Wijk 2012 summary

Aronian clearly played the best chess and was a very deserving winner. This was the third time Aronian won Wijk, even more impressive considering that he wasn’t even invited in 2010 after winning in 2007 and 2008 and being 0.5 from first in 2009. He then shared third in 2011 before returning to first place now. How hard it is to score such results can be exemplified by the fact that a top player like Kramnik has an average finish below fifth in Wijk the last ten years.

Carlsen will be disappointed about not winning, but sharing second with a 2830 TPR was an OK result, and in his next tournament he can score his tenth 2815+ performance in a row after Nanjing 2901, London 2815, Wijk 2815, Bazna 2853, Biel 2833, Sao Paulo/Bilbao 2842, Tal Memorial 2849, London 2875, Wijk 2830. Very consistent results by Carlsen who wasn’t at his best but won a nice game against the tournament winner, just like against Nakamura last year.

Radjabov was solid and seems to have reached a new level the last year, and an undefeated +3 was another great result for him in Wijk where his four latest finishes are 1-3, 2-4, 2-4 and 3-4. He wasn’t invited the last years but his good results might secure him an invitation next year considering also his increasing rating.

Caruana was the big positive surprise, shared second, and top ten on the live rating list after the tournament. He could have scored an even better result if he hadn’t blundered away the win against van Wely.

Last year’s winner Nakamura did well considering his tough schedule, going +2, +5, +2 in three Wijks is quite impressive.

Gelfand had what was a fairly normal result for him in these surroundings, with the same -3 score as in his previous Wijk. His CV isn’t the most impressive for a challenger, even Janowski was Chessmetrics #1 a few years before the match, and Short won Candidates matches against Karpov and Gelfand clearly, as well as a tournament ahead of Kasparov and Karpov while preparing for the Candidates. Gelfand isn’t a player on that level, even if he did win a nice game against Karjakin. 

Topalov had a weak tournament and turned a couple of winning positions into losses. He is down to his lowest world ranking in more than ten years and plays much worse lately than he did in 2005-08.

As always a very exciting Wijk aan Zee, and maybe Aronian is on the way to his first #1 spot on the rating list, only 11 points up to Carlsen at the moment.