1/23/2013 – This round saw a wide variety of interesting games, with sharp unsound sacrifices and deep positional play. Hou Yifan beat Harikrishna, 100 points her senior, with black, Levon Aronian outplayed Wang Hao. Magnus Carlsen stretched his lead even further over his rivals by beating Erwin L'Ami. It won’t be long before the media start screaming the number ‘2900’! Full report with postgame analysis.
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January 2013
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75. Tata Steel Chess Tournament
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
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 ten report
By GM Alejandro Ramirez
Group A: Round 10 - Wednesday January 23
Loek van Wely - Anish Giri
½-½
Fabiano Caruana - Hikaru Nakamura
0-1
Levon Aronian - Wang Hao
1-0
Magnus Carlsen - Erwin L'Ami
1-0
Pentala Harikrishna - Hou Yifan
0-1
Vishy Anand - Sergey Karjakin
½-½
Ivan Sokolov - Peter Leko
0-1
A fantastic struggle was the game Sokolov-Leko. Sokolov recently came out with
his book on the 4.e3 Variation of the Nimzo-Indian, so he is obviously well
versed in these variations. However, Leko is one of the top experts of the Nimzo-Indian,
and he lured Sokolov into the sacrifice 17.Rxe6?! The great rebuttal 17... Nf4!
gave White unsolvable problems, and after being down the exchange for a pawn
Sokolov was unable to create enough play. Through very precise moves Leko converted
a nice win, which he analysed in the press room:
Giri stayed true to form and chose the solid Schlecter structure in the Slav.
He was eventually able to win a pawn against Van Wely, but White’s pair
of bishops compensated for it plentifully. Eventually that pair of bishops was
exchanged back for the pawn, and the opposite colored bishops sealed the drawish
nature of the position.
Vishy Anand’s handling of the Queen’s Indian was not very impressive,
but then he started outplaying Karjakin little by little. At some point his
position was exerting a lot of pressure, especially on a very weak c-pawn. However
the World Champion was unable to capitalize on the situation and the draw had
to be agreed. It would have been interesting had he combined pressures on the
kingside and the queenside with the unusual maneuver 37.Qc2 and 38.Qh7!?
Aronian seemed to be doing little more than shuffling pieces in a strange English,
and that might have put Wang Hao’s defenses down. He underestimated the
tactics starting with 24.Bxc5! and 25.Qd5 and had to shed two pawns, plenty
for Levon to mop up the game. Here's his post-game analysis:
Hikaru Nakamura (above) employed an interesting strategy against Fabiano Caruana.
Instead of getting into a theoretical discussion with the Italian player, he
employed a strange Benoni-like system, but without ever playing the move e6.
This paid off handsomely as Caruana seemed to be at a loss for a plan, and by
move 20 Black had at the very least equalized. Hikaru continued to outplay Fabiano
and punished the incorrect 54.Kc2? with the spectacular sequence 54...g4! and
55...h3! The rest was easy and Hikaru picks up an important point with black.
The Keres Attack has been considered for many years to be very dangerous against
the Scheveningen move order in the Sicilian – a reason why it’s
rarely seen nowadays. But Hou Yifan (above) has been a faithful practitioner
of this system, and this has allowed her to understand the subtleties in these
positions. It’s hard to say exactly where Harikrishna went wrong, but
when Black’s bishop installed itself powerfully on g5, it was clear that
the attack had been stymied and that the positional trumps were on Black’s
hands.
In the Sicilians, one of the main pluses of Black’s position is that
most endgames will favor them. This endgame was no exception, and after a series
of very precise rook moves the Chinese player was able to create a passed pawn
on the kingside, which combined with the king activity it was simply too much
to handle for the Indian player. Hou Yifan scores her second full point, and
does it again with Black.
Carlsen-L’Ami was a relatively one sided affair. The Dutch player gave
his Nowegian opponent (above) too much respect and never tried anything particularly
active. Even near the end it seems that he could have tried to be more resourceful
in the endgame when he was down a pawn. Alas, Carlsen picks up a point that
was not too contested and it seems hard for his opponents to catch him in this
event.
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Players
1.e4
1,184,215
54%
2421
---
1.d4
958,932
55%
2434
---
1.Nf3
286,327
56%
2441
---
1.c4
184,722
56%
2443
---
1.g3
19,884
56%
2427
---
1.b3
14,598
54%
2428
---
1.f4
5,953
48%
2377
---
1.Nc3
3,906
50%
2384
---
1.b4
1,790
48%
2378
---
1.a3
1,250
54%
2406
---
1.e3
1,081
49%
2409
---
1.d3
969
50%
2378
---
1.g4
670
46%
2361
---
1.h4
466
54%
2382
---
1.c3
439
51%
2425
---
1.h3
289
56%
2420
---
1.a4
118
60%
2461
---
1.f3
100
47%
2427
---
1.Nh3
92
67%
2511
---
1.Na3
47
62%
2476
---
Please, wait...
The Keres Attack has been considered for many years to be very dangerous
against the Scheveningen move order in the Sicilian - a reason why it's rarely
seen nowadays. But Hou Yifan has been a faithful practitioner of this system,
and this has allowed her to understand the subtleties in these positions. It's
hard to say exactly where Harikrishna went wrong, but when Black's bishop
installed itself powerfully on g5, it was clear that the attack had been
stymied and that the positional trumps were on Black's hands.1.e4c52.Nf3d63.d4cxd44.Nxd4Nf65.Nc3e66.g4h67.h4e58.Nf5Nc69.Bg2g610.Ne3Be611.Ncd5Bxd512.exd5Ne713.Qe2Bg714.Qb5+Qd715.Qxd7+Nxd716.Bd2Rc817.Bb4Nc518.0-0-00-019.h5Bf620.Kb1Kg721.Nf1Bg522.Ng3b623.Bxc5bxc524.Ne4Rcd825.hxg6fxg626.Rh3Rf427.Ra3Rxg428.Bf3Rf429.Rxa7Rxf330.Nxg5hxg531.Rxe7+Kf632.Re6+Kf533.Rd2g434.c3Kg535.Re2Rdf836.Rxd6Rxf2In the Sicilians, one of the main pluses of
Black's position is that most endgames will favor them. This endgame was no
exception, and after a series of very precise rook moves the Chinese player
was able to create a passed pawn on the kingside, which combined with the king
activity it was simply too much to handle for the Indian player. Hou Yifan
scores her second full point, and does it again with Black.37.Rxe5+R8f538.Re3R5f339.Re5+Rf540.Re3R2f341.Ree6Rf642.Re5+R3f543.Rxf6Rxe544.Rf1Rxd545.Kc2Rf546.Rg1c447.Kd2Rf2+48.Ke3Rxb249.Ra1g350.Kf3g251.Kg3Rxa252.Rb1Kf553.Kh2Ke454.Rd1Kf355.Rd6Ra50–1
So where is he now? Take a deep breath: 2872! That is 21 points higher than
Kasparov's long-standing record rating and 61 point above his nearest rival
(Vladimir Kramnik). And where can he go? Certainly 2900 is not a crazy number,
fully out of his reach. Brace for further sensations in the near future.
GM Danny King Play of the Day – Ivan Sokolov vs Peter Leko
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