Tata Steel 2013 Round 6 - Carlsen Takes The Lead

The 2013 Tata Steel Chess is taking place from 12-27 January in Wijk Aan Zee in the Netherlands.

This famous annual tournament has three separate single round-robin competitions, the A, B, and C Groups, each featuring 14 players.

The strongest tournament is the A Group and this year features 6 out of the top 10 ranked players; world champion Vishy Anand, world #1 Magnus Carlsen, defending champion Lev Aronian, rising star Fabiano Caruana, world #6 Sergey Karjakin, and US champion Hikaru Nakamura.

Chess.com has live coverage and commentary of round 7 with BrotherJosh & GM Melik Khachiyan.  See here for the latest details (scroll down the page).

Chess.com coverage starts at 05:30 Pacific, 08:30 Eastern in the US (13:30 UTC).

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Round 6 - Official website report

In round 6 of the 75th Tata Steel Chess Tournament the highest rated player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, took the sole lead for the first time. The Grandmaster from Norway achieved little with White in a Ruy Lopez against Ivan Sokolov. However, the Dutchman failed to exploit a small edge and drifted into a queen-and-minor-pieces endgame that was slightly worse for him, after which Carlsen won in his habitual style.

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For a while it seemed like co-leader Viswanathan Anand was also going to win, but his opponent, countryman Pentala Harikrishna, managed to hold a worse endgame.

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The third co-leader, Sergey Karjakin, had a comfortable draw with Black versus Fabiano Caruana in a Berlin Defence.

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Holland's Anish Giri and China's Hou Yifan produced the hardest fight of the day. The latter had had a rough time thus far in Grandmaster Group A, but today things went her way. She quickly achieved an advantage with Black in a Sicilian Dragon, the same opening she lost to yesterday, and although Hou Yifan needed 85 moves to bring home her advantage, the full point was never really in doubt. The game ended in a study-like manner: 77...e4 78.Kg3 Ke5 79.Kf2 Kd4 80.Ke2 e3 81.Ke3 Kd3 82.Be6 e2 83.Bg4 Ke3 84.Bxe2 Rxh7 85.Kf1 Rf7 and White is lost, for example 86.Ke1 Rf2 87.Bg4 Rg2 88.Bh3 Rg1 89.Bf1 Rh1.

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Levon Aronian of Armenia was another player to win after a long endgame, showing that his extra pawn was worth more than Peter Leko's pair of bishops.

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Holland's Loek van Wely bounced back from his loss in the previous round with a win at the cost of Wang Hao. The Chinese Grandmaster sacrificed his b-pawn early on in a g3 King's Indian. The Dutchman gladly accepted, consolidated his extra material and eventually profited from the dividends of his own b-pawn: 41.Nxg7 forced resignation as Black will either lose an exchange after 41...Kxg7 42.Bc3, or a piece with 41...Rxa5 42.Bxa5 Nc4 43.Bc3.

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Lastly, Hikaru Nakamura gave it a go with White against Erwin l'Ami, but got away easily when the Dutchman accepted a draw on move 41 in a better position.

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Group A Standings After 6 Rounds

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In Grandmaster Group B, leader Richard Rapport had to content himself with a draw this time, unable to do anything with his minute advantage against Russia's Maxim Turov. In second place, one point behind with 4 out of 6, are 16-year-old Daniil Dubov, Sergey Movsesian and Arkadij Naiditsch, who finished his game with a surprising and deadly combination against Nils Grandelius. Black intended to prevent Ng5 with 22...h6?, but realized a loss was inevitable after 23.Ng5! e4 24.Qxe4 hxg5 25.Qg6! and there is no adequate defence against 26.Be4 followed by checkmate on h7.

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Group B Round 6 Results

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Group B Standings After 6 Rounds

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In Group C Italy's Sabino Brunello joined the lead by defeating Holland's Lisa Schut, as leader Fernanda Peralta could only muster a draw against Krikor.

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Group C Round 6 Results

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Group C Standings After 6 Rounds

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Photos from the official website. Videos by Freshmen media. Games via TWIC.