Carlsen, Aronian Go Down In Spectacular 3rd Round Tata Steel

In a spectacular third round of the Tata Steel masters in Wijk aan Zee, two former winners lost: GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Levon Aronian, to GM Radek Wojtaszek and GM Wesley So respectively.

GM Vassily Ivanchuk, who beat GM Loek van Wely, joined GM Fabiano Caruana in first place. GM Ding Liren was the fourth winner of the day; he defeated GM Baadur Jobava.

Photo Alina l'Ami.

The challengers group saw a big upset: WIM Anne Haast managed to win against GM Jan Timman. In the same round GM Vladimir Potkin won against GM Valentina Gunina and GM David Klein beat GM Bart Michiels.

On Monday, the third round of the Tata Steel tournament was played, and what a round that was! At some point seven decisive results wasn't an unlikely scenario in the masters, and eventually only two games ended in a draw.

GM Baadur Jobava's offbeat opening, an Old Indian with an early Bf5, completely backfired. It basically came down to GM Ding Liren playing healthy moves and getting an easy attack on the black king.

Interestingly, after the game, the Chinese GM suggested an early improvement for Black: meeting d4-d5 with ...Nf6-e4!. And, as it turns out, this was exactly what GM Pentala Harikrishna recommended in his article about this opening in the September issue of our PDF and PGN magazine The Master's Bulletin!

“In the first game I played badly, maybe because of the [jetlag]. But yesterday I played very well in the endgame and it made me more confident,” said Ding afterward.

After losing her first two games, GM Hou Yifan had a very good chance to score a full point against GM Ivan Saric. In an Accelerated Dragon, the Croatian grandmaster played quite riskily — he won a pawn, but his king's position got seriously compromised.

It's not easy to part with your g7-bishop in such positions, but Hou rightly took on c3, but then she missed a few possibilities to get a promising position. A glance at the game with an engine will be a disappointing experience for her...

A very one-sided game was GM Vassily Ivanchuk vs GM Loek van Wely, and it reminded of many other similar losses by the Dutch GM with this opening in this Dutch village!

KingLoek and the Sicilian in Wijk aan Zee. Not a happy combination. #TataSteelChess

— ChessVibes (@ChessVibes) January 12, 2015

Ivanchuk probably expected the Scheveningen, one of Van Wely's favorite defenses, and the Ukrainian had prepared an interesting setup with an early Qe2 and 0-0-0. On e2 the lady is blocking the f1-bishop, but on the other hand White doesn't have to worry about Ng4, can go f4 in one go and sometimes this threatens e5.

Van Wely chose to develop his queenside first, but at some point he mixed up different plans. Maybe he was hoping that g4-g5 wasn't possible because of ...Bg4 winning an exchange. But... Ivanchuk played it anyway, sacrificed that exchange and got a wonderful position.

Chucky is a genius #TataSteelChess

— Nigel Short (@nigelshortchess) January 12, 2015

The next game to finish was GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs GM Teimour Radjabov. It started with the highly topical 5.Bf4 QGD (also covered in our latest magazine issue, by GM Ivan Sokolov) and the players followed a recent Leko-Kramnik game for 22 moves.

MVL deviated with 23.h4 to weaken Black's kingside and on move 29 computers suggested that things were going well for White, but in reality Radjabov had seen a fortress well in advance.

And then something happened that doesn't happen very often: both GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Levon Aronian lost their games! Both blundered in the same round, to GM Radek Wojtaszek and GM Wesley So respectively. 

Aronian's mistake was made at an early stage. The opening was a Scotch (Mieses Variation) and it became rather sharp: Black got the center, White pushed his pawns on the kingside with tempo. 

Black was probably still O.K. in that position after 20 moves, but he simply blundered a piece. Aronian held on for quite a while (his opponent was low on time already when it happened), but it was too difficult to not win this game for So.

Wesley So beat Levon Aronian: "I got my revenge from last year's tournament when he beat me". https://t.co/uttN64eIAW #TataSteelChess

— Tata Steel Chess (@tatasteelchess) January 12, 2015

And then also Carlsen! The world champ played the Leningrad Dutch against GM Radek Wojtaszek, and started running with his a-pawn early on. At some point he gave it up and started focusing on the kingside, and his initiative looked serious... until he allowed his bishop to be trapped.

A great result for Radek Wojtaszek, who prepared so many games for Anand against this opponent!

Carlsen: "Today there was too much fantasy and then reality. I got too optimistic in the opening." #TataSteelChess

— Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS) January 12, 2015

Carlsen: "I can't blame the experimenting. There are many ways to get an okay position in this opening. It's all about playing well"

— Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS) January 12, 2015

Press conference Radek Wojtaszek

A picture is worth a thousand words. @MagnusCarlsen lost to Radoslaw Wojtaszek. Photo by @alinalami #TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/h068UCk6Wy

— Tata Steel Chess (@tatasteelchess) January 12, 2015

The last game to finish was GM Anish Giri vs GM Fabiano Caruana. Right after the opening, another 5.Bf4 QGD, Black sacrificed an exchange but his position remained extremely solid.

Giri seemed to be making progress, but stubborn defense yielded his opponent the desired half-point after almost 100 moves.

2015 Tata Steel Masters | Results & Pairings

2015 Tata Steel Masters | Round 3 Standings

The big upset of the day in the challengers group was WIM Anna Haast beating GM Jan Timman — and quite convincingly.

“At some point I just attacked with my knights and started pushing my pawn, until he resigned,” Haast duly remarked after the game. “I noticed that he started thinking more and more, which gave me a good feeling.”

She also revealed that before the game she had to be in Tilburg (over 100 km from Wijk aan Zee as the crow flies) for her studies, “but apparently that is possible on the same day.”

On the way back she prepared in the car with her laptop!

Yesterday we saw Ding Liren beating Hou Yifan, and today GM Vladimir Potkin crushed GM Valentina Gunina. No mercy for the lady compatriots! The game saw a nice final move:

Australian IM Ari Dale played a spectacular draw with GM Wei Yi:

2015 Tata Steel Challengers | Results & Pairings

2015 Tata Steel Challengers | Round 3 Standings

The Tata Steel tournament takes place January 9-25 in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. The rounds start Saturday at 1:30pm local time, which is 4:30am Pacific, 7:30am New York and 11:30pm Sydney. The last round starts 1.5 hours earlier.