Tata Steel Round Two

In round two at Wijk Aan Zee the best chess in the A Group tended to come from the players with the black pieces, but this didn't translate into many decisive games.

In the biggest matchup of the day, Vishy Anand ran into some opening preparation from Vladimir Kramnik.  As the world champion sank deep into thought, Kramnik bashed out his moves quickly to crank up the pressure.

However, Anand found a way to ensure a draw by returning the sacrificed material, leaving fellow competitors time to pore over Kramnik's new opening idea.

Nakamura had another good day at the office, with Lev Aronian making no impression at all against his Dutch Defence, resulting in an early draw.

Shirov cleverly played the Scotch against Carlsen, which Carlsen himself had played yesterday.  Both players were up for a fight, but accurate play from Carlsen left Shirov with nothing better than repeating the position.

The only decisive result in the A Group came when Nepomniachtchi (pictured above) took advantage of an endgame slip by Wang Hao to join the leaders Anand, Nakamura and Smeets on 1.5 points.

It was a close call, but Nepomniachtchi makes Wang Hao blink first

Giri (left) and Smeets do some post game analysis for the press and fans

In Group B England's Luke McShane won a second time to take the sole lead, while the C Group provided the largest helping of decisive games including a win for Lahno against Sachdev in an all-female clash.

All the games are available at the official site www.tatasteelchess.com

A selection of games from round two are below.

Sachdev (left) succumbed to Lahno in round two (all pics from the official Facebook page)

The full results from round two: