As the 2011 edition of Wijk aan Zee heads into the homestretch, the fighting spirit seems to increase by the round. In round 10 there were only two draws in the seven Group A games (admittedly, both were disappointing and one was almost shameful), as players throughout the crosstable fight to improve their places.
At the top of the table, the world champion, Viswanathan Anand, seized the opportunity to pick on a struggling Alexei Shirov. Shirov played another Cambridge Springs with Black, and ruined a worse but playable position in two moves. The first was a regular error, but the second was an outright blunder that forced resignation a couple of moves later.
Hikaru Nakamura kept pace with Anand, winning a very good game against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Nakamura was able to break apart Black's kingside in a Gruenfeld, and once the board opened up Black faced mate or drastic material loss.
Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik could have maintained a tie for first if they won, too, but they only managed to draw. Both had Black, against Anish Giri and Jan Smeets, respectively, and neither came close to winning. Giri stood better, but apparently felt satisfied with a draw, while Smeets played so shamelessly for a draw that he could have come to the board with a beggar's cup. Then again, Smeets confessed to handling the Berlin endgame so badly against Magnus Carlsen back in round 6 that this might have been a case of a man needing to know his limitations. Anyway, it was short, boring, and so drawish that even the Exchange French looks exciting by comparison.
Speaking of Carlsen, and also in Smeets' defense, Carlsen refused to accept a draw by repetition against Ian Nepomniachtchi and fought on. Objectively, there were no grounds for this, but with White and trailing the leaders by half a point entering the round he felt obliged to try. For something like the fourth or fifth time in this tournament, this strategy failed. (I'm aware of five or six implicit or explicit draw offers that were declined in this tournament, and only once did this pay off. The remaining games were all lost by the decliners.) Nepo was able to combine pressure against White's king with threats against Carlsen's queenside pawns, and this eventually won material. Carlsen tried giving up the exchange, but his opponent was up to the technical task and won the game. Down a point and a half with three rounds to go, Carlsen is almost certainly out of the running for first.
Farther down the crosstable, Alexander Grischuk's suffering continued, in this round against Ruslan Ponomariov. Grischuk played very creatively with Black in a Modern Benoni-ish King's Indian in which he gave up his queen for a rook and piece, but after that he played inaccurately. As a result Ponomariov was able to prevent Black from activating his army, and White won shortly after the time control.
Finally, Wang Hao defeated Erwin L'Ami in a slightly strange game. In an equal position L'Ami gave up a pawn for no obvious reason, since at best, if he recovered it without incurring any new problems, the result would still be equality. As it turned out, things weren't so simple, and a couple of inaccuracies later he was lost.
Standings After Round 10:
1-2. Anand, Nakamura 7
3-4. Aronian, Kramnik 6.5
5-7. Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi, Vachier-Lagrave 5.5
8-10. Giri, Ponomariov, Wang Hao 5
11. Smeets 3.5
12. L'Ami 3
13-14. Grischuk, Shirov 2.5
Thursday is a rest day, and on Friday these are the pairings for round 11:
Vachier-Lagrave - Anand
Nepomniachtchi - Nakamura
Kramnik - Carlsen
Wang Hao - Smeets
Grischuk - L'Ami
Aronian - Ponomariov
Shirov - Giri
In the B-Group, the leading triumvirate disintegrated. Two members, McShane and Sargissian, both lost, so So (so-rry) managed to shed both of them with a draw. However, he has a new friend at the top, Efimenko, who got there by defeating McShane (with Black, no less). So and Efimenko have 6.5; Tkachiev, Sargissian, McShane and Navara are but half a point behind.
In group C, the Vocaturo coronation march hit a bump in the road when he lost to Ivanisevic, still at 7.5. Fortunately for him, Lahno only managed to draw, so she's a point back, while Nyzhnyk's lost kept him a full point and a half behind, tied with Ivanisevic for third.
The round 10 games, with my notes, are here.