Anand and Nakamura lead together again in Wijk aan Zee

Going into the third and final rest day, again the names of Vishy Anand and Hikaru Nakamura can be found at the top of the Tata leaderboard. The World Champion beat Alexei Shirov while the American grandmaster defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Magnus Carlsen suffered his second loss, against Ian Nepomniachtchi.

General info

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is held from Friday, January 14th till Sunday, January 30th, 2011 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Besides many amateur events there are three Grandmaster Groups (A, B and C), all 14-player round-robins. All rounds begin at 13.30 CET, except for the last which begins at 12.00 hours. There are three rest days: on January 19th, 24th, and 27th. The time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds increment for each move starting from the first move. More info here.

January 26th, 2011: Round 10

This round started with a quick and boring draw, but luckily it was not an omen for the remaining games. Just like (almost) four years ago, Jan Smeets decided that a draw was an excellent result against Vladimir Kramnik. Because the ex-World Champion opted for the Berlin, the task wasn't too difficult for the Dutchman. Here's Smeets's comment about this game and his win against Nepomniachtchi yesterday:

[audio:http://www.chessvibes.com/audio/tata11/r10_smeets.mp3]

Not long after this game had finished, another Dutch grandmaster handling the white pieces came into the press room after scoring half a point. Anish Giri was joined by Levon Aronian, and the two analyzed their game, and especially the final position, for a while. It turned out that Giri was better, but he had less time. Here's his reaction:

[audio:http://www.chessvibes.com/audio/tata11/r10_giri.mp3]



And... that's all as far as draws are concerned. The other five games ended decisively! The first winner was Hikaru Nakamura, who thus strengthened his lead in the standings. The American beat Vachier-Lagrave convincingly in the same Grünfeld line that the Frenchman had used in the same tournament to beat Shirov with the white pieces. The rare move 13.Bg5 got Vachier out of his comfort zone and a few moves later already he miscalculated, after which White's advantage was clear. Nakamura did the press conference, so at a later stage you can watch his explanation in a video here at ChessVibes.



While Nakamura was showing his game in the press room, another '1-0' appeared on one of the TV screens above him: that of Anand vs Shirov. Despite the fact that he won in a mere 26 moves, Anand called it an 'incredibly difficult game'. Shirov repeated his Cambridge Springs, which was 'tempting' for the World Champ to enter because it allowed target preparation. (The Indian brought Peter Heine Nielsen with him as a second, which might be interpreted as a very serious attempt to win this tournament.) Anand made the line look very good for White, because when Shirov allowed 22.Be7 he lost surprisingly quickly.

Anand-Shirov Wijk aan Zee 2011
22.Be7! Rfe8? With the amazing 22...Be4! Black might hold: 23. Rxe4 (23.Qd1 Bc3! is a nice pointe) 23...Nxe4 24.Bxf8 Bxf8 25.Rxb8 Qe1+ 26.Bf1 Nd2) 23.Bd6 Rbd8

24.Bh5! Killing. 24...Rxd6 25.Bxf7+ Kf8 26. Bxe8 and Shirov resigned because Qg6+ and Nxc4 will follow.


Anand after the game:

[audio:http://www.chessvibes.com/audio/tata11/r10_anand.mp3]



In a game between two players who are not in great shape in Wijk aan Zee, the next winner was Ruslan Ponomariov, who defeated Alexander Grischuk. It didn't start well for the Ukrainian, who blundered 20.f4 which allowed a strong queen sacrifice. But then, as he did so often already, Grischuk started thinking too much, and making inaccuracies, allowing White to get the upper hand. Ponomariov's explanation:

[audio:http://www.chessvibes.com/audio/tata11/r10_pono.mp3]



Erwin l'Ami had a tough day at the office. Against Wang Hao the Dutchman got a slightly worse position right after the opening and was just suffering for the remainder. And then, more of a surprise, Magnus Carlsen lost with White against Ian Nepomniachtchi. At first the Norwegian had avoided a move repetition, but soon this turned out to be a risky decision. For long, Carlsen had to play with an open king's position and eventually this was exploited by the Russian.



Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi Wijk aan Zee 2011
25...Qd7! 26.Bf4 (26.fxe4 Ra4 27.Qd2 Bxe4+ 28.Kg1 Qg4+ 29.Kf2 Qg2#) 26...Ra4 27.Qb6 Nf6 28.Qxd6 Qg4 29.Nd4 Rxd4 30.Qxd4 Bxf3+ 31.Rxf3 Qxf3+ 32.Kg1 Qg4+ 33.Kh1 Qc8 and Black kept an advantage due to white's bad king.

In the fight for first place in the B group, and important game was McShane-Efimenko. The Ukrainian had prepared a set-up with ...e5 and ...g6 against the Englishman's 1.g3 opening and after a series of tactical strokes in the middlegame it was Black who got out of the mess with an extra piece. A great game, worth the 250 euros day prize and a shared first place for Efimenko. That's because leader Wesley So drew with Tkachiev.



The 100-euro daily prize in the C group went to Sebastian Siebrecht, who beat top seeded player Murtas Kazhgaleyev in a nice King’s Indian. Despite a loss against Ivanisevic, Daniele Vocaturo still leads by a full point. Kateryna Lahno, who saw her husband GM Robert Fontaine of Europe-Echecs arrive today, is still second and will face Vocaturo with Black on Friday.

Games Group A

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Tata 2011 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Tata 2011 | Round 10 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Games Group B

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Tata 2011 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Tata 2011 | Round 10 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Games Group C

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Tata 2011 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Tata 2011 | Round 10 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN: Group A | Group B | Group C via TWIC
• Tata Steel Chess on Twitter
• Tata Steel Chess on Facebook
• Tata videos on YouTube
• Sergey Shipov analysis at Chess in Translation