Wei Yi at Tata Steel Challengers (1)

The 2015 Tata Steel Chess Tournament had two main round robin tournaments, both with 14 players each. The time control was 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.

Wei Yi at Tata Steel Challengers

After easily drawing his last round game against A.R. Salem, Wei Yi sat comfortably on the top of the results table with 10.5/13. His nearest rival David Navara had won his final round game, but it was not enough to catch him. Navara finished second with a score of 10.0/13.

This might give you an impression that the Chinese player had a pretty easy outing at the Tata Steel Challengers, but nothing can be farther from truth than this. This is how things stood at the end of nine rounds:

With a solid half point lead and having to face one 2600+ player less than Wei Yi
in the last four rounds, David Navara was surely the favourite to win the tournament

But things heated up in the tenth round when Navara could only draw his game against Potkin while Erwin L’Ami self-destructed against Wei Yi.

Erwin L’Ami (above) played two reckless games against Wei Yi and Samuel Shankland in rounds ten and twelve respectively. That explains his super solid positional win against Ari Dale in the final round, but it didn’t help him to improve his final standings. He finished eighth in the event.

After ten rounds the scores of the leaders had been levelled. Both of them were on 8.0/10. They were one and half points ahead of their nearest rival, Robin Van Kampen.

20-year-old Robin Van Kampen played an excellent event, scoring 8.5/13 and finishing fourth. Robin is the best junior of Netherlands (after Giri) and he stayed true to his tag of being an excellent attacker by playing some really uncompromising chess. Here is one of his games in which he won with a mating attacking on Potkin’s king but missed a tactic which would have surely made this game very special!

Van Kampen – Potkin, Round 12

White to play and find an amazing combination. Take your time and look deep!

Vladimir Potkin had an average tournament. He demolished the bottom half but didn’t fare well against
the upper players. As a result he finished right in the middle, seventh place, with a score of 7.0/13.

Robin Van Kampen could have been a real challenger to Wei Yi and Navara in fighting for the top spots. But his route was cut short by another dazzling youngster, Salem Saleh from UAE.

Salem goes back with a fine performance. 7.5/13 earned him the fifth place and also three Elo points!
An important victory for him in this tournament was the one against Robin Van Kampen.

Wei Yi was able to overtake Navara in the eleventh round when scored a fine victory over Michiels Bart with the black pieces and Navara was held to a draw by Gunina.

Bart Michiels - Wei Yi, Round 11

Black to play. White’s last move was Bg2-f1. Where should Wei Yi move his rook?

Bart’s constant companion in this tournament was the book “Tactical Targets in Chess”.
But it didn’t help him much as he lost 20 Elo points in the event

With just two rounds left, the tables had been turned. Wei Yi was on 9.0/11 while Navara was on 8.5. It was now Czech player’s turn to do the catching. But he was unsuccessful at it when in the twelfth round he once again had to split the point against Samuel Sevian. Wei Yi took this opportunity to extend his lead with a crushing victory over Anne Haast.

Wei Yi - Anne Haast, Round 12

White to play. It’s time to find one blow after another and finish off the game!

It’s a scary feeling when you play against this young Chinese talent.
One mistake and he is completely unforgiving!

It was a bad day at the office for Anne Haast against Wei Yi, but overall
she fared well in the tournament by scoring 4.0/13 and gaining ten Elo points

– Part two of the Challengers wrapup will follow soon –

Links Official tournament site Master Games in PGN Challenger Games in PGN 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.