Tata Steel Chess: Carlsen, Giri join the leaders

Four at the top

Play resumed at the De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk aan Zee, the main venue of Tata Steel Chess, following the chess on tour to Alkmaar and the subsequent rest day. As the sixth round came to a close, Magnus Carlsen, who had had a relatively slow start to the event with four draws in his opening games, scored his second straight win to join the tournament leaders. Anish Giri also recovered well from his first round loss and made his way back to the top. At 4.0/6, he has also joined the tournament lead scoring his third win of the event in the sixth round.

Carlsen’s second victim – after Jorden van Foreest in the previous round – was the second seed of the tournament, GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. The two top seeds had gone toe to toe for the most part in a Queen’s Gambit when the game turned sharp.

Magnus, as white, could have kept things calm with 33.Ke1 or 33.Kg1. If black takes 33…Nxb4, white has 34.Nxb4 Rxd1 35.Rxd1 Rxc5 and 36.Nxa6 keeping the game balanced. But Carlsen took 33.Nxa6 immediately. There followed 33…Ndxe3 34.fxe3 Nxe3+ 35.Kg1 Nxd1 36.Rxd1.

White’s little adventure of taking on a6 seems to have kept the game going but the computers adorn their evaluation with multiple zeroes at the first sight of it. Carlsen, too, said he did not really believe this would lead him anywhere. “I thought it was a draw,” Carlsen said after the game, talking about the diagrammed position and went on to add that Mamedyarov clearly lost the thread of the position.

For Anish Giri, the day wasn’t as tough. His opponent, GM Jan Krzysztof Duda had made an error early in the game and by the 20th move, was already in a lost position.

In the third decisive game of the day, Jorden van Foreest and Vladimir Fedoseev had played a very complicated Pirc defence. In the middle game, Fedoseev, who was playing black, seemed to be in complete command of the position. But Jorden played well and found enough counterplay to stay afloat. And soon the tide had turned.

Just one move before the time control, Jorden found the brilliant 39.Rd1 here and went on to win an impressive game. “Yeah, it’s a nice move. I wasn’t even sure if it’s a good move. I just played it because I didn’t see anything else,” Jorden told Fiona Steil Antoni after the game, talking about his rook sacrifice.

Both of the Indians in the fray agreed to short draws in the sixth round. While Viswanathan Anand drew against the tournament leader Ian Nepomniachtchi, Vidit held the American GM Sam Shankland.

Anand, as he mentioned after the game, was caught by surprise in the opening by Nepomniachtchi, who had the black pieces in a Sicilian Najdorf.

“I had hopes for more out of the opening. Unfortunately, he caught me by surprise in a line that was quite rare – he told me that there were maybe seven games with it,” Anand said in the post-game interview.

After Nepomniachtchi’s 22…Kf8, Anand said he thought black was very comfortable and that he did not see anything more than an eventual repetition.

All games

Standings

Challengers

The Challengers group saw its first sole leader emerge after the sixth round as GM Vladislav Kovalev scored his third win in a row to reach 4.5/6. In round six, he was pitted against Kazakhstani International Master Dinara Saduakassova.

While the position out of the opening – a Petroff – did not look very promising, the Belarussian Grandmaster kept pressing to make something of his space advantage and succeeded after some errors by his opponent in the 69 move marathon.

All games

Standings

Related news:

	Tata Steel Chess: Carlsen and Giri to battle for the title @ 27/01/2019 by Aditya Pai (en)
	12-year-old Aditya Mittal analyzes three exciting games from Tata Steel Chess 2019 @ 21/01/2019 by Sagar Shah (en)
	Live games from Tata Steel Chess 2019 @ 12/01/2019 by Sagar Shah (en)