News

So Wins Again, Increases Tata Steel Lead

PeterDoggers
| 53 | Chess Event Coverage

Wesley So defeated Radoslaw Wojtaszek today and increased his lead to a full point at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament. In the challengers, Jeffery Xiong joined Ilia Smirin and Markus Ragger in the lead.

Everything So touches turns into gold at the moment. He has been enjoying a fantastic high in his career for the last half-year. There's a very good chance he will be winning his third super tournament in that half-year span now that he got to a full-point lead today. 

"I was very pleased with today’s game,” So said about his win versus Wojtaszek, a Closed Catalan that became really tactical right out of the opening. Eventually, White got a strong pawn majority on the queenside, which decided the game.

So is now just 3.9 Elo points behind Fabiano Caruana, who started with a win but drew his second-round game in Gibraltar today.

Source: 2700chess.com.

The games of today's round were not played in Wijk aan Zee. It was the second "Tata Steel On Tour" day, and this time the tournament settled in theater De Philharmonie in Haarlem.

Before that, the players visited the Frans Hals Museum, where they were welcomed by museum director, Ann Demeester. They received a short tour and got to see the highlights of the museum collection (see the above photo by Alina l'Ami).

Another 1.d4 player scored a fine win today and got to shared second place. Levon Aronian is now on 6/10 or "plus two" together with Magnus Carlsen, Sergey Karjakin, Pavel Eljanov and Wei Yi after beating Richard Rapport in a Queen's Indian.

Very aggressive play did the trick today for the Armenian number-one. "I know that my opponent likes to attack," he said. "It should be very unpleasant for him to defend!" 

Karjakin was the third winner of the day. He defeated his compatriot, Dmitry Andreikin, in a complicated endgame. Mirroring yesterday's report, it's tempting to describe this as "a win in Carlsen-style."

Harikrishna played well and drew with Carlsen. Games between Van Wely-Giri, Adhiban-Nepomniachtchi and Eljanov-Wei Yi were also drawn. 

Tomorrow is the third and final rest day. Round 11, on Friday in Wijk aan Zee, will see the games Wojtaszek-Aronian, Andreikin-So, Wei-Karjakin, Nepomniachtchi-Eljanov, Carlsen-Adhiban, Giri-Harikrishna, and Rapport-Van Wely.

Tata Steel Masters | Round 10 Standings

# Fed Name Rtg Perf 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 Pts SB
1 So 2808 2897 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 1 1 7.0/10
2 Aronian 2780 2825 ½ ½ 0 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 6.0/10 31.25
3 Carlsen 2840 2819 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 0 1 6.0/10 27.50
4 Karjakin 2785 2812 ½ 1 ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 6.0/10 27.25
5 Eljanov 2755 2808 ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 1 6.0/10 27.00
6 Wei Yi 2706 2817 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 1 6.0/10 25.25
7 Adhiban 2653 2789 ½ ½ 1 0 ½ 0 1 ½ 1 ½ 5.5/10
8 Harikrishna 2766 2758 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 5.0/10 26.50
9 Giri 2773 2757 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 5.0/10 23.25
10 Andreikin 2736 2674 ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 4.0/10 18.75
11 Nepomniachtchi 2767 2670 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 4.0/10 18.00
12 Wojtaszek 2750 2684 0 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 4.0/10 16.75
13 Rapport 2702 2663 0 0 1 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 3.5/10
14 Van Wely 2695 2517 0 0 0 0 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 2.0/10

Games from TWIC.

Markus Ragger and Ilia Smirin had to allow a third player to join them in the lead today. The young American player Jeffery Xiong got to plus four as well, thanks to a win over Sopiko Guramishvili, the wife of Giri and the tail-ender with just two draws and eight losses.

The pairings for the challengers on Friday are Ragger-Grandelius, Van Foreest-Bok, l'Ami-Tari, Xiong-Smirin, Tingjie-Guramishvili, Hansen-Jones, and Dobrov-Lu.

Tata Steel Challengers | Round 10 Standings

# Fed Name Rtg Perf 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 Pts SB
1 Ragger 2697 2721 ½ 1 1 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 1 1 7.0/10 31.25
2 Smirin 2667 2736 ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 0 1 ½ 1 1 7.0/10 31.00
3 Xiong 2667 2724 0 0 1 1 ½ ½ 1 1 1 1 7.0/10 28.00
4 Hansen 2603 2706 0 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 6.5/10 30.50
5 Jones 2665 2699 1 0 0 ½ ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1 6.5/10 27.00
6 Grandelius 2642 2643 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 1 6.0/10
7 L'Ami 2605 2615 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 1 1 5.5/10 24.50
8 Lu Shanglei 2612 2622 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 1 1 1 ½ ½ 5.5/10 23.50
9 Tari 2584 2597 ½ 1 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 5.0/10
10 Bok 2608 2511 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 1 1 4.0/10
11 Dobrov 2499 2507 0 ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ 1 0 1 3.5/10
12 Van Foreest 2612 2427 0 0 0 0 1 0 ½ 1 0 ½ 3.0/10
13 Lei Tingjie 2467 2431 0 0 ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 0 0 1 2.5/10
14 Guramishvili 2370 2255 0 0 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 0 ½ 1.0/10

Games from TWIC.


PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

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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