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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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Anand - Kramnik today. Online chat was that Kramnik had played well, not really (according to his interview). More like Anand drifting into a bad position and then playing further bad moves. Happened to the great Anand, happens to the best of them.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov won his third game in a row beating Wei Yi in the 7th round of the 80th Tata Steel Masters. Mamedyarov grabbed a pawn in a Catalan but Wei Yi as black had sufficient compensation. However, Wei Yi's 19...Rfc8 (19...g5 safeguarding the bishop was needed) was an error after which he was just a pawn down for nothing and lost quickly.
Vladimir Kramnik beat Viswanathan Anand in a smooth easy performance that left the winner surprised. 10.h3? was already an error probably overlooking that 10. ...g5 11. Bg3 Nh5 12. Nxe5? Nxg3 13. Nxc6 fails for a couple of reasons (Qxf6 or Bxf2+). Kramnik was unsure whether Anand forgot this or didn't know it in the first place but after this black was better and white's position was already harder to play, slowly but surely Kramnik improved his position for a very comfortable win. They first played in 1989 and this either equalised the players' classical score or put Kramnik one up.
Magnus Carlsen seemed relieved to beat a struggling Hou Yifan with a last gasp win. Carlsen felt he built up quite a significant advantage but was dissatisfied with his exchange sacrifice idea which he felt in retrospect wasn't the best decision. Carlsen pressed for a long time but it was only after the error 50...d5? that he had the win.
Sergey Karjakin beat Fabiano Caruana after the latter made a very strange oversight just leaving a pawn to be taken after 17...Qe7 18.Bxb7. It took Karjakin a bit of time to convert but the result wasn't much in doubt.
Gawain Jones ended up being a bit worse against Peter Svidler but after 27...fxe4 (27...f4!?) the position equalised and the game was drawn.
Wesley So was a tiny bit better against Anish Giri but the game finished in a draw. Maxim Matlakov was better throughout against Baskaran Adhiban but he couldn't increase his advantage enough to win.
Anton Korobov maintained his 1 pt lead over Santosh Vidit after both drew in round 7.
The top ten English players, according to the December rating list are: Michael Adams 2709, Matthew Sadler 2686, David Howell 2682, Nigel Short 2681, Luke McShane 2643, Gawain Jones 2640, Jonathan Hawkins 2586, John Nunn 2578, Nicholas Pert 2550 and Stephen Gordon 2535.
Gawain Jones is 30 years old and became a grandmaster in 2007. I take it that Sue Maroroa is his partner and she attends to his blog. It mentions the trip to the hotel, the opening ceremonies and trying an escape room. I thought these were popular a few years ago and had disappeared as an amusement. Oh well, the blog:
There's something nice about being near the sea, though it would be even better if it was summer time! Oh well. This tournament is steeped in history and for many reasons players keep coming back to play in Wijk. It's quite a special place with a great chess atmosphere. The playing hall "De Moriaan" transforms for the duration of the tournament from your average sports hall into a very impressive chess themed room which fits all the professional and amateur players into one big room. We took a bus from the playing venue in Wijk to the headquarters of Tata Steel for the opening ceremony. When we arrived at the auditorium there was coffee and cake and some time for everyone to mingle.
Spotted was GM Robin van Kampen, back from Canada to finish his degree before venturing into the work force. He'll be commentating during the event. I also saw GM Yasser Seirawan, who's here supporting his wife Yvette who is playing in one of the amateur tournaments. He will be back later on in the tournament to commentate.
Then the Masters Players were all herded together (I helped with the herding) as this year they were going to enter the room "one by one" with Gawain being the first player to enter. It was like some sort of game show where the host, the Dutch standup comedian Tex de Wit, who is also an FM, announced their arrival with a few quick words about the players. As you can see from the photo there was also a Saxophone Quarter playing in the background.
Opening ceremonies vary from short nothingness to long boring ceremonies. I think the Tata Steel Opening Ceremony is one of the more enjoyable experience. For one, they have a pretty good host who spoke in English naturally and even managed to crack a few jokes. The Dutch have a strange sense of humour where you are never quite sure if they are joking or not but they seem to be fun natured. After a few speeches from the Chairman of Tata Steel Netherlands and the Deputy Major of Beverwijk, which is the nearest town, we came to the important part of the event - the pairings!
After the ceremony, we headed back into the main hall for drinks, nibbles and I attempted the world's smallest chess escape room. I am pleased to say I managed to escape (with some help from a certain GM). We've done a couple of escape room and those took about an hour to escape. This one you have only got 30 seconds and you need some chess understanding to be successful. I think that the escape room is linked to the festival that will be held here during the tournament. The information is in a leaflet in Dutch but hopefully during the tournament I'll be able to find out more information.
Gawain was last to be picked during the ceremony and ended up with Number 5. This means he'll get 7 whites and 6 blacks during the tournament.
Ivan Sokolov and Eric Hansen are the commentators.
What a great Sunday morning!
Later: Two comments from the English Chess Forum
Magnus has recovered
Let's not get too excited. It was never trivial. I'm sure it was a blunder but in return for his piece Magnus gets a pawn, safe king and no weaknesses. Compensation not to be sneezed at in the hands of a world champion.
Engines think Gawain has let a lot of his advantage slip with 22...Qb6?! (instead of 22...g5 or 22...Bf8) because now 23 g5! gives compensation. Commentators compare this with AlphaZero's positional piece sacs.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Sunday, 21st January, 2018, 11:38 AM.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's defeat allowed both his opponent Anish Giri and World Champion Magnus Carlsen to catch him. Carlsen's win was remarkable as he recovered from blundering a piece away in the opening phase.
Mamedyarov suffered his first loss of the tournament in a Symmetrical English where he more or less had equality out of the opening (perhaps rather than the new 12...Qd6 the known 12...Qb6 was better) but about 10 moves later he was in trouble and 10 moves after that he resigned.
Magnus Carlsen didn't predict Gawain Jones' choice of the Dragon Sicilian in spite of the Englishman having written a book about it. Carlsen was dissatisfied with the result of his opening and after a long think he uncorked the "crude" - his word - blunder 17.g4, this just lost a piece to 17...f4. Carlsen admitted that he was lucky to have any compensation at all, but he did have some, and having nothing to lose he found a good practical chance. Jones had choices to realise his advantage but to was his 22...Qb6?! (22...g5 or Kh8 were still large advantages) that reduced it quite a bit and after 23.g5 his 23...hxg5?! (23..Bf8 or gxh5 were better) his entire advantage had gone. The further error 25...Qd8? left Carlsen with a big advantage and Jones did not resist long after that.
Hou Yifan had quite a substantial advantage against Fabiano Caruana but it was all quite difficult and after 33.Qd2? Qh4! Caruana took the initiative and brought home the full point.
The remaining games were all drawn. Svidler-Anand, Kramnik-So and Wei Yi-Matlakov all lasted less than 30 moves. Adhiban-Karjakin was in a Rook and Pawn ending after 26 moves where white had a pawn extra on the king side but with few winning chances and it was drawn after 43 moves.
There was also a similar change in the leadership of Challengers Group with Anton Korobov losing while his only real rival Santosh Vidit won. The winner will surely come from one of these two players as they are two points clear of the rest of the field.
Blunder or sacrifice? Carlsen: "There shouldn't be any debate - it was a crude blunder!" The winning score? "Hopefully it will be my score!"
Anish Giri - The World Champion Magnus Carlsen is now officially a full piece stronger than the rest of the mankind!
Vidit and Anton are currently sharing 1st place for the Challengers, both a full two points ahead of other players. These two will go head to head in R11!
Daniel Gormally - Kudos to Gawain after such a painful loss to go to the commentary room and look at the game. Shows what a gentleman he is, I would have stormed off and punched a few arbiters
Jonathan Tisdall - Great to watch engine-free duo of Ivan Sokolov and Eric Hansen on the official commentary. Good to see what the human GM candidate moves are instead of the machine printouts
A fascinating round. But I wonder why is there no mention of the Kramnik - So game? There Kramnik found quite an interesting way to complicate matters with a piece sacrifice. It went way over my head, which of course made it so interesting. Although it ended in a worse position for Vlad and finally a draw it was still a remarkable try.
It's no wonder though the other games stole the show.
Last edited by Wayne Komer; Sunday, 21st January, 2018, 08:55 PM.
Anish Giri wins his game with Matlakov. After analyzing with him, Anish goes to the computer in the press room to check variations with Norwegian reporter Tarjei Svensen and then, in for the interview.
Mark Crowther - Matlakov sacrificed a pawn with 9.b3 (previously seen in the game Eljanov-So from the Gashimov Memorial last year) a move Giri hadn't prepared for, however 14.Rfc1 was a mistake according to Giri but that his own follow up wasn't the best and Matlakov stood better (25.Rd1 instead of 25.Nd6 is the computer suggestion). Starting with 31...Rc8 Giri applied pressure and after 35.Rc1 (35.Ke2 looks necessary) Matlakov's position became difficult if not just lost and he had to resign on move 39.
Giri is now the sole leader in first place. Are parts of the last sentence redundant?
Comments on chessbomb:
- Until Giri improves his record against Aronian, he is still not good enough
- Girinator is back
- How come Giri suddenly started winning? Have people been messing with the large hadron collider recently?
After the game is drawn with Karjakin, Giri joins Eric to comment on the games still be played. Giri is quite an entertaining commentator. The only problem with the transmission is that the acoustics of the room they are in makes them sound as if they are in a tunnel.
Vishy Anand comes in to talk about his game and then Vladimir Kramnik, about his. They seemed relaxed in the discussions. Add Magnus Carlsen to the list at the end. Good company to keep.
Today is a rest day but already itching to see incredible final three days and a very competitive finish. Shak, Anish, and Magnus tied for first and Vlad the Impaler a half point back.
The leaders Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Magnus Carlsen drew a fairly dull game where the World Champion got easy equality with black but nothing more. Anish Giri was under some pressure from Fabiano Caruana's London System but if there was any advantage for white it had gone by first time control.
Viswanathan Anand ground down Hou Yifan to move within half a point of the leaders. Maybe Hou Yifan should have held a rather miserable major piece endgame but it was not easy at all. Sergey Karjakin won his second game of the event in a long technical endgame against Vladimir Kramnik. Wesley So won an exchange for a pawn against Gawain Jones and eventually converted the advantage. Matlakov-Svidler and Adhiban-Wei Yi were fairly dull draws.
In the Challengers Santosh Vidit and Anton Korobov both drew again and retain a joint lead on 7.5 pts
Leonard Barden in The Guardian - Wijk has not seen a Dutch winner since 1985, when Jan Timman, at that time a world title contender, broke clear of an elite field in the middle rounds. This long barren period could change this weekend. Giri, the 23-year-old who has jumped back into the world top 10 this week, meets easier opposition than his rivals in the final two rounds.
It was different when the historic event was launched at Beverwijk in 1938 with a largely Dutch entry. The tournament managed to stay alive in the difficult 1940s, when the staple diet for competitors was pea soup, the food of the common people. Since then pea soup has always been the first course served to the grandmasters and masters at the final banquet.
The shock at the start of this round was the short draw between Mamedyarov and Jones. In competition with Carlsen and Giri for top spot, it seemed that Shakhriyar had gone very conservative - not playing "old man chess" but "very old man chess".
- Where is the fight?
- Is Shak ill or something?
- I'll call him right now and let him know how disappointed we are. Someone, give me his cell phone number.
- Mame hereby loses the tournament
- I can't believe my eyes. Giri and Carlsen for the tournament now!
- If I drew this position in a team game, my captain would punch me in the face
Giri wins over Adhiban and, for the moment, stands clear in first place
In the post-game interview, Giri cannot understand why Shakh went for the draw.
"It makes absolutely no sense what he did. His main strength is that he dares to go all out when it's needed. (...) It's completely insane, it doesn't fit into my worldview. I would bet my small apartment on that he would play for a win today."
The commentators are Eric Hansen and Jan Smeets. Eric has a loud, clear voice and is quite a pleasant commentator. Jan goes well with him.
Jan, born in 1985, is a Dutch grandmaster. Wikipedia says that he tried for a year to become a full-time chess professional. However, he found that the lifestyle was not to his liking. Relentless study at the chessboard can be a lonely existence and he considered the 'dead times' between chess events to be lacking any element of fun. Consequently, he became a student of Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam and included only as much chess study as his schedule allowed.
He looks very much like the Woody Harrelson of ten years ago.
Carlsen grinds it out against Matlakov. This comment from Danny Gormally, who is evidently following the contest on three different sites:
Matlakov hasn't played a single purple move, let alone red move on chessbomb, yet is getting mated in 28 moves according to Sesse. Shows the standard of top-level chess these days.
At the post-mortem interview, Magnus says that he wasn't thrilled with the line that the game went in to. "After the time control it was really unpleasant for him since once again he cannot force a draw and I can play forever."
He was surprised with Mamedyarov's decision to take a draw today.
Tomorrow, it is Mamedyarov-Anand, Karjakin-Carlsen and Wei Yi-Giri. If there is a tie for first, then there is a playoff. The round starts early - at 11:00 local or 5:00 AM Toronto/Montreal time.
In the rest of the games, Caruana continues his tumble:
Anish Giri is on track to a Dutch win at Tata Steel with the last round tomorrow but theres the incredible competitive will of Magnus? What will happen? Stay tuned. Regardless interesting chess. Looks like Shak might be left behind by the short draw he took this round.
Continue to be impressed by the commentary of Eric Hansen. Down to earth, confident, very presentable and whats more he seems comfortable in his own style and approach to commentary. Bonus, he's learning a lot by his observing the legends up close and watching their play and handling of positions.
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