Tata Steel 2: Wesley So beats Anand as five lead – chess24

Wesley So took time out to thank the Lord for an early winafter Vishy Anands bishop sacrifice backfired in Round 2 of the Tata SteelMasters. There were also wins for Vladislav Artemiev over Nikita Vitiugov,Daniil Dubov over Vladislav Kovalev and Jeffery Xiong over Day 1 hero Jordenvan Foreest, with those four winners catching Alireza Firouzja in the leadafter the 16-year-old missed a great chance to beat Jan-Krzysztof Duda. MagnusCarlsen remains on 50% after a 31-move draw against Yu Yangyi that left him justtwo games short of setting an undisputed unbeaten streak.

You can replay all the games and check out the pairings fromthe Tata Steel Masters using the selector below:

And heres the days commentary from Peter Svidler and JanGustafsson:

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In Round 2 of the Tata Steel Masters the only complete non-eventwas the game of World Champion MagnusCarlsen, who played the Najdorf against Yu Yangyi but got absolutely nothing. He commented later that obviouslyits not inspiring:

I tried to be clever in the opening and I feel like I justended up tricking myself and he was a bit better, but he didnt play the mostambitious way and then it just petered out to a draw.

In a way the 31-move draw suited both players. Yu Yangyi gotback on track after losing in Round 1, while Magnus is now just one good resultagainst Jeffery Xiong away from matching Sergei Tiviakovs claim of a 110-gameunbeaten streak.

That draw left 16-year-old Alireza Firouzja with an opportunity to move a full point ahead ofthe World Champion, who seemed to catch Jan-KrzysztofDuda off-guard by playing the Queens Gambit Accepted. Duda offered anearly queen exchange only to end up worse with White by move 7 and lateradmitted the best that could be said of his performance was that hed survived:

Its kind of a miracle, isnt it? Today I was basicallymissing everything. I even missed 23Nc2!after 23.Kc4?, which is of coursekindergarten level, but I was lucky enough to draw.

For a second day in a row Duda was in deep trouble, with thetwin threats of Ne3+ and Na3+ hard to parry, but after 24.Rxd8+ Rxd8 25.Rf3 and a few inaccurate moves from Alireza thedanger had passed. It was even White who had any winning chances by the time adraw was agreed on move 39.

The longest game of the round saw Anish Giri pressing for a win against Fabiano Caruana in a sharp theoretical line of the Nimzo-IndianDefence thats covered in Jan Gustafssons ARepertoire against 1.d4: Part 3: The Nimzo-Indian Defence:

Here Jan suggests 13Bxc3 in his repertoire, while Caruanainstead went for 13gxf4. As isoften the case in modern chess, all the mayhem ultimately only led to aslightly better endgame for White, though when Giri picked up a pawn he wasabsolutely within his rights to press until a draw was agreed on move 63.Afterwards Anish mentioned a very interesting idea suggested by Fabi for move23:

23.f4! is a pawn sacrifice to gain complete control in thecentre, while after 23.hxg3 Bxe5 24.Rd7material was equal and White was better, but some of the tension had beenreleased.

In any case, that meant Anish Giri had started this yearsWijk aan Zee by getting the better of opening struggles against the world numbers 1 and 2. Anish commented:

Thats good, but its early to say. So far the tournamentjust started and I think the people in the lead are not the ones who are goingto eventually win, so basically the standings are irrelevant.

That brings us to the days four wins:

We mentioned in ourpreview that you could make a case for WesleySo being Magnus Carlsens most likely challenger in Wijk aan Zee, given theUS star has won the event before and doesnt have the distraction some of hisrivals have of preparing for the Candidates. That case has been strengthened byWesley revealing in the post-game interview that he now has a second workingfor him again, since Wesleys previous peak coincided with his work withVladimir Tukmakov. The unnamed second wasnt the first person Wesley thanked,however:

Id like to thank the Lord for an early win Hopefully thiswill be a better year than last year, because last year around the middle ofthe year I wasnt playing very well, but then in December I was playing a bitbetter, also online I was playing a bit better, and then today I won, sohopefully its a good sign that good things are coming to my chess. Also Idlike to thank my second who works with me online, but I cant name him yetbecause we didnt agree on that, but actually this was his idea, this 7.h3, 8.Bb3.

Our commentary team noted that it was an uncommon way tohandle the Giuoco Piano position in the game nowadays, and a crisis arose onmove 12:

Vishy Anand herethought for almost 12 minutes before going for what Wesley called the totallyunexpected sacrifice 12Bxf2+!?.Afterwards Wesley said 12Qe8 was the best, when its almost totally equal,while he said that Vishy mentioned the interesting 12Nd5!? after the game.

Wesley had looked at the sacrifice in advance until 13.Kxf2 Ng4+ 14.Kg1 Ne3 15.Qe2 Nxc2 16.Rb1,but he said he didnt look deeply, and this may be one of those cases wheredeeper analysis was required to accurately assess the position. Wesley knewthe computer liked his position a lot, but in fact the advantage drains away asyou continue the lines, and it was with some justification that he feared arepeat of the 2004 Kramnik-Leko World Championship match. Back then Peter Leko founda hole in Vladimir Kramniks preparation at the board and went on to score awin that could have altered chess history. In this case, however, the hole wasonly that the position seems still to have been completely equal until 22.Qxe5:

Here Black can hold with 22Nxg2! and is only in troubleafter 22Raf8?!, which Wesley metwith 23.Qg3 rather than the computerssuggested killer, 23Qg5! Peter Svidler took that as a cue to reflect on theinfluence of engines on modern chess:

Challenge accepted! In this case the difference seems to bethat in the game after 23.Qg3 Blacksbest defence is 23R8f6 with Rg6 next, but after 23.Qg5 h6 24.Qg3 Black nolonger has that option, since without a pawn on h7 the rook would be en priseon g6.

That was ultimately academic, since Vishy played 23Qe2?!, missing Wesleys devastatingreply:

Black would have good chances of survival if not for 24.b4!!, threatening both Rb3 and Bb2.Vishy thought for almost 17 minutes but there was nothing to find, and after 24Rxg2+ 25.Rxg2 Nxg2 26.Qg4 Black resigned rather than trying to play on in what would have been ahopeless ending.

There was a pattern in Round 2, with the other three winsfor the players with the white pieces also owing a lot to successful openingplay. Daniil Dubov played a nearnovelty with 7.Qf4 and felt he wasmore or less winning when VladislavKovalev played 10Qxd6!? insteadof 10Bxd6:

Daniil had a 50-minute advantage on the clock by this stage,and although he was kicking himself I think in general I played like anidiot! he begins his post-game interview the plan he followed gets the computersstamp of approval. Kovalev was playing on increments by move 22 while Dubovstill had 50 minutes, and the Belarusian duly collapsed under the pressure. Vladislav hastherefore started with 0/2.

There was a similar pattern in Xiong-Van Foreest. Jorden, who started the day as co-leader, hadblitzed out most of his moves in a 3.Bb5+Sicilian, but 19Rc3? was a mistakethat saw him respond to 20.Bf2! withan epic 54-minute think.

That meant that even when he got back in the gamelater on he was doomed by the clock situation:

30Kf8! and Black has a playable position, but good luckfinding such only moves with under two minutes on your clock. Jorden insteadplayed 30Bh4? and Jeffery, whostill had almost half an hour, replied 31.g3!,when it was game over. Heres Jeffery talking about the game and his upcoming clash withMagnus Carlsen in Round 3:

Weve arguably left the days most impressive game to last,as 21-year-old Russian VladislavArtemiev scored a remarkably smooth win over his compatriot Nikita Vitiugov. Artemiev identifiedthe innocuous-looking 12a5?! as a bigmistake:

He set about proving that immediately with 13.Nb3! and the later plan of 16.Be3! and 17.Bb6! to target the weakness. It was fitting that the game endedwith Vladislav finally putting the pawn out of its misery with 50.Nxa5:

Artemiev had more trouble with everyday matters!

Yes, its my first visit in Wijk aan Zee and its a newexperience for me. Ok, the weather is cold, but Im from Russia and its usualfor me. Ok, and one problem is many shops close early, so I cannot go after theround, but still its not a big problem. I will have a few free days and I doit here Shopping, maybe souvenirs forfamily and maybe some milks or drinks.

That leaves a 5-way tie for first between Xiong, Dubov, So,Artemiev and Firouzja, though with 11 rounds to go that means almost nothingyet!

Once again there were only wins for veterans in theChallengers, if you can call 31-year-old RaufMamedov and 34-year-old Jan Smeetsveterans and in this field, you probably can!

The win by Smeets over 15-year-old rising star Nodirbek Abdusattorov was particularlyimpressive given that Jan has essentially quit top-level chess since he lastplayed in Wijk aan Zee in 2013. Im glad to be back, he said, adding, Ofcourse I want to qualify for the Masters now! How would he expect playing inthe top group to go? To be frank, I think I would suffer like hell in the Mastersgroup!

Games to look forward to in Round 3 includeCarlsen-Xiong (Magnus won their previousgame in the 2017 Isle of Man Open), Anand-Giri and Firouzja-Artemiev.Follow all the action live here on chess24 from 13:30 CET: Tata Steel Masters | Tata Steel Challengers

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Tata Steel 2: Wesley So beats Anand as five lead - chess24