safarli at the perfect moment. His destiny was now in his own hands. He could decide whether he would be the sole leader or not at the end of the tenth round. With great confidence and energy Adhiban pushed his pawn to d4.

The game was highly exciting as you can see from the analysis given below. But in the above position Safarli who was black scored a self goal with 38...Rxd4. It was just better to play Ke5 and there was everything to play for. After the exchange sacrifice, the game was one sided in Adhiban's favour, although the Indian went wrong on many ocassions and a draw was missed by the Azerbaijani plyer at least on three different moves.

Adhiban - Safarli (Analysis by IM Sagar Shah)

Some mistakes cost Eltaj Safarli the lead in the tournament

Still things are not really clear at the event as Dreev is right on Adhiban's heels. The Indian player has to face Nisipeanu, Batsiashvili and Sevian. So there won't be any strolling to the finish line!

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Replay round ten Challengers games (with times per moves)

Standings Challengers

Playing schedule + Playchess commentary

The two main tournaments are round robins. Both groups start on the 16th of January 2016 in Wijk aan Zee. The Masters move to Amsterdam on January 21, and to Utrecht on January 27. All rounds in Wijk aan Zee begin at 1.30 p.m., except for the last round on 31 January 2016, which begins at 12.00 p.m. Round five will take place in the Science Center NEMO in Amsterdam, and round ten in the Spoorwegmuseum in Utrecht. Both these external rounds start at 2.00 p.m.

Schedule and results of Tata Steel Masters 2016

Schedule and results of Tata Steel Challengers 2016

Links Official tournament site Download all games in PGN: Masters – Challengers The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the 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 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.