Lev Aronian Leads Tata Steel

Official Website Round 2 Report

In round 2 of Tata Steel Chess, world number two Levon Aronian took sole lead by beating last year's winner Hikaru Nakamura.

The American grandmaster had little to complain about a Dutch opening, as Aronian freely admitted: “That was not the way to play against the Dutch!”. Soon White give up a queen for rook and bishop and it seemed Black was doing fine.

Somehow, some way, over the next 30 moves Aronian used his surplus of pieces to greater effect than Nakamura used his queen, and collected the full point.

Lev Aronian defeated Hikaru Nakamura

World number one Magnus Carlsen could not keep in pace, as he soon found himself in a lifeless position against Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine. The matadors gave it 30 more moves, but the evaluation never dipped below dead even.

Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen

The third leader after day one, Dutch Anish Giri, had by then long left the premises. Teimour Radjabov had comfortably taken the sting out of Giri's Samisch King's Indian and even though the youngster was up a pawn, there was no way to exploit this asset and his draw offer after 24 moves was accepted.

Anish Giri and Teimour Radjabov

Wijk aan Zee dinosaur Loek van Wely was also facing the King's Indian Saemisch and just as Radjabov soon reached a comfortable position. Just before the first time control it seemed like Veselin Topalov was making some progress, but in the end the former World Champion was the one who had to tread carefully to salvage half a point.

Drawing even more comfortably with the black pieces were Boris Gelfand, against David Navara, and Gata Kamsky playing Vugar Gashimov.

David Navara and Boris Gelfand

Vugar Gashimov and Gata Kamsky

The Piet Zwart Prize, made possible by the municipalities of Velsen and Beverwijk, was awarded to Fabiano Caruana of Italy for his victory over Sergey Karjakin of Russia. In a Rubinstein Nimzo-Indian the Italian's minor pieces started to gradually gather on the kingside, while his opponent's knights gravitated towards the other side of the board. When White's queen joined the fray with 27.Qd1 Rfe8 28.Qg4, facing great peril, Black chose to give up an exchange with 28...Kf8 29.Bd6 Nxd6 30.Nxd6 and lost without a chance some 30 moves later.

Fabiano Caruana beat Sergey Karjakin

Group A standings after 2 rounds:

In Grandmaster Group B Pentala Harikrishna of India is the sole leader with two out of two after grinding down Katerina Lahno in a rook endgame.

Pentala Harikrishna defeated Kateryna Lahno

Ivan Sokolov awarded the Piet Zwart Prize in group B to Sergey Tiviakov for his expert exploiting of the pair of bishops against his compatriot Jan Timman.

Sergey Tiviakov (right) and Jan Timman

Group B round 2 results:

The Group B standings after 2 rounds:

Second seed Maxim Turov was the only player in Group C to win his first two games by beating Pieter Hopman of the Netherlands on the black side of a Benko Gambit.

Somewhat surprisingly, number one seed Matthew Sadler of England, long-time resident of the Netherlands, was unable to beat much lower rated Tania Sachdev of India. In fact, the Englishman was somewhat fortunate to escape with a draw after having been outplayed with White in a theoretical endgame resulting from a Scotch Game.

The daily prize was awarded to Dutch Lars Ootes and India's Baskaran Adhiban for their spectacular draw.

Group C round 2 results:

The Group C standings after 2 rounds:

Report and photos from the official website coverage. Videos by Freshmen media.