We have begun - update with interviews!

The fiesta has begun. Because it's gonna be one big chess feast of course. Interesting first pairing: Kramnik-Van Wely. But what about Radjabov-Anand. Update: interviews Aronian & Stellwagen.




And, last but not least, live games here or on ICC with Macauly and GM Larry Christiansen on Chess.FM. Chessdom is doing web live commenting as well. The two Dutch photographers Fred Lucas and Frits Agterdenbos are busy shooting lots of quality pics.

Update 16:43 CET: [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"313","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","height":"350","width":"425","style":""}}]]Three games have ended in a draw: Ivanchuk-Polgar, Adams-Gelfand and Kramnik en Van Wely. Loek said 'both were satisfied with the result'. Here yesterday's interview, in which he commented on the fact that he had to start the tournament against his former boss.


Today's results:

Grandmastergroup A V. Kramnik - L. van Wely ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? T. Radjabov - V. Anand 1-0 S. Mamedyarov - M. Carlsen 0-1 P. Eljanov - P. Leko ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? M. Adams - B. Gelfand ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? L. Aronian - V. Topalov 1-0 V. Ivanchuk - J. Polgar ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?

Grandmastergroup B P. Harikrishna - N. Short ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? Y. Hou - E. Bacrot 0-1 D. Stellwagen - M. Krasenkow 1-0 W. Spoelman - I. Cheparinov 0-1 S. Movsesian - G. Sargissian ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ? J. Smeets - H. Koneru 1-0 I. Nepomniachtchi - E. L'Ami ?Ǭ?-?Ǭ?

Grandmastergroup C S. Li - I. Krush 1-0 A. Ushenina - J. van der Wiel 0-1 F. Nijboer - A. Braun 0-1 P. Negi - P. Carlsson 0-1 Z. Peng - F. Caruana 0-1 M. van der Werf - E. Grivas 1-0 D. Ruijgrok - D. Reinderman 0-1

After the three relatively quick draws, Eljanov-Leko also split the point, after both opponents had played too solidly to become really dangerous. But the the round really went off, with Carlsen's victory against Mamedyarov. Magnus invited his opponent to go for the Accelarated Dragon, but it became a Closed Sicilian in which Black soon started some original stuff with ...c4!? and if you haven't seen it already, do have a look at Carlsen's excellent press conference. In a rook ending against Aronian, Topalov resigned in disbelief today, after he had thrown away a very good position. Here we have Levon himself explaining the game:

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Title holder Radjabov started excellently, beating Anand in an impressive game. Strong preparation, wonderful middle game play and a winning endgame technique. Striking detail: Anand could have claimed a three-fold repetition somewhere in the ending.

In the B group there weren't any surprises, although the way Stellwagen beat Krasenkow struck me; last year the Dutchman had to wait for six rounds for his first full point. He explains:

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In C, Van der Wiel showed shiny new ambition by starting with a victory for a change, and first seed Caruana immediately won a good game with Black against Peng.

The games: