Tata Steel Rd5: Excitement from Rotterdam!

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament has two main tournaments. They are played according to the 'round robin' system, whereby each competitor plays in turn against every other during the tournament. The Tata Steel Masters has 14 participants and the Tata Steel Challengers has 14 participants. Both groups start on January 10th 2015 and the last round is on January 25th. All rounds in Wijk aan Zee begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round on January 25th, which begins at 12.00 hours. The time control is 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.

Admission to the playing hall in Wijk aan Zee, Rotterdam and The Hague is free of charge

Round five - Masters

Daniel King shows the game Giri vs Jobava

Today's round was played in the De Rotterdam, the brand new building between the KPN Tower and the Rotterdam Cruise Terminal. A bus transported the players from Wijk aan Zee to Rotterdam. The action returns tomorrow to Wijk aan Zee.

The mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb. He was recently quite prominent in the press
for his harsh remarks against muslims who "don't like freedom".

The Mayor and the World Champion

Gong-ringing responsibilities fell onto Nouchka Fontijn,
a World-class female boxer from Rotterdam

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime ½-½ Van Wely, Loek
Van Wely was able to outplay MVL in the opening, going into an endgame where his slight structural advantage and pressure on the queenside promised him a small, but stable edge. The game soon transposed into a 3v2 endgame with the kingside pawns. Van Wely was pushing for the win but, alas, had to be satisfied with a draw.

Van Wely tortured MVL, but the Frenchman did not break

Ding Liren ½-½ Ivanchuk, Vassily
The leader and his pursuer played a relatively quiet game. With only one open file and no real weaknesses to attack the players agreed to a repetition in an equal position.

The tournament leader takes a casual stroll.
Ding Liren is still in second place, but now shares it with Wojtaszek.

Saric, Ivan 0-1 Radjabov, Teimour
Saric chose an early d3 Spanish to avoid the Berlin, and quickly traded on c6. The equal position that resulted from the opening was certainly better understood by the Azerbaijani player. Radjabov slowly but convincingly pushed White back and started exploiting the weaknesses on the queenside. After winning a pawn Radjabov showed great technique in the endgame. Today, Black was simply the better player.

Keen analysis going on over in Rotterdam

Giri, Anish 1-0 Jobava, Baadur
Jobava very likely played the move of the tournament with the brilliant 22...Nh4!!.

Jobava uncorked the wonderful 22...Nh4!!

His attack was menacing, but Giri neutralized it at the cost of an exchange. Unfortunately, Jobava then blundered in a still complicated position:

So, Wesley ½-½ Hou Yifan
A somewhat strange game. A Ragozin turned into a strange structure where Hou Yifan's attack on the kingside (which came out of nowhere) netted her an extra pawn, but with a dubious pawn structure. So did not respond in the best way and Black's bishop and potential passed queenside pawn promised her good chances in the endgame. After a mistake in time pressure, it was Hou Yifan who was against the ropes as she underestimated the danger against her exposed king.

Wesley So had a difficult game against Hou Yifan

After a seemingly inexplicable decision on move 47 by Black to exchange rooks and go into a much worse endgame, it seemed like So might have good winning chances. However, the World Women's Champion showed she had everything under control: her activity with the passed pawn created by the exchange was just sufficient to net the draw.

Perhaps with better time management Hou Yifan could have put
pressure on Wesley So, instead of the other way around.

Wojtaszek, Radoslaw 1-0 Caruana, Fabiano
An amazing performance from the Polish player! In this tournament he has defeated the number one and number two players in the World. Both, coincidentally with White in a Dutch defense. GM Cristian Chirila annotates:

Defeating #1 and #2: Radoslaw Wojtaszek

Fabiano Caruana will have to try to recover tomorrow with White... against Magnus Carlsen!

Carlsen, Magnus 1-0 Aronian, Levon
A critical mistake by Aronian in what was already an uncomfortable position:

Grandmaster Cristian Chirila - Guest Commentator Former World u-16 Champion, he recently finished his studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. Cristian is an ambitious chess player who streams, blogs, teaches and plays plenty! Find out more about Cristian, including his chess lesson services, biography and games here.

Replay Masters games

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Masters standings after five rounds

Round five - Challengers

Another exciting round in the Challengers Group. Yet another day with only one draw, this time between the highest rated players of the event, Navara and Wei Yi.

Van Kampen was too optimistic with his attack against Shankland; his piece sacrifice simply did not work and the American took a full point with Black. Another American winning with Black was Sevian who won a complicated position against Gunina. Despite leading after three rounds, Gunina's two losses now puts her at the bottom of the table.

With l'Ami's victory over Saleh there is a three way tie at the top. A very close tournament, and one that is full of action!

Replay Challengers games

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Challengers standings after five rounds

Photos by Nadja Wittmann for www.ChessBase.com

Schedule and results - Masters group

Schedule and results - Challengers group

Venues

The tournament has a slight change this year. Most of the rounds will be played in the traditional De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk aan Zee, but two of the rounds will be played elsewhere. Last year the tournament traveled to the National Museum in Amsterdam and the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven.

This year the fifth round will be held in De Rotterdam. De Rotterdam is a building on the Wilhelminapier in Rotterdam, designed by Rem Koolhaas in 1998.

Rotterdam is ready to host Tata Steel!

The tenth round will be played in the International Press Cnetre Niewuspoort in the Hague. Councillor Karsten Klein of The Hague had this to say: "The Hague is honored to be able to host the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2015 at the heart of the Dutch parliamentary democracy. Our city has a long history of international chess tournaments, a tradition which is continued in this manner. "

Commentary on Playchess

This being the first major event of the year, it is clear that we will be bringing you live commentary on our server www.playchess.com!

Links Official tournament site Master Games in PGN Challenger Games in PGN 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.