Tata 01: Many mistakes, many wins

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.

The amateurs play in the same room as the Masters,
but there is a big divisor between the sections

Spectators watch from every angle possible

Round One

Nakamura, Hikaru 1-0 Naiditsch, Arkadij
In what seemed to be an equal position, Naiditsch either blundered or overestimated the power of the pawns that he received as compensation for losing a knight. Nakamura played very precisely from then on and used the power of his extra bishop to convert into a victory.

Nakamura took advantage of his opponent's mistake and finished him off with surgical precision

Dominguez Perez, Leinier ½-½ Giri, Anish
A solid Berlin ended in a boring draw.

Van Wely, Loek 0-1 Karjakin, Sergey
Van Wely simplified into a slightly worse position in which Black's extra pawn gave him the only chances to win. The resulting rook endgame was still a draw, but yet another mistake allowed Karjakin to win. The Russian didn't do anything special in this game, he simply had to wait for Van Wely to err.

Van Wely was quite close to a draw today

Harikrishna, Pentala ½-½ Aronian, Levon
Even though Black's king was quickly placed on e6, Aronian was simply following a well known recommendation that gave him approximate equality. Harikrishna's powerful knight on e5 was offset by his weakness on d4, and it was hard for him to push his pawns on the kingside.

Harikrishna was unable to pose any serious problems to Aronian

Rapport, Richard 0-1 So, Wesley
Wesley's tight flight schedule, which made him arrive to the tournament only a few hours before the round, didn't prevent him from outplaying his opponent. Rapport's 1.b3 choice was probably not the best. These kinds of systems are acceptable against weak grandmasters, or as a surprise weapon in one game, but playing it consistently as Rapport has been doing recently will not net him anything from the opening. So was able to equalize without any problems. The game became interesting when White dominated the f-file and had a good knight on e4, but he was unable to do anything with it due to his terrible bishop on b2. Nearing time pressure So found an excellent breakthrough with 37...d5! and 38...e4! putting his opponent against the ropes. In a difficult position Rapport made a mistake and lost the game.

It seems unlikely that Rapport will continue to rely on 1.b3 in this tournament

Caruana took advantage of Gelfand's self-destruction

Daniel King analyses Caruana - Gelfand

Caruana, Fabiano 1-0 Gelfand, Boris

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Challenger Section

China's number two woman and the World's number four
started the Challenger section with a win

The Challenger section started with a few surprises. Wojtaszek, one of the pre-tournament favorites, lost to Reinderman, whose new hair color must have shocked his opponent. Yu Yangyi, also one of the top players in the event, lost to Brunello. Both favorites lost with the white pieces which makes it even more unusual.

Muzychuk played a Spanish against Timman, who defended solidly and held a draw

The American IM Kayden Troff, the 2012 World Champion U-14, rated 2457, started strong with a win against Van Delft. The other win of the game was by Zhao Xue against Goudriaan. Interestingly in the Challengers all games that was decisive was won by black.

One of the big winners of today: Reinderman vanquished Wojtaszek

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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.