Tata R01: Harikrishna and Karjakin score

by ChessBase
1/12/2013 – Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna defeated the Dutch Champion Anish Giri. Sergey Karjakin celebrated his 23rd birthday by outplaying the former Women's World Champion Hou Yifan, 18, in a Classical French. GM Daniel King looks at this exciting game in his video report. All other games were drawn, and most notably Carlsen-Caruana, Anand-Nakamura and Aronian-van Wely. Round one report.

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75. Tata Steel Chess Tournament

January 2013
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This event is taking place from January 12-27. The venue is as usual the traditional De Moriaan Center in the Dutch sea resort of Wijk aan Zee,. The tournament has taken place since 1938 and was known as the Corus Chess Tournament. The Indian company Tata Steel bought Corus (for US $7.6 billion) in 2006 and the chess event way renamed accordingly. The tournament has three Grandmaster Groups, which have 14 players and are held as full round robins (each competitor plays against every other). The rate of play for all three groups is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and finally 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30 seconds/move increment starting with the first move of the game.

Round one report

By GM Alejandro Ramirez

Group A: Round 1 - Saturday January 12
Levon Aronian - Loek van Wely
½-½
Magnus Carlsen - Fabiano Caruana
½-½
Pentala Harikrishna - Anish Giri
1-0
Vishy Anand - Hikaru Nakamura
½-½
Ivan Sokolov - Wang Hao
½-½
Peter Leko - Erwin L'Ami
½-½
Sergey Karjakin - Hou Yifan
1-0

Every year the chess elite open up the season with one of the best, if not the best, tournament of the year: Wijk Aan Zee! Now under the sponsorship of Tata Steel, the tournament features three distinct sections that have always produced exciting encounter and surprising winners.


The playing hall, with the Open in its final phase in the foreground...


... and the A-C Groups in full swing in the background

This year’s group A holds a formidable amount of talented young players and of consolidated super-GMs. Participants include past winners Aronian, Nakamura, Anand, Carlsen and Karjakin. The lowest rated player is barely over 2600, but she is one of chess’ greatest hopes! With an aggressive style and a charming personality, ex World Champion Hou Yifan will have a lot to prove in the midst of so many chess monsters.

Todays’ round was relatively quiet, but did have some interesting aspects. The most looked after game, Maqgnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana (above), finished in an uneventful draw after Carlsen’s opening experiment was neutralized and the position reached a dry opposite colored bishop situation.

The game between World Champion Viswanathan Anand (above) and US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura also promised fireworks, but most of the interesting lines of this game remained as alternatives.

Nakamura (above) had a solid pawn structure that fully compensated his nonexistent development, and Anand saw nothing better than to force a perpetual at some point.

Levon Aronian (above left) had a dominant knight over Van Wely’s position, but it was completely neutralized by the Dutchman's rampaging rook. An exciting draw. Sokolov and Leko seemed to be putting the pressure on Wang Hao and L’Ami respectively, one with a promising position and the other with an extra pawn, but at the end both defenders held their draws.

The decisive results were quite instructive. Pentala Harikrishna (above) was infinitely patient and converted a slightly better rook endgame against Anish Giri after many many moves.

The highlight of the round however was Sergey Karjakin’s demolition of Hou Yifan. Her opening choice was poor to say the least, and after her king was stuck in the center it was only her wit that prevented her from losing immediately.


Sergey Karjakin, playing for a win on his 23rd birthday

Alas, through clever tactics the Russian was able to win a piece for two pawns, and despite the fact that he only had one h-pawn left on the board, it was sufficient to force a win.


Former Women's World Champion Hou Yifan, 18 years old

We hope the Chinese prodigy bounces back tomorrow, but Caissa seems to not have favored her as she starts this very tough tournament with two blacks in a row.

GM Danny King Play of the Day – Karjakin-Hou Yifan

Replay all the games of the round on our JavaScript player

Results of the B and C Groups

Group B: Round 1 - Saturday January 12
Richard Rapport - Robin van Kampen
½-½
Romain Edouard - Pedrag Nikolic
½-½
Sipke Ernst - Jan Timman
0-1
Sergei Movsesian - Arkadij Naiditsch
½-½
Sergey Tiviakov - Alexander Ipatov
1-0
Maxim Turov - Nils Grandelius
½-½
Daniil Dubov - Jan Smeets
½-½
Group C: Round 1 - Saturday January 12
Fernando Peralta - Alexandra Goryachkina
1-0
Robin Swinkels - Alexander Kovchan
½-½
Sabino Brunello - David Klein
1-0
Lisa Schut - Miguoel Admiraal
½-½
Igor Bitensky - Oleg Romanishin
½-½
Krikor Mekhitarian - Twan Burg
1-0
Hjorvar Gretarsson - Mark van der Werf
½-½


The great Jan Timman (above right) scored a black piece win over Sipke Ernst

The youngest participant, 14-year-old Alexandra Goryachkina, rated 2402, faced the top seed in her group, Argentian GM Fernando Peralta, 2617 on the Elo scale. On move 28 the U18 Women's World Champion had traded down to a a knight and bishop ending, a pawn down, and made her opponent fight until move 80 to get the full point.

Photos by Jeroen van den Belt

Commentary

There is full broadcast of all games on the official site and on the Playchess server, which will provide live audio commentary of the most interesting games (free for Premium members) starting at 15:00h for each round, 14:00h for the final round. Commentary begins at approx. 3 p.m. and lasts 2 to 2½ hours, with breaks in between. A round-up show is provided at 8 PM server time. Commentary is available, by the following experts:

12.01.2012 Round 1 Daniel King
13.01.2012 Round 2 Maurice Ashley
14.01.2012 Round 3 Yasser Seirawan
15.01.2012 Round 4 Daniel King
16.01.2012 Free day  
17.01.2012 Round 5 Daniel King
18.01.2012 Round 6 Maurice Ashley
19.01.2012 Round 7 Lawrence Trent
20.01.2012 Round 8 Lawrence Trent
21.01.2012 Free day  
22.01.2012 Round 9 Yasser Seirawan
23.01.2012 Round 10 Daniel King
24.01.2012 Free day  
25.01.2012 Round 11 Yasser Seirawan
26.01.2012 Round 12 Yasser Seirawan
27.01.2012 Round 13 Daniel King

Interviews with players after round one


Magnus Carlsen

Fabiano Caruana

Hikaru Nakamura

Viswanathan Anand

More interviews are available on the official site here

Links

The games are being 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.

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