Anand catches Nakamura in 4th round Tata

After four rounds Viswanathan Anand and Hikaru Nakamura share the lead at the 2011 Tata Steel Chess Tournament. World Champion Anand beat Wang Hao from China, while Nakamura escaped with a draw against Anish Giri. Wednesday is the first rest day.

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.

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011: Round 4

This Tuesday started with a welcome surprise for the Dutch organizers. The country's biggest newspaper De Telegraaf had decided to put a photo of Anish Giri on their front page - a clear sign that Giri is bringing chess to a wider audience. Later that day quality newspaper NRC had photos of both Carlsen and Giri on their front page.


The next person who could be seen with a (modest) smile on his face was former winner Levon Aronian. His victory was not too difficult because his opponent simply mixed up some moves in the opening. GM Sergey Shipov's interpretation was that According to GM Sergey Shipov, Nepomniachtchi had decided to “improve” on 8…Qb6, by playing 8…cxd4 first, so that after 10.Qxa8 Nbd7 11.c5 he could play 11…Qxb2, and both the queen and the c1-rook would be under attack. However, with the exchange of pawns the c1-rook is protected by the f4-bishop. We asked Aronian about it after the game, who said his opponent simply forgot to play ...Qb6 at once.

[audio:http://www.chessvibes.com/audio/tata11/r4_aronian.mp3]



The next winner was Vishy Anand. The Indian beat Wang Hao in a line of the Nimzo-Indian he had already looked at for his match against Vladimir Kramnik in Bonn 2008, thus confirming that preparation for such important events are useful for years to come. With a very strong knight sacrifice White got a powerful pawn phalanx and giving back material didn't help the Chinese much. Anand explained the game in the press room and a video of this will be published in a separate post.



However, the audience - always a mixture of visitors and amateur players in Wijk aan Zee - was captivated by another game: Shirov versus Vachier-Lagrave. Once again the former had his fire on the board, and once again the latter was demonstrating his calculating skills. In a Grünfeld Shirov was trying hard to mate his opponent, while the Frenchman kept his cool and defended impeccably. Here's what he thought during this difficult game:

[audio:http://www.chessvibes.com/audio/tata11/r4_vachier.mp3]



Hikaru Nakamura was also involved in a difficult game against Dutch GM Anish Giri, who was the centre point of attention and the subject for many photographers, after his win against Carlsen. And yet again the 16-year-old managed to impress the experts and the fans by keeping an advantage throughout the game against America's number one. He even tried to win a 4 against 3 rook ending (and why not; Black didn't reach the ideal set-up with ...g6 and ...h5) but to no avail. Macauley Peterson did a report for Chess Life Online which includes a video about Nakamura's first round encounter against Grischuk.



Magnus Carlsen was under some pressure against Ruslan Ponomariov but defended the game accurately to a draw. Compatriots Kramnik and Grischuk and and l'Ami and Smeets came to the same result, despite small advantages for White in both games.



In the B group Luke McShane held Friso Nijboer to a draw rather easily and thus kept his full point lead in the standings. Zahar Efimenko, David Navara, Gabriel Sargissian and Laurent Fressinet share second place with 2.5/4 - the latter won the 250-euro day prize for his win against Surya Ganguly.

In 'C' this prize, worth 100 euros, went to Benjamin Bok who beat top seed Murtas Kazhgaleyev in a Ruy Lopez. Italy’s Daniele Vocaturo remained the sole leader in this group with 3.5 points - he was on the verge of losing when his opponent IM Jan-Willem de Jong dropped a piece.

Games Group A

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Tata 2011 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Tata 2011 | Round 4 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Games Group B

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Tata 2011 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Tata 2011 | Round 4 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Games Group C

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Tata 2011 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Tata 2011 | Round 4 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