Tata 05: Melee on the boards!

The 76th edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament takes place from 10 to 26 January 2014. The top players will compete in two groups (previously there were three), with twelve players in each, instead of fourteen. The structure of the amateur tournaments remains unchanged. Both groups start on January 11th 2014, with all rounds starting at 13:30h (1:30 p.m.) local time, except for the last round on January 26th, which begins at 12:00h. Two rounds will be played in Amsterdam and Eindhoven and will start at 14:00. The time controls are 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.

Round Five - Masters

Harikrishna, Pentala 0-1 Giri, Anish
Giri simply put outplayed Harikrishna in this Italian game that closely resembled the normal ideas of the Chigorin Spanish. In an endgame that was difficult to hold, but maybe close to a draw, Giri kept finding resources to put the pressure on Harikrishna. He sacrificed his passed pawn on the queenside to secuure himself an advantage on the kingside and White's position was unholdable. A pretty strategical game.

Caruana, Fabiano 1-0 Van Wely, Loek
Caruana's knight was the true hero of this game. It went from an outpost on f5 where it was constantly in danger of being taken to another strong outpost on c6, from where it eliminated Black's pawn on b4. Van Wely was probably close to a draw despite being down a pawn due to the opposite colored bishops, but he misplayed the endgame and Caruana took full advantage of this to convert the game.

Caruana's knight made Van Wely dizzy

The Cuban menace showed he can win the tournament too

Rapport, Richard 0-1 Dominguez Perez, Leinier
The Cuban player shows us that the school of chess from his country is based on dangerous and double-edged games.

Nakamura sits at 50%, surely he wants more from the rest of the event

Nakamura, Hikaru ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey
A very wild game. Nakamura sacrificed his king safety for a positional advantage of playing against an isolated pawn and having the pair of bishops, but Karjakin never relented in his initiative and didn't even bother regaining a lost pawn on c5. Eventually the game ended in a spectacular perpetual check!

Even though the game only lasted 24 moves,
both players had used a significant amount of time.Karjakin was down to only 11 minutes.

Naiditsch, Arkadij 0-1 Aronian, Levon
Aronian's opening was quite interesting: his shattered pawn structure was compensated by his pair of bishops, which then turned into an endgame in which although White had a passed pawn, it was Black that was more comfortably placed because of his active position. However the opposite colored bishops made the endgame rather drawish. A big mistake by Naiditsch cost him his passed a7 pawn, and without it his position quickly collapsed.

Aronian keeps an unstoppable pace in this tournament

So, Wesley 1-0 Gelfand, Boris
Gelfand simply never found his footing in this anti-Sveshnikov variation. He was not aggressive enough when he needed to be and his shattered pawn structure did not allow him to play defensively. He resigned not having lost any material, but being in a hopeless position regardless.

Gelfand needs more energy than this to recover his form in this event

Replay round six - Masters

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Round six - Challengers

Brunello finished with a draw in an interesting game with Troff

Jobava tried as hard as he could to outplay Muzychuk from an equal endgame, but the Slovenian grandmaster never budged and she was never in any danger of losing. With this draw, Saric was able to catch up with Jobava as he defeated Goudriaan with Black. Sadly for the Dutch student, this is his sixth loss in a row. Theory of numbers says that at some point he will at least draw a game, hopefully soon.

Muzychuk comfortably drew, despite being 150 points lower rated and being black

Timman can still play wild chess!

Zhao Xue and Timman played a dangerous and tactical game that was won by the Dutch legend after the Chinese grandmaster blundered in time pressure. The most interesting game of the day certainly was Yu Yangyi's demolition of Duda. A picturesque knight sacrificed forced open lines against the enemy king, which could simply not be defended.

Duda was in the receiving end of a brilliancy today

Guramashvili is not only there as Giri's girlfriend, she is also playing a closed section of the
'amateur's' tournament, with a rating average of over 2350

Replay all Challenger games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Photos by Alina l'Ami

Schedule and results

Grandmaster Group B

Commentary schedule on Playchess

Links Official tournament site All Master Section games All Challenger section games 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.