Women Ascendant In Tata Steel As Ju Wenjun Upsets Firouzja, Roebers Defeats Niemann

A draw in the fifth round was enough for GM Anish Giri to increase his lead to a full point at the 2024 Tata Steel Chess Tournament. Second-placed GM Alireza Firouzja suffered an unexpected loss against Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun, who won a pawn and then showed excellent endgame technique in the rook endgame.

Like Ju in the Masters, the Dutch talent IM Eline Roebers scored the biggest scalp in her career in the Challengers as she defeated GM Hans Niemann. Because GM Anton Korobov drew his game, GM Erwin l'Ami is the sole leader after winning his third game in a row.

Results - Masters Round 5

Standings - Masters Round 5

The fifth round, on a very sunny day in snow-covered Wijk aan Zee, came after the first rest day of the tournament. Traditionally, a football (soccer) match was organized on Wednesday at the nearby football club Telstar. This year, GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu was the only player from the Masters who participated. "I managed to score one goal which I am proud of, which I can talk about forever!" he said.

The Challengers had a better representation with GMs Marc'Andria Maurizzi, Leon Luke Mendonca, Daniel Dardha, Salem Saleh, and Niemann all making an appearance on the pitch. While most felt Maurizzi was the best football player, the Frenchman himself was impressed by Salem. Meanwhile, the veteran Dutch GM Loek van Wely also played, which brought back memories.

Truely a legendary team from 25 years back - 1999! #TataSteelChess Look for the only one still active in 2024 😉https://t.co/QxGHMZiGiP pic.twitter.com/44kI7SVFzE

— !TUUR (Arthur van de Oudeweetering) (@TUUR1) January 17, 2024

On Thursday, the Women in Chess foundation organized an information session in the playing hall in Wijk aan Zee. Coincidentally, it was a very good day for women's chess, with victories for Ju and Roebers. One friend of this author suggested that it might have been the best day for women's chess since GM Judit Polgar defeated GM Garry Kasparov (on September 9, 2002).

In the Masters, the game was also relevant for the tournament standings as Firouzja suffered a blow in his fight for tournament victory. Meanwhile, Ju isn't in last place anymore.

She just had the best win of her career! Ju Wenjun takes down Alireza Firouzja!

She finishes the day on 2/5, while Firouzja's been slowed down to 3/5.#TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/hiHBLPd8ge

— chess24.com (@chess24com) January 18, 2024

The Chinese GM went for an Exchange French, about which she later commented: "I tried to play as solid as I can." This line is often underestimated due to the archetypical game Gurevich-Short (1990), where White needed a draw to qualify for the Candidates but got outplayed and lost. In practice, and if well-prepared, White can often play for a win. Firouzja initially also didn't equalize altogether with Black.

A difficult phase for Ju was when her opponent marched up his f-pawn, which grabbed White's e-pawn and then walked all the way to e2. She could have won that pawn with 23.g4, but felt that was too dangerous. A move later, Firouzja blundered and lost the pawn, which meant he had to suffer for a long time in the endgame.

It took a while, but in the end, Ju managed to convert the point and beat her strongest opponent thus far. It was for the first time in seven years that a woman beat a top-10 player in classical chess (GM Hou Yifan vs. GM Fabiano Caruana, Grenke Chess Classic 2017). Here's today's game, annotated by GM Rafael Leitao:

GM Gukesh Dommaraju is back to a 50-percent score after beating world championship contender GM Ian Nepomniachtchi today. The young Indian player won a pawn early on, but his opponent had compensation with the bishop pair. With just six minutes on the clock for six moves until the time control, Gukesh saw a nasty trick, set it up, and Nepo fell right into it.

"After 35.Nxc6 I was quite certain I would win this," he said. "Even this two-pawn-up bishop vs. knight endgame, OK, I still had to be a bit careful but I made the time control, I had a lot of time so it was not really a problem."

Winning games is important in tournaments like these, but defending difficult positions is almost as important. The half point Giri saved today, from a game where he was under pressure, was a big one. It might even have felt like a victory when Firouzja lost, as Giri's advantage over the rest of the pack is now a full point.

Praggnanandhaa's Jobava London was an interesting choice, and Giri, unsurprisingly, chose a very solid setup. His knight maneuver Nf6-g8-e7 was rather time-consuming, which gave White the chance to take the initiative on the queenside. Particularly 14.Qa3 was a nice move.

Basically, all went quite well for Pragg, except that he couldn't find a way to increase his advantage. "I think I just played a bit poorly today because I got a very good chance but I could have put more pressure," he said. "But it was also not easy to find something concrete."

GM Parham Maghsoodloo managed to stop the bleeding after three losses, but still was a little dissatisfied after his game with the world champion. White played a promising piece sac and seemed to have good chances, but GM Ding Liren defended well:

Results - Challengers Round 5

Standings - Challengers Round 5

For the first time, the Challengers group has a single leader, and it's a bit of a surprising one. L'Ami isn't known for his strong starts in Wijk aan Zee, and 4.5/5 must be a score he hasn't shown here before.

Today, the 38-year-old Dutch grandmaster had an easy day at the office against IM Stefan Beukema, although the game wasn't as straightforward as it seemed. The Belgian IM played inaccurately in the opening and was quickly outplayed, but the engine showed that as late as move 14, Black was still OK.

"My opponent is a very dangerous player; he likes to attack, he likes to always fish for tactics, for tricky things, so I decided to keep things as boring as possible," was how L'Ami explained his choice of the Exchange Slav. "I think he just didn't enjoy the position much and I took it from there."

It was Roebers, however, who stole the show today with her victory over one of the favorites. "I'm very happy, especially after these first four awful games," she said. "Now I finally got a win."

She didn't expect the Caro-Kann, and soon after the opening, it didn't go well actually. Niemann was better after the mistake 17.h3, but Roebers didn't collapse this time and was hanging on.

Another mistake from Niemann followed, allowing White to take the initiative, and then the American made a final, decisive error in calculation:

Meanwhile, Niemann has decided to both launch a Substack newsletter and start doing daily recaps on his YouTube channel, in order to connect more with his fans. After his loss, he analyzed his win from the fourth round instead, and commented:

"Today I played a very, very bad game we're not going to talk about. We're going to analyze my win first, and once I start winning again I will start analyzing my wins. So I did play round five today which I lost absolutely miserably in a terrible fashion and I've only decided to do this recap against all principles that I hold so dear  to distract myself from the absolute embarrassing display that I put on and an embarrassing moment that will not repeat itself so I'm sure that the rest of the tournament I'll continue playing as well as I was before and not play like six, you know, idiotic moves in a row and then blunder the game, so I will analyze this victory to get me back into good spirits."

Pairings - Masters 6

Pairings - Challengers Round 6

The Tata Steel Chess tournament takes place January 13-28, 2024, in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. The time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves followed by 50 minutes to finish each game with a 30-second increment. Both the Masters and Challengers groups are 14-player round-robin tournaments.

Previous posts:

• Praggnanandhaa Defeats World Champion Ding, Passes Anand To Become #1 In India
• Giri Beats Donchenko, Catches Firouzja In 1st Place
• Firouzja Moves To 2/2 In Tata Steel Chess Masters
• 4 Black Wins In Tata Steel Chess Masters Opening Round
• Ding Liren Ready For Tata: 'I Feel Much Better Than Before'
• 2024 Tata Steel Chess: World Champion Ding Returns, Carlsen Missing