1/15/2012 – Two decisive results, and two extremes. Levon Aronian declared that it was time to take his game to another level (some of us mistakenly thought 2800 was another level), and after a veritable see-saw battle against Nakamura, he had the last word and is on 2.0/2. Fabiano Caruana joined the chasers with 1.5 after he beat Karjakin, who is now on a worrisome 0.0/2 start. Report with video analysis.
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The 74th Tata Steel Chess Tournament will take place from January 13 to 29,
2012 in the sports hall Moriaan in Wijk aan Zee. There are three grandmaster
tournaments with fourteen players each playing thirteen rounds at 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. Rest days are on January 18, 23, and 26.
Tata Steel Tournament 2012
Round two
The tournament poster
Group A: Round 2 - Sun. Jan. 15th
Veselin Topalov - Loek van Wely
½-½
Vugar Gashimov - Gata Kamsky
½-½
Vassily Ivanchuk - Magnus Carlsen
½-½
Levon Aronian - Hikaru Nakamura
1-0
Fabiano Caruana - Sergey Karjakin
1-0
Anish Giri - Teimour Radjabov
½-½
David Navara - Boris Gelfand
½-½
It was a day of extremes even if only two rounds have taken place. Fabiano Caruana took advantage of what appears to be a slightly out-of-sorts Sergey Karjakin and beat him. It was a strange game in which once again Karjakin was caught underestimating his opponent's prospects, and when the Italian GM moved in for the attack, it was too late. Caruana won the exchange and went into a straightforward endgame he had no trouble converting. This places Fabiano in the group with 1.5/2 while Sergey faces a very unpleasant 0.0/2. If it is any encouragement to the young Russian, Anish Giri had a 1.0/4 start at Reggio Emilia and still managed to pull off a win.
Ivanchuk showed signs he was getting back into gear as he kept Carlsen under pressure
Ivanchuk managed to place Carlsen in the seat usually reserved for the Norwegian's opponents: suffering through an endgame with a persistent disadvantage throughout. The main difference is that Magnus did not slip and avoided getting into fatal trouble. As Vassily explained after they had shaken hands, "I wanted to win the game, but unfortunately it was a draw."
Levon Aronian was not superstious facing the Dutch defense in a Dutch event
The most exciting clash, and one of the longest, was Levon Aronian's game Hikaru Nakamura. It is hard to really judge such a sharp game in which the American played his usual uncompromising style with a Dutch, and at some point seemed to have gained the edge. Whatever the case, time trouble erased the slate, and the balance swung once more. With a queen for rook and piece, Nakamura failed to generate enough counterplay and the Armenian's pieces soon took over the position. WIth his win, he avenges his loss to Hikaru a month earlier at the London Classic, and takes an ideal 2.0/2 start.
GM Daniel King
analyzes Aronian-Nakamura in his daily round-up. The full show is
available at any time on Playchess to premium subscribers.
Tomorrow Carlsen faces Aronian with white, and you can be sure sparks will fly.
There will be 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.
Date
Round
Day
Commentator
14.01.2012
Round 1
Saturday
Pelletier
15.01.2012
Round 2
Sunday
King
16.01.2012
Round 3
Monday
Seirawan
17.01.2012
Round 4
Tuesday
King
18.01.2012
Free Day
Wednesday
19.01.2012
Round 5
Thursday
King
20.01.2012
Round 6
Friday
Seirawan
21.01.2012
Round 7
Saturday
Seirawan
22.01.2012
Round 8
Sunday
King
23.01.2012
Free Day
Monday
24.01.2012
Round 9
Tuesday
King
25.01.2012
Round 10
Wednesday
Pelletier
26.01.2012
Free Day
Thursday
27.01.2012
Round 11
Friday
King
28.01.2012
Round 12
Saturday
Trent
29.01.2012
Round 13
Sunday
King
Commentary begins at approx. 3 PM and lasts 2-2.5 hours with breaks in between.
A round up show is provided at 8 PM server time.
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 and get
immediate access. Or you can get our latest Fritz
13 program, which includes six months free premium membership to Playchess.
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