Tata Steel Rd7: Errors, blunders, and hallucinations

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 seven - Masters

Daniel King shows the game Carlsen vs Hou Yifan

The audience trying to get a peek at the games

Behind them is the amateur section of the event

Saric, Ivan 0-1 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
A very complicated Najdorf! MVL's attack always seemed menacing, but Saric kept defending until he cracked in the following position:

Ivan Saric blundered after surviving for a long time

Ding Liren 1-0 Van Wely, Loek
Van Wely had many opportunities to finish off the game in his favor, but after missing all of them he allowed Ding Liren back into the game. A trick set up by White caught Van Wely off-guard:

Wojtaszek, Radoslaw 0-1 Jobava, Baadur
A nice break for Jobava:

Carlsen, Magnus 1-0 Hou Yifan
Carlsen outplayed Hou Yifan convincingly, but at one juncture he returned the game... his oppoennt, however, did not take full advantage of it!

Hou Yifan almost always travels with her mom to events

Magnus Carlsen tonic: Orange Juice

Giri, Anish ½-½ Ivanchuk, Vassily
Ivanchuk reached a queen endgame that should have been easily drawn, yet somehow he managed to make it more, and more, and more complicated for himself! Eventually Giri managed to win a pawn and created some real winning chances, until he was actually winning:

Team Giri: on the left his coach, GM Tukmakov, and on the right his girlfriend, IM Guramashvili

So, Wesley ½-½ Radjabov, Teimour
The American missed a nice chance to increase the pressure, but it was not a blunder as appaling as what we have seen in the previous examples. Instead of putting up more pressure the liquidation led to a draw.

Aronian, Levon ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano
Aronian's aggression almost backfired as Caruana gobbled up the sacrificed pawn and started consolidating it. However, Caruana missed a couple of precise moves and let White back in the game. The resulting endgame was drawn with good play.

Before the tournament many could have predicted this duel to be one between
leaders, but it's pretty far from that actually

Replay Masters games

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Masters standings after seven rounds

Round seven - Challengers

Replay Challengers games

The Challengers was as bloody as usual, going back to only having one draw per round. An unbelievable pace. Big victories for Wei Yi and Navara, who both win with Black and extend their lead. Michiels goes back to the scoreboard with a win over Dale while the only split point was between Saleh and Shankland.

Potkin defeated Haast while Gunina bounced back into the tournament with a big victory over l'Ami. Finally, the young prodigy Sevian also was able to score a full point.

Sagar Shah brings us his game of the round:

Michiels wins today and goes back to 50% (3.5/7)

A tough loss for Van Kampen, as this puts him 1.5 points away from the leaders

Anne Haast was unable to overcome the big rating difference today

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Challengers standings after seven 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!

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