Carlsen beats Dominguez, joins lead with Kramnik

Magnus Carlsen defeated Leinier Dominguez in round 11 of the Corus Chess Tournament to join Vladimir Kramnik in the lead. The Russian drew with Black against Alexei Shirov. In the only other decisive game of the day, Loek van Wely beat Sergei Tiviakov after 88 moves.

The Corus Chess Tournament takes place January 16-31 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands. Next to hundreds of amateurs, three Grandmaster Groups (A, B and C) with 14 players each play a closed round-robin. The rate of play is 100 minutes for 40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, and 30 seconds increment starting from move 1.

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Games round 11

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Round 11

15:13 CET The top game of this 11th round is Shirov-Kramnik, and before anything else I'd like to mention that Ian Rogers is doing live commentary at the tournament website. In fact he'll be doing the same tomorrow and Sunday, as a prelude to plans of the organizers for 2011 to bring live commentary throughout the event.

Shirov is trying an exchange sacrifice similar to what often happens in the Marshall Gambit (or rather Attack) of the Ruy Lopez. The concept had been mentioned before by Anand, who didn't think much of it, but apparently Shirov has his own ideas. Meanwhile the two have reached an ending that looks about equal.

Smeets and Anand have already draw - they started repeating at move 13 already. Unfortunate, especially since the two had the nowadays rare Keres Attack of the Scheveningen on the board. Carlsen and Dominguez have entered a very complicated Grünfeld (Russian System), and the Dutch encounter between Van Wely and Tiviakov is a relatively quiet Queen's Indian.

In B, So-Giri is already extremely sharp and interesting. All in all, this year's Corus tournament has been great and continues to be. Later more!

16:18 Jan (Smeets) was totally unprepared for Vishy's Scheveningen, and didn't have the critical lines ready. For instance he could have tried 11.Bg2, but "the truth is I didn't mind to split the point against him", he told me.



According to Nakamura, who already drew with Leko, the accurate 12...Qd7! basically "kills everything", after which it was dead equal.

With three pawn islands versue two, Shirov seems to be slightly worse in the ending now. Kramnik also looks more confident in fact. Short has managed to get another IQP position on the board but Caruana looks alright. Carlsen is better according to some experts in the press room, but it's certainly not easy. Ivanchuk won a pawn but his king isn't as safe as Karjakin's.

Giri sacrificed a piece against So and is now moving all his pieces to his opponent's king. Anything can happen there. In C, Li Chao totally crushed Muzychuk and is pretty sure of qualifing for B now.

23:44 CET Indeed White's advantage wasn't much and so Short and Caruana drew an equal endgame. Carlsen defeated Dominguez and just did the press conference, which we'll put up as soon as possible.



After a tumultuous time trouble phase, former compatriots Ivanchuk and Karjakin also drew. It seems that 36.Nxa5 allows too much counterplay, but it's not easy to think of something else. In the game 40.Qe2 b6 followed by 41...Qxb3 also looks drawish. Kramnik has just sacrificed his knight for Shirov's passed pawns and will probably draw the endgame, according to the experts, including Magnus Carlsen. Van Wely has a nice advantage against Sergei Tiviakov and will certainly keep on pressing for a long time.

Anish Giri had an angel on his shoulder today; his attack didn't work out and he was basically lost against So from move 30 onwards. 35.Qe2! Nf2 36.Rf1! Nxh3+ 37.Kh2 would still have won for White, but instead the pinoy GM fell for a mating trick. Giri was the first to admit that he had been very lucky. He increased his lead to a point as all other games in B ended in a draw.

Shirov and Kramnik drew a very interesting game where the Russian found a series of only moves to hold the balance.



Loek van Wely eventually won against Sergei Tiviakov. His ending with bishop and two passed pawns against rook (and two fixed pawns on the queenside) looked like a draw, but KingLoek managed to find a winning set-up in the end.



Tomorrow Kramnik plays Anand with Black, and in the last round the Russian has the white pieces against Karjakin. Carlsen has Black against Leko tomorrow and then White against Caruana on Sunday.

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Schedule & results Grandmaster Group C

Corus 2010 | Round 11 Standings Grandmaster Group A

Corus 2010 | Round 11 Standings Grandmaster Group B

Corus 2010 | Round 11 Standings Grandmaster Group C

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC: Group A | Group B | Group C