Wijk aan Zee, Round 2: Aronian Leads with 2/2
Levon Aronian is again confirming his status as one of the world's top two players. After defeating Hikaru Nakamura in a crazy, imbalanced game, he has taken a clear lead with 2/2 in the A-group at Wijk aan Zee. Round 1 co-leaders Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri drew with Vassily Ivanchuk and Teimour Radjabov, respectively, and are now tied for second half a point behind Aronian. They are joined by the day's other winner, Fabiano Caruana, who defeated Sergey Karjakin. (Poor Karjakin is alone in last at 0/2.)
In the B-group Pentala Harikrishna is alone at 2-0 after a win over Kateryna Lahno. Lahno should have drawn a sharp double rook ending, but goofed up on the final move of the time control: 40...Rxa7 41.Rxa7 Rxh2 would have drawn easily. L'Ami and the two heroes of last year's C-group, Nyzhnyk and Vocaturo, are half a point behind. Timman's fans had a bad day, as he lost to Tiviakov and fell to a -1 score.
In Group C, second seed Maxim Turov is the sole leader on 2-0. He's half a point ahead of five players, including top seed Matthew Sadler. Sadler overextended against Tania Sachdev and lost a piece, but managed to hang on by a hair to draw.
Round 3 Pairings for the A-Group:
- Gelfand - Topalov
- Radjabov - Navara
- Karjakin - Giri
- Nakamura - Caruana
- Carlsen - Aronian
- Kamsky - Ivanchuk
- van Wely - Gashimov
Reader Comments (1)
Carlsen-Aronian will be a juicy one, I hope!