Amateurs playing with a view of the big playing hall. | Photo: Alina l'Ami/Tata Steel Chess.

Anand, Carlsen Lead Tata Steel Chess After Great Wins

PeterDoggers

Jan 21, 2019, 12:50 AM | 30 | Chess Event Coverage

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is down to two leaders as both Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen won excellent games in round eight.

Vladimir Kramnik's suffering continued as he lost to Jan-Krzysztof Duda whereas Vladimir Fedoseev defeated Sam Shankland.

Carlsen's 21-game drawing streak seems part of a distant past now that he won his third game in Wijk aan Zee. His attacking victory against Richard Rapport was appreciated a lot by the fans, but the Norwegian star was more down to earth about it.

"I don't think it was a masterpiece by any stretch. I think I had very nice position early on and then it kind of played itself. And I missed a number of things. But it's good to get a win."

Two years ago, in the same eighth round, Rapport had managed to beat the world champion. "It was nice to get a revenge," said Carlsen.

Carlsen interviewed after the game. | Video: Tata Steel Chess.

Anand, the opponent of Carlsen in two world championship matches, won a splendid game as well, against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Interestingly, Black's mistake came quite early, on move 12, as Anand explained. White got a good setup on the queenside and then the desired break c2-c4 worked tactically as well. In fact, everything worked for White in this game.

Anand interview after the game. | Video: Tata Steel Chess.

What happened to Kramnik is what we have seen multiple times now: over-optimistic play, a crazy sharp game and in the end... a loss. The 14th world champion is now in last place.

Once again Kramnik pushed his h- and g-pawns, as if he doesn't know any other type of chess anymore than coffeehouse. Duda then nicely demonstrated that Black's king position was more weakened than White's.

"I think it's my biggest win in classical ever so far," Duda remarked. "I'm very happy with it."

Duda interviewed after the game. | Video: Tata Steel Chess.

Right after Shankland had won a good game, his first in the tournament, he had to suffer his second loss straight away. Fedoseev managed to outplay him with a non-theoretical double fianchetto setup.

"This game was even easier for me than others," said Fedoseev. "I got a positional advantage and then I just forgot about the strongest move and play with [an] edge and try to keep it as long as possible. It was forcing my opponent to make mistakes."

Fedoseev interviewed after the game. | Video: Tata steel Chess.

Tomorrow is the second rest day of the tournament. "Today wasn't the brightest of days. I wasn't in such a good shape so it's good to get a rest," said Carlsen.

Tata Steel Chess Masters | Standings

#	Fed	Name	Rating	TPR	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Score	SB
1		Carlsen	2835	2883			½	½			½		½		1	1	1	½	5.5 / 8	18.25
2		Anand	2773	2886			½		½	½			½	½	1		1	1	5.5 / 8	18.25
3		Nepomniachtchi	2763	2878	½	½		½	1			½			½	½		1	5.0 / 8	20
4		Ding Liren	2813	2832	½		½		½	½	½		½	1			1		5.0 / 8	19.75
5		Giri	2783	2858		½	0	½			½	1			½	1		1	5.0 / 8	17.75
6		Radjabov	2757	2788		½		½			1	½			½	½	½	½	4.5 / 8	16.5
7		Vidit	2695	2748	½			½	½	0		½	½	½			1		4.0 / 8	15.75
8		Duda	2738	2730			½		0	½	½		1	½			0	1	4.0 / 8	14
9		Fedoseev	2724	2697	½	½		½			½	0		1		½	0		3.5 / 8	15
10		Shankland	2725	2695		½		0			½	½	0		½	½	1		3.5 / 8	12.25
11		Mamedyarov	2817	2681	0	0	½		½	½				½		½		½	3.0 / 8	11.5
12		Rapport	2731	2686	0		½		0	½			½	½	½			½	3.0 / 8	10.75
13		Van Foreest	2612	2617	0	0		0		½	0	1	1	0					2.5 / 8	9.75
14		Kramnik	2777	2582	½	0	0		0	½		0			½	½			2.0 / 8	8

Pairings for round nine (Tuesday): Shankland-Carlsen, Radjabov-Fedoseev, Giri-Van Foreest, Nepomniachtchi-Vidit, Kramnik-Ding Liren, Mamedyarov-Duda, Rapport-Anand.

Download Masters PGN

In the challengers group there's now a sole leader: Maksim Chigaev won again, and reached a score of 6/8. The 22-year-old GM from Kemerovo defeated IM Stefan Kuipers in "Kramnik style" but as we all know, running with the h- and g-pawns is usually safer when Black himself hasn't castled yet.

Black did castle behind those pawns and Kuipers found an interesting exchance sacrifice but failed to get the desired counterplay.

Somehow an already lightly annotated game wasn't included in yesterday's report. That was a mistake, but today is a second chance.

16-year-old Andrey Esipenko, now one of the two players trailing Chiagaev by half a point, won a great game yesterday against Anton Korobov with the move Nxf7 that was introduced by Veselin Topalov against Kramnik 11 years ago:

Andrey Esipenko. | Photo: Alina l'Ami/Tata Steel Chess.

Tata Steel Chess Challengers | Standings

#	Fed	Name	Rating	TPR	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Score
1		Chigaev	2604	2765		½				½		½	1	½		1	1	1	6.0 / 8
2		Kovalev	2687	2724	½		½	1	1		½	½			½		1		5.5 / 8
3		Esipenko	2584	2728		½				½	1		½	1	1	½		½	5.5 / 8
4		Gledura	2615	2647		0			½	1	½	½	½	1			½		4.5 / 8
5		Van Foreest	2502	2633		0		½		½		1	½	½		1	½		4.5 / 8
6		L'Ami	2643	2598	½		½	0	½			1			½		½	1	4.5 / 8
7		Korobov	2699	2622		½	0	½				½	1			½	½	1	4.5 / 8
8		Bareev	2650	2595	½	½		½	0	0	½				1		1		4.0 / 8
9		Maghsoodloo	2679	2561	0		½	½	½		0				½	1		1	4.0 / 8
10		Keymer	2500	2533	½		0	0	½						½	½	1	1	4.0 / 8
11		Praggnanandhaa	2539	2543		½	0			½		0	½	½		½		1	3.5 / 8
12		Paehtz	2477	2431	0		½		0		½		0	½	½			½	2.5 / 8
13		Saduakassova	2472	2420	0	0		½	½	½	½	0		0					2.0 / 8
14		Kuipers	2470	2269	0		½			0	0		0	0	0	½			1.0 / 8

Pairings for round nine (Tuesday): Praggnanandhaa-Korobov, Chigaev-Esipenko, Van Foreest-Kuipers, Gledura-Paehtz, Saduakassova-Maghsoodloo, Bareev-Keymer, Kovalev-L'Ami.

Download Challengers PGN

Replay the live broadcast of the eighth round.

The official video broadcast is "proudly powered" by Chess.com, which you can watch on both tatasteelchess.com and Chess.com/TV. All rounds start at 1:30 p.m. local time (7:30 a.m. New York, 4:30 Pacific) in Wijk aan Zee, except for the following two rounds:

On January 23 (Leiden) the rounds starts half an hour later, at 2 p.m.
The final round, on Sunday January 27, starts 1.5 hours earlier, at noon local time.

Commentary will be provided by IMs Anna Rudolf and Lawrence Trent during the first week, and GM Robert Hess and IM Sopiko Guramishvili during the second week.

Previous reports:

Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

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