Sinquefield Rd2: Thrills and drama in all games

2016 Sinquefield Cup The 2016 Sinquefield Cup is an elite international event, featuring 10 of the strongest chess players in the world. Over the course of nine rounds, these competitors will battle for $300,000 in prize money (first: $75,000, second: $50,000, third: $40,000, last: $15,000) plus points toward the Grand Chess Tour and the coveted title of 2016 Sinquefield Cup Champion. The venue is the Chess Club and Scholastic Center at 4657 Maryland Avenue, Saint Louis, MO 63108. Tickets cost $10 per round or $80 for all ten rounds. Full information available at the official web site.

Hundreds of thousands of spectators worldwide are expected to enjoy the all-star commentary team of GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Maurice Ashley and WGM Jennifer Shahade as they provide keen insights and analysis, in depth player interviews and witty discussions. Commentary is also available on the CCSCSL YouTube Channel, Livestream and Twitch.

All photos by Lennart Ootes from official site

After seeing an excellent movie that you know will have a sequel, the first concern is whether the sequel can live up to the original. It can certainly happen of course, but overall the statistics are not in favor, and more often than not we find ourselves trying to rationalize why it really was ‘pretty good’. Sticking with the analogy, if round one was that excellent first movie, then one can confidently say that round two was a tremendous sequel that improved on round one in many ways.

Alejandro Ramirez and Robert Hess are on lcoation providing live commentary to the audience visiting

In round two there were more wins, more drama, and not a single dull draw. In fact, the draws that happened had seemed destined to a decisive result, while two games saw very unexpected wins.

The first game to end, and the one that had seemed headed towards a win, was Ding Liren against Wesley So. Wesley found himself in trouble fairly early on against Ding Liren, who was nursing a nice advantage, when suddenly he played a tactic winning a pawn…. Or so he thought.

Ding Liren - Wesley So

Wesley So, with good reason to smile

Ding Liren’s tactical ability is not to be underestimated, but here he got impatient to take it home and was lax in his thoroughness. As a result, Wesley So left the battlefield without a scratch, albeit after a small scare.

If So got off easy, then Fabiano Caruana has to consider he really dodged a bullet. Veselin Topalov was quite simply crushing him and had played a masterful attack with tactical finesses. Unfortunately, as soon as he reached the winning line, he seemed distracted, and began to miss moves badly, allowing Caruana to escape with fortress ideas.

Fabiano Caruana - Veselin Topalov

Topalov had to be wondering how things got so out of hand after what promised to be a day of victory

Maxime Vachier Lagrave had been enjoying one of the great runs in elite chess, and had been undefeated in 67 games… until today. He came out of the opening against Vishy Anand with a  nice edge, and even seemed likely to win, but the former world champion is not without a large set of tools.

Anand faced an MVL who had gone 67 moves without losing. His 2819 rating was a direct result.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - Vishy Anand (annotated by GM Elshan Moradiabadi)

A fantastic win for Anand, who has a great start

Maxime knew the run had to end one day, and just wished it did not have to be today

With this win Anand moves into a tie for first after two rounds. Naturally it is much too early to begin talking about leaders in any serious way.

If MVL had been on a run to end all runs, Svidler is having trouble getting out of a pit that seems to get deeper every time he looks. Naturally, his opponent Levon Aronian is one of the all-time greats, but Svidler is no slouch and the endgame seemed a relatively simple thing to draw. Instead, with all the pieces off the board except one pair, the Russian seemed to forget some of the most basic fundamentals, and declined to develop and centralize his king! This cost him very soon, and decisively so.

Levon Aronian was quite perplexed by Svidler's decision to leave his king in the corner

Levon Aronian - Peter Svidler

The final game of the day, and the longest by far, was the battle between Hikaru Nakamura and Anish Giri. After playing quite poorly, and losing to an opponent he bests more often than not, Nakamura had pronounced fighting words in the post-game interview, but with great optimism, a sign he was ready to do battle. He pointed out that even Magnus had had terrible starts and bounced back to win the event he was playing, so there was no reason to overreact.

It was a very tense and thrilling battle between Anish Giri and Hikaru Nakamura

Anish Giri - Hikaru Nakamura (annotated by GM Elshan Moradiabadi)

His positive thinking paid off and in spite of some rocky moments, Nakamura emerged victorious and is back in the mix.

The tournament is clearly on the way to provide intense excitement, so be sure to follow it!

Replay games of round two

Select games from the games list below the board

Standings after two rounds

The games are being broadcast live on Playchess, with expert analysis.

Schedule

Pairings

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN 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.