Tata Steel: Giri Clings to a Half-Point Lead with One Round to Go
And that round will take place in a few hours.
Anish Giri could have clinched a tie for first, as he was very much winning against Alireza Firouzja in round 12. Somehow, he failed to convert; in part thanks to Firouzja's dogged defense, but some of Giri's errors were unforced, too. Thanks to his narrow escape, Firouzja, as well as Fabiano Caruana and Jorden Van Foreest(!) are all just half a point behind Giri entering the last round.
Going back to round 11, one of the tournament's Cinderella stories came to an end when Andrey Esipenko played a very poor game against Aryan Tari. After going undefeated to that point and having defeated Magnus Carlsen, he may have lost his sense of danger when facing the lowest-rated player in the event. He took some unjustified risks in the early middlegame, and soon his position was critical. Things got worse, and Tari rounded the game off with some nice attacking play at the end. It was a pity for Esipenko, but a good lesson for the next time.
Another very important game in round 11 was Firouzja vs. Caruana. First it was Caruana - twice - who could have obtained (or more precisely, maintained) a winning advantage afforded by his opponent's errors on the preceding moves. But then it was Firouzja who had a more durable winning advantage of his own, but a few inaccuracies allowed Caruana to slip out to a drawn major piece ending.
Also in round 11: Van Foreest's win over Pentala Harikrishna brought him into the tie for second Esipenko was simultaneously leaving. Harikrishna played overexuberantly with Black, offering an unsound piece sacrifice (perhaps, like Esipenko, he underestimated his opponent?), and Van Foreest refuted it on the way to a longish but always nearly certain win.
I've analyzed the games above, along with what I take to be a cute moment in the game between Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Caruana from round 12, here. The tournament website is here, and these are the pairings for the final round (which starts two hours early, at 12:00 CET/6:00 A.M. ET):
- Anton (4.5) - Giri (8)
- Donchenko (3.5) - Esipenko (7)
- Carlsen (6.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (5)
- Van Foreest (7.5) - Grandelius (6)
- Tari (5.5) - Caruana (7.5)
- Firouzja (7.5) - Wojtaszek (4.5)
- Duda (5) - Harikrishna (6)
Reader Comments (2)
Possible reasons why Firouzja escaped and could have even won against Caruana, based on the post-game interview with Caruana:
1) Caruana spent 40 minutes on move 18, mainly checking 18.-Nxg2 (here playable and equal according to engines). Thus he didn't check the knight sacrifice again on the next two moves when it would have been more promising - the difference is that the white bishop is unprotected after 18.-c6 19.Bc4.
2) Caruana considered/talked himself into 28.-Qg6 being a blunder - it wasn't the best move, but not that bad either. Maybe therefore he didn't look for a win a few moves later.
[DM: I appreciate this - I didn't watch any of the interviews, so having comments like this supplement (and sometimes more than supplement) my notes is helpful!]
This TATA STEEL 2021 has been a good tournament where young talents emerged and the big stars suffered!
[DM: Some of them! It wasn't a bad even for Giri or Caruana, and Firouzja is both a big star and a young talent. But it was disappointing for Carlsen, and a catastrophe for MVL - imagine if he had also lost to Donchenko, as could easily have happened. Oof.]