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Everything about the first week of the Tata Steel Chess tournament, live from Wijk aan Zee
While the Netherlands is freezing over with children all over the land being able to skate on the thousands of canals and rivers, the competitive flame in Wijk aan Zee has never burned brighter. Next to the hundreds of amateurs trying to win first place in their group, 14 candidates and 14 masters are aiming for their respective trophy. Dubbed the 'Wimbledon of chess' by 4-time winner Aronian, let's take a look at what happened over the past week at Tata Steel Chess.
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Wesley So wins the London Chess Classic 2016; other highlights and action from round 8
The final round of the London Chess Classic occurred yesterday, with some incredible match ups. Viswanathan Anand played Vladimir Kramnik for the 183rd time with both requiring a win to cement their place as overall third. Hiraku Nakamura playing Michael Adams also required a win, if he wanted to place overall third, but ultimately none of these players could quite convert a win.
On the other hand, it was an excellent day for Wesley So, who managed to keep himself in first place to also win the London Chess Classic, having secured his victory overall in the Grand Chess Tour yesterday. Fabiano Caruana similarly remained in second place, despite having three potential threats right on his tail. It was also a good day for Veselin Topalov, who managed to secure a win – sadly, too little too late from him, but perhaps showing a return to form.
Wesley So wins the Grand Chess Tour 2016; other highlights and action from round 8
Round 8 of the London Chess Classic ended yesterday giving us a clear winner of 2016’s Grand Chess Tour with one round left in hand. Wesley So’s meteoric rise continued this year as he held Fabiano Caruana to a draw to secure his spot as the winner of the Grand Chess Tour, with Nakamura and Aronian too far away to overtake him. His spot as the winner of the London Chess Classic – for a further $65,000 on top of his $100,000 winnings – will be contested today.
Otherwise, round 8 was by and large quite uneventful with four draws and one decisive result, between Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand. Anand, playing an early novelty, continued Topalov’s awful tournament as he gave the Bulgarian his 6th loss of the tournament.
Highlights and action from Round 7
For what the chess gods giveth, they also taketh. Yesterday, they gave us a day full of drama and excitement, with incredibly attacking chess and a number of decisive results. Today, in round 7 of the London Chess Classic, we received 4 draws, some of them over just after the Sofia rules and with very little contention in the positions. That’s what you get, though, when three Queen Gambits, one Symmetrical English and one Najdorf Sicilian are played. There was only one decisive result, which surprisingly (and thankfully) was not against Topalov (I am thinking of Rocky IV here where (spoilers) Ivan Drago is beating Apollo Creed to a pulp and his friend is shouting at Rocky to "throw in the towel, he's taken enough punishment!")
The real highlight of the day came from Hikaru Nakamura vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Nakamura, who lost in such splendour against Caruana’s brilliancy yesterday, displayed a brilliancy of his own, with a highly similar – if not essentially identical opening for the first 12 or 13 moves, showing that it is not only Caruana who can dominate in heavily theoretical openings. Nakamura’s game very possibly might be one of his greatest, especially as he beat the Najdorf specialist at his own game.
All the highlights from round 6 of the LCC
Round 6 of the London Chess Classic was perhaps the most dramatic day of the tournament so far. On every single board, featuring eight of the world’s top 10 players, sacrificed pieces, Greek gifts and poisoned pieces were played. Most impressively, Fabiano Caruana, the world number 2, played a long term queen sacrifice, a speculation which eventually paid off against his countryman Hikaru Nakamura in what was the game of the day, and possibly the game of the tournament.
On the other boards, Veselin Topalov’s awful tournament continued as he registered his fifth loss against Wesley So who is building an unassailable lead in the final leg of the Grand Chess Tour. Levon Aronian started strongly against MVL, only to overextend himself and the Frenchman to capitalise on that weakness, receiving a win. Viswanathan Anand once again played 7. h3!? against Anish Giri’s 12th Najdorf Sicilian in a row, a game which fizzled into a draw. Vladimir Kramnik and Michael Adams, by comparison, played a quieter game than the other 4 boards, in a solid positional battle which ended in a draw.
All the highlights and updates from the final leg of the Grand Chess Tour.
Round 5 of the London Chess Classic, the last round before a rest day tomorrow, provided only one decisive result in a comprehensive demolition of Veselin Topalov, the Bulgarian ex-FIDE World Champion. Topalov, who entered the tournament as the world no. 15, has had a series of unfortunate losses which have now put him on the very brink of exiting the world's top 20, only 0.2 rating points away from the 21st spot (currently occupied by Grischuk).
On the other boards, Aronian and Giri drew in 20 moves due to threefold repetition, playing for just over an hour. So and Anand also drew shortly after, reaching the Sofia rules 30 move limit before agreeing to draw. MVL and Caruana similarly agreed to draw on move 34, despite Caruana having a commanding position for much of the match, which he was unfortunate to let slip. Nakamura defended well against Kramnik, who had possibly out-prepared Nakamura in the opening, including an early novelty, holding their game to a draw after nearly 7 hours of play following some ambitious and potentially inaccurate middle game play by Kramnik.
Nakamura makes it interesting...
Round 4 of the London Chess Classic delivered more drama today, with particularly exciting results for Adams and Nakamura – the players at the bottom of the pack who were able to make up the difference somewhat more today.
Topalov, playing against Nakamura, had a particularly difficult day of it today. This tournament hasn’t been good for Topalov so far, who has now lost 3 games and made getting a winning result in this particular leg of the Grand Chess Tour essentially impossible, with 5 games left to go. Topalov versus Nakamura was the only decisive result today, with the rest being draws.
Sorry for the delay, I was at a family event - here's the late highlights of round 3!
Round 3 of the London Chess Classic, and the birthday curse – previously affecting Nakamura in a blunder-ridden opening which cost him his game against So – continued, with Nakamura transferring the curse on to Viswanathan Anand (who was celebrating his 47th birthday), giving Nakamura his first win of the tournament.
Meanwhile, across the other four boards, we saw four draws, with Wesley So being tested by Levon Aronian and receiving his first non-win result. British number 1, Michael Adams, managed a draw against Giri despite being a pawn down, giving him his first positive result of the tournament. Misfortune struck Veselin Topalov again after a mistake threw away a decisive result again, this time playing Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.