Wins For Caruana, Ivanchuk, Vachier-Lagrave In 1st Round Tata Steel

In the first round of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, GM Fabiano Caruana won against GM Ding Liren, GM Vassily Ivanchuk beat GM Baadur Jobava and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave defeated GM Hou Yifan.

The day before the start, tournament director Jeroen van den Berg said that he was “very happy to have Magnus Carlsen as the world champion back in Wijk aan Zee.”

And the presence of the Norwegian does add a lot, as it does in any tournament.

The press room is now more crowded from the very start. A number of Norwegian journalists have come to Wijk aan Zee, and the ones working for the commercial TV channel TV2 will stay the whole time. 

New journalists means new perspectives, or a fresh look at a familiar image. TV2's Kaja Marie Snare, who was also in Sochi, tweeted this morning:

Got to love this tournament, spectators so close to the players - and no glass wall #intence #2sjakk #TataSteelChess pic.twitter.com/wQ2anKUpSi

— Kaja Marie Snare (@kajasnare) January 10, 2015

In the first round, GM Magnus Carlsen faced an opponent with Black he had never beaten: GM Anish Giri.

“I'll play against a coward who plays for a draw when he gets an equal position with White,” was Carlsen attempt on Friday to stir up things a little.

“After the game I reminded him he was right yesterday,” said Giri at a press conference. “If I don't seen an advantage I just make a draw. The draw is always O.K., but it's how the game goes that counts.”

Clash of the titans in R1 @tatasteelchess ! And huge media attention @NRKsjakk #saychess #TataSteelChess #chess pic.twitter.com/a6fLb0qQ6G

— Alina l'Ami (@alinalami) January 10, 2015

The opening, a Modern Defense, quickly left the theoretical waters. With an early c4-c5 Giri made an attempt to achieve something tangible, and when Carlsen thought for 20 minutes he “got optimistic.”

But the next moves from the world champ were strong, and Black was O.K. in the ending.

The young Dutchman made clear that he actually liked Carlsen's remark. “I very much like when a top chess player says something interesting. (...) It's always a lot of fun. It's not like I started to cry when I read it but I'm very happy and I hope he'll say more. I also hope at some point he will tell Norwegian television what I should do to improve, what I should do to become a better player, that would be really great.”

When press officer Tom Bottema asked Giri about his (rating) progress in 2014, Giri made one more reference: “I am still a coward but I just play a little better.”

Here's the full press conference with Giri courtesy of the organizers:

GM Fabiano Caruana defeated GM Ding Liren convincingly.

“It's a good start, especially with Black against such a strong player so I'm quite happy about it,” said the Italian GM. In a Fianchetto Grünfeld he followed a recent game of GM Boris Gelfand against the same opponent, and deviated first, on move 13.

The young Chinese grandmaster didn't find a good plan, put some of his pieces on odd squares, and then Black got the advantage by opening the position with ...f6. Both his bishops became very strong, and White kept on struggling with a funny rook on the queenside.

The game GM Vassily Ivanchuk vs GM Baadur Jobava caused some confusion on the Internet, because the computer evaluation on the live page shows 0.00 in the final position. “Had Jobava resigned in a drawn pawn ending?” people wondered.

But no, the position was really lost, as Ivanchuk explained while joining the live commentary with GM Yasser Seirawan. He admitted that he had been worse, and that the rook ending was also absolutely fine for his opponent: “Black cannot lose if he doesn't want to win.”

But a few moves after the time control Jobava suddenly “collapsed,” as Ivanchuk put it, and completely miscalculated a pawn endgame. The win was “not so difficult for a good grandmaster,” said the Ukrainian with a smile.

So what about that engine showing 0.00? Well, that's simply because during online transmission of games, an engine often doesn't get enough time to look at a position. At depth 22, it couldn't calculate Chuky's winning line.

The third winner of the day was GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who defeated the women's world champion, GM Hou Yifan. The Frenchman chose an interesting line that you're more likely to come across at your local chess club: the Alekhine-Chatard Attack.

Despite his early push of the h-pawn, White castled kingside (like Black) and then traded queens. In a complicated ending MVL somehow kept his initiative going until he won a pawn on move 40. An excellent technical performance!

GM Wesley So vs GM Radek Wojtaszek was the longest of the four draws today. In a Sicilian Najdorf it was So who had the best chances, and around move 40 Wojtaszek had to be really careful. At the end of the game, both players missed a good winning chances, and so a draw wasn't a bad result.

GM Ivan Saric, who promoted from the challengers group last year, started with a solid draw against GM Levon Aronian in a Giuoco Pianissimo:

GM Loek van Wely chose the Pirc Defense against GM Teimour Rajdabov. With 6.d5 the Azerbaijani GM avoided the theoretical lines, but Van Wely wasn't bothered by that. Black's position was always comfortable.

“I was quite happy with my game. In time trouble I missed something but I was lucky that I could still make a draw,” said the Dutch GM.

Here's a video interview with Van Wely courtesy of the organizers:

2015 Tata Steel Masters | Pairings & Results

Whereas the lower group tends to see more decisive games, the first day of the challengers in fact saw no fewer than six draws. Only GM Robin van Kampen managed to win, against GM Sam Sevian:

2015 Tata Steel Challengers | Pairings & Results

The Tata Steel tournament takes place January 9-25 in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. The rounds start start Saturday at 1:30pm local time, which is 4:30am Pacific, 7:30am New York and 11:30pm Sydney. The last round starts 1.5 hours earlier.