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: