More live reporting

last update 21.04 CET

My tournament has just finished, so I can take over rapanui's work of yesterday and go for the live reporting. About the games: Number last on the list, Motylev, is playing an excellent game against the tournament's favourite (at least according to the Chessvibes poll) Anand. Aronian has a good position and Loek doesn't see to have his surprise weapon on the board yet, but an ordinary Siciliaan in which he's still vulnerable unfortunately. This day's experts (Ree, Ligterink, Abeln) fear for his life. But first some nice portrait photos which oak took today.

16.52 CET: "Motylev understands when he should play the game of his life. Here in Wijk aan Zee on a Sunday afternoon." Gert Ligterink and all the other journalists are enjoying really themselves here. This second round is a great one, especially after yesterday's dull start of course. No hope for salvation for KingLoek is left here. Karja against Radja seems to be going well for the Ukrainian: White has won material. Carlsen-Navara, the other boys match, seems dynamically balanced: David's exchange is compensated by White's protected passed pawn. The other games are a lot more quiet.

Update 17.40 CET: a big fight has to end in some damage. Unfortunately Motylev didn't make it, and I'm talking about drawing the game, which he could and should have. How? This you can see for yourself, later tonight with the video I just took of the post-mortem. Van Wely too lost, despite a funny little tactical stroke at the end - it wasn't correct. Aronian won a fine game, where he got a slightly better ending out of the opening and didn't let it slip away. Shirov had no chance against Kramnik, who looked as strong as a world champ today.

Update 18.11 CET: stay tuned tonight, because we will broadcast the full press conference that was just given by Veselin Topalov!

Lasts update (21.04 CET): Last year Tiviakov was very succesful with his 3...Qd6 Scandinavian, but this year it went wrong immediately. Finally we saw someone going for the line recommended by Khalifman (in his Opening repertoire according to Anand): after 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 a6 Peter Svidler played the move 6.g3!?. By the way after 6...Bg4 7.h3 Bh5 8.Bg2 Nc6 9.0-0 0-0-0 he deviated from the book with 10.Bf4 (Khalifman gives 7.Bg2 Nc6 8.0-0 0-0-0 9. d5!). Soon an ending was reached where Black had problems. As always, Tivi was tough, but at the end he didn't make it. The game Radja against Karja (I mixed up Black and White this afternoon) ended in a draw after there was too little material left for White to do something with his queen against Black's rook and bishop. And Carlsen-Navara, well, I was probably a bit too optimistic for Magnus; David's exchange was decisive at the end.

Viswanathan Anand

Levon Aronian

Sergey Karjakin

Alexander Motylev

David Navara

Ruslan Ponomariov

Teimour Radjabov

Tatiana Kosintseva