Carlsen Increases Lead At Tata Steel Chess India Rapid & Blitz
Scoring 2.5/3 again, Magnus Carlsen increased his lead at the Tata Steel Chess India Rapid & Blitz to three points. Wesley So, who also scored 2.5/3 on day two, joined Hikaru Nakamura in second place.
Sometimes events that chess players do not always appreciate—"press moments" before they have to play—are quite special indeed. Such was the case when Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand, the two contestants of the 2013 world championship in Chennai, India, visited Kolkata's famous cricket ground—Eden Gardens, which was established in 1864 and is the oldest cricket stadium in the country.
Today it hosted the test match between India and Bangladesh, and the two chess world champions rang the ceremonial bell to kick off day two of the test match, which has an audience of approximately one billion viewers.
Cricket...cricket? What's a cricket? :) https://t.co/9LKjcfDeHs
— Hikaru Nakamura (@GMHikaru) November 23, 2019
In the playing hall, the show has belonged to Carlsen so far. Scoring 5/6, or rather 10/12 as rapid games count double, the world champion has already created quite a gap with the rest of the field.
"Much like six years ago it's going swimmingly—pun intended!" he said in an interview today, referring to his jump in the hotel pool after he won the world title.
Finally World Champion! Thanks to all for your support! pic.twitter.com/ZGvHtzkZsf
— Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) November 22, 2013
Carlsen started the second day with a win against runner-up Hikaru Nakamura. White's 4.d3 and 6.e4 are not exactly the main line, but it makes sense to try it (with an extra tempo) if you've been playing the Sveshnikov as Black for a while!
Nakamura's treatment was not great, and he did have some chances later, but overall Carlsen remained in control:
Perhaps also inspired by cricket, Anand started his day with a win as well. Aronian tried his favorite setup with ...Kh8 and ...f5 in the Giuoco Pianissimo, but the Indian GM knew how to deal with it:
Carlsen continued winning in round five, where with the black pieces he defeated Anish Giri. With this win, his fourth in a row, the Norwegian reclaimed the number-one position in the live rapid ratings. The game finished with a pawn endgame:
Nakamura bounced back with a win in round six to retain second place:
So also scored 2.5 points today, which was good for a tie for second place with Nakamura. One of his victims was Ding Liren, who was right to go for a self-pin but then missed some tactics:
One more day of rapid follows on Sunday, and then on Monday and Tuesday we'll see two days of blitz with nine games each day.
All day two games for replay/download:
Previous report:
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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