Wijk aan Zee 2018, Round 2
I won't offer a full summary of the round 2 action, but here are the games, some of which have been annotated for your entertainment and instruction. Rounds 3 and 4 will gradually make their appearances as well.
If you can remember all the way back to round 1, there were three winners: Giri, Kramnik, and Anand. The first two faced off, and while Giri has generally been one of Kramnik's customers, in this round the roles were reversed. Giri had all the fun, and Kramnik collapsed badly before the end of the time control. The world champion notched his first (and through round five, only) victory of the event against Adhiban. Adhiban plays lively chess, but perhaps hoping for a solid draw against the world champion played the Scotch Four Knights with White. Carlsen equalized without any problem, and when Adhiban failed to play 25.c3 his position fell to pieces. The third winner on the day was Mamedyarov (at the moment the world's #2 player); he defeated Hou Yifan (who is having a terrible tournament with just half a point out of five). I didn't analyze this last game, but did offer some comments on the marathon battle between Wei Yi and Svidler. Wei Yi was on the verge of winning, but a moment of carelessness allowed the 45-time Russian champion to eke out a draw. (Yes, I'm exaggerating; he has "only" won eight Russian titles.)
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