Tata 07: Exchange Sacrifice, anyone?

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 seven - Masters

Summary by GM Daniel King

Caruana, Fabiano ½-½ Giri, Anish
Both of Chuchelov's star students played a weird Bishop's opening in which neither side was in any danger. The pieces came off the board and the draw was agreed.

It's not easy choosing an opening when you have the same coach as your opponent

Nakamura, Hikaru 0-1 Van Wely, Loek

Without a doubt the game of the day

The winner of the 2011 edition has not been able to perform up to his rating

Rapport, Ricahrd 1-0 Harikrishna, Pentala
Rapport used a side variation (surprise!) of the Caro-Kann, but it gave good results today as he obtained a slight advantage against Harikrishna. The Hungarian played an excellent game and kept pushing the Indian's position, which soon saw itself in a surprising mating attack. Black shed some material to relieve the pressure but with an extra exchange Rapport was able to win the game.

The Indian grandmaster's performance is close to 2700, but thats just within expectations

Rapport moves to -1 and has exactly the same performance as his rating!

So, Wesley ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey
Karjakin (maybe unnecessarily) sacrificed an exchange to retain some light square control and for two powerful knights. So wasn't able to make progress with his passive position so he gave the exchange back, resulting in a drawn rook endgame.

Gelfand, Boris ½-½ Aronian, Levon
Aronian certainly surprised Gelfand from the opening with a pawn sacrifice in a Ragozin/Vienna variation of the QGD. However Gelfand decided to play it relatively safe, gave back an exchange to solidify his position and he was never in any danger of losing.

Naiditsch, Arkadij ½-½ Dominguez Perez, Leinier
Naidtisch's superior pawn structure did not grant him an advantage as Black's passed a-pawn was certainly not a weakness but a strength. This ended up costing the German player an exchange, in yet another game in which one side was down an exchange. It's difficult to say where Dominguez went wrong, or if he went wrong at all, but he was unable to convert a very difficult technical endgame.

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Standings after seven rounds

Round eight - Challengers

Jobava's unusual opening repertoire keeps giving him dividends

The big result of today was definitely Jobava's victory over Yu Yangyi. He used his trademarked 1.b3, and as usual he got no opening advantage but did get an interesting position. Actually shortly after the opening Yu Yangyi erred and allowed White a better pawn structure and serious pressure on the long diagonal. White took advantage of this and won a pawn and then converted a simple knight endgame.

The Chinese player, Yu Yangyi, simply didn't find his groove in Wijk Aan Zee

Yes, her position at some point was that bad

Duda and Bok finished in a perpetual check after the Polish grandmaster decided that things weren't exactly going his way. Troff's White repertoire simply does not seem as sharp as his Black repertoire and Timman easily equalized against his Catalan using a Bogo-Indian set up. Van Delft's better pawn structure didn't promise him any real advantage against Saric's piece activity and that game also ended in a draw.

A strange perpetual check finished this game

In the most important blunder of the day Wojtaszek missed a winning move against Muzychuk during time pressure. 38.Rff4! would have won material because of the unusual but strong mating attack against Black's king. Instead the Slovenian player escaped with a draw. Reinderman's dutch set ups finally payed off and he was ble to outplay Zhao Xue, although maybe his win wasn't exactly due to the opening. On another happy note, Goudriaan finally obtained his first half point of the event in a strange game against Brunello.

Anne Hast, one of the best Dutch players, paid a short visit

Experience sometimes prevails in the amateur section!

"Sopiko Guramishvili - what can I do, if she is so photogenic?!" - our photographer, Alina l'Ami

Players eat the famous Dutch erwtensoup - a good idea for extra energy

Some spectators found vantage points to follow the games

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Standings after eight rounds

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.