Wijk aan Zee 2015, Round 2 Recap
Fabiano Caruana is off to another good start in a super-tournament, and at 2-0 he is the clear leader of the A-group at Wijk aan Zee. His victim today was Ivan Saric, who won the theoretical battle on the black side of a Zaitsev Ruy Lopez. That's a bit surprising, given Caruana's generally impeccable home preparation, but unfortunately for the young Croatian grandmaster he couldn't make the most of it. It seems to me he got a bit too excited about his chances around moves 29 and 30, and rather than recapturing the f-pawn right away he focused on his own plans. After Caruana's 31st and 32nd moves, however, it was clear that White had everything under control, and the end result was that Saric had given up a pawn without getting anything in return. Caruana's technique was basically flawless, and Black resigned down a piece and two pawns for nothing.
The day's other winner was Ding Liren, who beat his countrywoman Hou Yifan in a rather one-sided game. Hou chose a pawn sac that looks good optically but hasn't had great results, and by the time she regained her pawn her structure was ruined. Ding won the endgame pretty easily.
Loek van Wely should have joined the winners' circle, but on three occasions failed to convert huge advantages against Radoslaw Wojtaszek, who has already had more luck in the first two rounds than some players will have in the entire 13-round tournament.
The other games were relatively uneventful. Magnus Carlsen got nothing with White against Wesley So and had to work a little to get the draw. (Admittedly, not too much, as So seemed pretty happy with a draw against the world champion.) Levon Aronian and Anish Giri bashed out 25 moves or so of Gruenfeld theory, resulting in a position where White gets an extra pawn or two but Black's activity and the opposite-colored bishops makes it very hard for White to play seriously for a win. Aronian tried, but Giri defended well and was never in danger. Baadur Jobava played a line against Vachier-Lagrave's Accelerated Dragon that has a reputation for giving White nothing, and nothing happened today to change that. Finally, Teimour Radjabov and Vassily Ivanchuk played a game that wasn't predestined to a draw straight out of the opening, but it was still quite balanced almost straight through from start to finish.
In the B-group there was more activity today. Yesterday's only winner, Robin van Kampen, drew his game, and he was caught by David Navara, Bart Michiels, Valentina Gunina and Wei Yi.
The A-group games, with my comments, are here, and these are tomorrow's A-group pairings:
- Ivanchuk (1.5) - van Wely (1)
- Vachier-Lagrave (1.5) - Radjabov (1)
- Ding Liren (1) - Jobava (.5)
- Saric (.5) - Hou Yifan (0)
- Giri (1) - Caruana (2)
- So (1) - Aronian (1)
- Wojtaszek (1) - Carlsen (1)
Reader Comments (4)
I was following van Wely’s game and it seems to me it’s another good illustration of why he’s a second tier GM and has never been at the top table…
[DM: Well, it's true that he hasn't ever been in that very small group of grandmasters who have been considered genuine title contenders, and if that's all you mean by labeling him a "second tier GM" then okay.
If you mean something more than that, however; that he's just some kind of ordinary strong GM then I'd have to call such a claim a bit ridiculous. First of all, he has been over 2700 over at least two stretches (first in 2001 and most recently in 2013, hitting a peak of 2714) and he's often pretty close to that figure. Second, if his failure today is supposed to be an illustration of his second-class status, what about So's failure to beat Wojtaszek in the previous round, or Aronian's blowing a similarly won game against none other than van Wely last year? Cherry-picking such failures isn't a particularly fair way to assess a player, and using such a methodology I could make an argument that Magnus Carlsen is a terrible endgame player as I can show you at least six or seven rook endings he has completely blown as a GM, ranging from the elementary to the relatively easy. Everyone screws up sometimes!
Returning to the positives, Van Wely has beaten Kramnik, Topalov, Aronian, Caruana, Nakamura, Radjabov, Ivanchuk, Kamsky, Shirov, Karpov, Spassky and Korchnoi (among many other elites) in classical games and can also include Anand, Gelfand amongst his victims in rapid chess. Of course almost all of the above have beaten him more often - sometimes far more often - than he has beaten them, so I'm again in agreement if you mean that he's not there with the absolute top guys, the ones who are or who have come close to becoming world champions. But good luck finding some other "second-tier" grandmaster with a list of scalps like that!]
In Caruana-Saric it may have been rather tricky to realize that 29...Rxf5 is fine for Black, since in case of 30.Qg4 one has to spot 30...Rf6!! (31.Qxg5 Rg6; 31.Qc4+ d5); apparently both players missed it - Caruana was surprised to see this move suggested by the computer in the post-game interview.
[DM: It's good to be charitable in general, and especially so when speaking of higher-rated players. That said, Saric had several other "outs" before reaching the lost position. First and second, I noted two options for him on move 30 that would leave him with at most a slight disadvantage. Third, after 29...Rxf5 30.Qg4 Black can also play 30...Bd7, and this is also good enough for equality. (If 31.Ng3, then 31...Rxf2 avoids material losses.) Fourth, if he had spotted 31.Nd3 in the game but missed the first three solutions (plus 30...Rf6), he could have played differently on move 27. Saric is the one who precipitated the crisis, and it appears that he had quite a few ways to maintain good prospects. Maybe he was in time trouble - I didn't check on that - or maybe he just had a bad day as far as calculation is concerned. That can happen to anyone.]
Well you said it yourself - van Wely gets beaten by the top players a good deal more than he's managed wins against them. My point is just that I would expect the top players to convert yesterday's position more than van Wely. There's also the point that he's a much more experienced player than say So.
Thanks for posting the New York Times article on Sevian which I alluded to yesterday !
As for Round 3...............guess who lost, and who now has a score of 2/3 ! Carlsen, of all people. Granted, he still has
plenty of time to get caught up with the rest of the pack, though.
[DM: No real need to guess, but in any case he has only one point, not two.]