Tata Steel Rd6: Important wins

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 six - Masters

Daniel King shows the game Caruana vs Carlsen

Bling bling

Sometimes there are ways around not being so tall

Van Wely, Loek ½-½ Aronian, Levon
A pretty bizarre game. Both players seemed to have forgotten the rules of development (Van Wely didn't move his light-squared bishop until move 20, while Aronian played Nf6-g8-h6 and Bg7-h6-f8 in the first 19 moves). Both players were occupied advancing their own plans. This led to a position in which Van Wely captured Aronian's kingside, but his queen got stuck and was perpetualed by Black's rooks.

Aronian did not imagine he was strolling into
a very complicated game right from the start

Caruana, Fabiano 0-1 Carlsen, Magnus
The much anticipated duel between the number one and number two players in the World was not a disappointment, though the World Champion dominated completely:

Caruana drops down to the middle of the road with 50% (3.0/6)

The World Champion is now in hot pursuit of Ivanchuk; he only trails by 0.5 point

Hou Yifan ½-½ Wojtaszek, Radoslaw
In a rare Fianchetto Dragon the Pole was able to equalize without problems. After a series of trades the resulting double rook endgame was not dangerous for either side.

Peng Zhaoqin, the strongest player in the Netherlands, shares a joke with Hou Yifan

Jobava, Baadur 0-1 So, Wesley
A tough blow for Jobava, who loses his fourth game in a row.

Jobava is dropping a massive 24 rating points so far

So joins the pack of +2 with 4.0/6

Radjabov, Teimour ½-½ Giri, Anish
Fireworks on the board! Giri ignored his development, so Radjabov saw his chance to sacrifice a full rook! Black's exposed king gave White enough compensation, but Giri retaliated by setting up a mating attack of his own! White was just in time to give a perpetual.

A fearless Giri survived a big attack

Ivanchuk, Vassily ½-½ Saric, Ivan
Ivanchuk's central majority and pair of bishops was not enough for a clear advantage. Even though White's position was certainly more pleasant, making progress was never easy. Saric defended well and was able to neutralize the position and reach an endgame that he comfortably drew.

A solid try, but Saric held his own. Ivanchuk does, however, retain first place.

Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 1-0 Ding Liren
MVL handled the Caro-Kann with an enormous amount of aggression. His powerful early attack punished Ding Liren's underdeveloped position. The pressure mounted until the Frenchman made a small mistake, allowing Ding Liren to somewhat consolidate his position. However, in time pressure, and with his king still under attack, Ding Liren made a crucial error allowing MVL to simplify into a clearly better endgame that he converted nicely.

Not a perfect game, but truly a fascinating one

Replay Masters games

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Photos by Alina l'Ami for the official website

Masters standings after six rounds

Round six - Challengers

For some reason we have a lot of Erwin l'Ami pictures. Photo by Alina l'Ami.

The Challengers section increased its amount of draws by 100%... so we "only" had five decisive results! Some of the highlights include Wei Yi's victory over Sam Sevian, bringing the Chinese to 4.5/6, keeping pace with co-leader David Navara, who crushed Jan Timman.

Sam Shankland (above) beat Bart Michiels, and is currently tied for second. Also with 4.0/6 are Erwin l'Ami, who drew Vladimir Potkin, and Robin Van Kampen, who easily dispatched Ari Dale in a swift kingside attack.

Salem Saleh has been unable to find his groove.
Here he analyzes with his coach, Ivan Sokolov.

Sam Sevian was unable to stop the Chinese wonder

Replay Challengers games

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Challengers standings after six rounds

Photos by Alina l'Ami for the official website

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.