Tata Steel (Wijk aan Zee): Five Tied for First after Four Rounds

As expected, Nils Grandelius was quickly caught; as wasn't expected, he remains in a tie for first. Granted, it's still very early - there are nine rounds left in Wijk aan Zee - but Grandelius is (generally) playing well, and several other underdogs are hanging in there.

In round 3, Grandelius lost on the white side of an Advance French against Pentala Harikrishna. It's a model game for Black, and the result was that the winner caught up with the loser. Had Magnus Carlsen beaten his countryman Aryan Tari, he'd have taken the lead, but he was unable to win. That's a three-way tie. Likewise, had Fabiano Caruana managed to finish a brilliant game against Jan-Krzysztof Duda he'd have taken the clear lead, but he too only managed a draw. That's a four-way tie for first. Anish Giri made it a five-way tie for first when he drew with Alexander Donchenko. The other two games saw Alireza Firouzja defeat David Anton to close to get back to 50%, while Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Jorden Van Foreest drew their game.

In round 4, all seven games were drawn, so the five-way tie for first remained in place. Some players had winning chances, though. Grandelius in particular was winning with Black against Andrey Esipenko, but let the advantage slip away in time trouble. The craziest game of all was Tari vs. Firouzja, which went back and forth in a wild draw that ended after just 30 moves. The razor sharp opening and the game ending when it did might lead one to suspect that this was some sort of crazy prep, but this was not the case. Both players made serious errors that even took their position from winning to losing. It's a great game to analyze, and I'll leave that pleasure to you.

Wednesday is a rest day, and on Thursday we get these pairings.

• Carlsen (2.5) - Donchenko (1)
• Firouzja (2) - Van Foreest (2)
• Anton (1.5) - Tari (1.5)
• Giri (2.5) - Harikrishna (2.5)
• Caruana (2.5) - Esipenko (2)
• Grandelius (2.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (2)
• Wojtaszek (2) - Duda (1.5)

This will be an important day for the non-world champions in the field, as Magnus Carlsen will have the white pieces against tailender Alexander Donchenko. Carlsen doesn't always manage to catch the leader when he's trailing (though he often does), but when he's leading he's almost never caught.

Tata Steel (Wijk aan Zee) Underway

In fact the Tata Steel Chess Tournament started this weekend - in person - and as usual it's a mix of super-elite players (e.g. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri) and some players from the second tier (e.g. Dutch players other than Giri, the winner of last year's B-group). That helps make things spicy, and for the moment one of the Liliputians (relatively speaking!) is off to the early lead: Nils Grandelius is the only player with 2/2, thanks to wins over Alexander Donchenko and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. It's a 13-round event, so the odds of Grandelius remaining in first by the time it's over are extremely low, but the chance for Rocky to beat Apollo is always part of the excitement of any sporting event.

Three of the top dogs mentioned above (Carlsen, Caruana, and Giri) are just half a point behind; here's the schedule for round 3, with player scores given in parentheses:

• Esipenko (1) - Vachier-Lagrave (1)
• Grandelius (2) - Harikrishna (1)
• Caruana (1.5) - Duda (.5)
• Giri (1.5) - Donchenko (0)
• Wojtaszek (1) - Van Foreest (Jorden) (1)
• Carlsen (1.5) - Tari (.5)
• Firouzja (.5) - Anton Guijarro (1)

Hainan Danzhou Tournament

If blitz and bullet chess are not your speed, and you long for the good old days when top grandmasters played at a more leisurely pace...well, you're out of luck for now. However, the Hainan Danzhou GM tournament is at least proceeding at a comparatively stately time control of 15'+10", and features an impressive field that includes at least one or two players who are probably older than any of the t-shirts you own.

After two rounds, Richard Rapport and Anish Giri lead with 1.5 points apiece. Wang Hao and Wei Yi are in last with half a point each, and Alexander Grischuk, Yu Yangyi, Veselin Topalov, and Ding Liren all have a point to their credit. In round 1 Rapport beat Ding, while in round 2 Ding got back to 50% by beating Wei Yi while Giri defeated Wang Hao; all three wins were with Black. Here's Giri's short, entertaining win over Wang Hao.

Banter Blitz 2020 Final, Day 2

Today's matches were mostly routs, but there was one glorious exception. All the first-round pairings involved seeded players facing off against qualifiers, and while the latter are all terrific players there's still a gap (with one exception; two [at least or especially in blitz], counting yesterday, when qualifier and 2013 World Blitz Champion Le Quang Liem upended Teimour Radjabov) between them and the creme de la creme of the world's elite.

There were five matches today: Levon Aronian vs. Gawain Jones, Anish Giri vs. Peter Svidler, Magnus Carlsen vs. S.L. Narayanan, Alexander Grischuk vs. Rauf Mamedov, and Fabiano Caruana vs. Matthias Bluebaum. Excepting the Giri-Svidler match - the one case where the qualifier (Svidler) is himself a member of the world elite, and indeed, the player whose overall career is still the more impressive one - the other four matches were blowouts, with the losing side collectively achieving only three wins. Carlsen won 5.5-.5 (obviously going undefeated), Aronian won 5.5-2.5 (Jones won one game), Grischuk won 5.5-1.5 (also undefeated), and Caruana dropped a couple of games to Bluebaum on the way to a 5.5-2.5 victory (he started off 3-0, and was never really threatened).

Giri-Svidler, by contrast, was a dream match. The first seven games were decisive, with White winning the first six before Svidler broke the string in game seven. After a couple of draws, Svidler only needed a draw in game 10 to clinch the match, but lost. Two further draws ensued, and then Giri won the Armageddon game with White to win the match 7-6. (Giri's wins in games 1, 3, and 13 are here.)

Tomorrow the last of the first-round matches takes place between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Grigoriy Oparin, and then the quarter-finals will look like this:

• Carlsen - Giri
• Aronian - Grischuk
• Caruana - Le Quang Liem
• So - MVL/Oparin

Website here.

Magnus Carlsen Invitational, Day 2: Caruana Squeaks Past Nepo; MVL Drubs Giri

It was another interesting day with shaky play and surprising results. Fabiano Caruana was probably losing both of his first two games with Ian Nepomniachtchi, but drew both of them. He drew the third game as well, and then won the fourth game from what was at one moment a dodgy position. Meanwhile, Anish Giri lost the first two games to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - the first one for no sensible reason at all - and the Frenchmen drew the last two games to coast in with a 3-1 victory.

I don't know if total points play a role in a possible tiebreak, but they are otherwise irrelevant to the scoring. Whether a player wins the match 4-0 or 2.5-1.5 - provided he wins without an Armageddon game - he wins the match 3-0. If he needs to win the Armageddon game, then he gets 2 points for the match and his opponent gets a single point. Therefore, after one round Caruana and MVL join Ding Liren (who defeated Alireza Firouzja 2.5-1.5 in their match on Saturday) in the early lead with three points apiece, a point ahead of Magnus Carlsen who needed the extra game to dispatch Hikaru Nakamura. In their regular games, White won every time, with Carlsen grinding out endgame victories in the first and third games while Nakamura won with a direct attack in game 2 and by taking advantage of a couple of blunders in game 4. In the Armageddon game, Nakamura had White, but the streak was broken. He overextended in his attempt to attack, and then a blunder in a bad position sealed his fate.

Here are the pairings for round two, with the first two pairings occurring tomorrow and the next two on Tuesday:

• Carlsen (2) - Firouzja (0)
• Nakamura (1) - Giri (0)
• Nepomniachtchi (0) - Vachier-Lagrave (3)
• Ding Liren (3) - Caruana (3)

Carlsen-Firouzja ought to be a lot of fun, as the World Champion seeks revenge for the damage the youngster has been doing to him at faster time controls. Nepo vs. MVL is also interesting, as the Candidates co-leaders square off. Will Nepo achieve a (very, very) small measure of revenge for his defeat in the final round of the first cycle of that event?

Play begins at 10 a.m. ET each day, and can be viewed live on Chess24 and Twitch; probably elsewhere, too. For the games, I'll send you to TWIC's page for the event.

Carlsen-Firouzja, and More

Last year it was Chess.com that had all the interesting online chess; this year it's Chess24. The Peter Svidler vs. Santosh Vidit match started a few minutes ago, and will be followed by the Pentala Harikrishna vs. Jan-Krzysztof Duda match. There's also an ongoing warm-up match for Anish Giri, against Jorden Van Foreest, helping him prep for the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, which starts on Saturday. And finally, the day and time has been set for the Banter Blitz finale between Carlsen and 16-year-old Alireza Firouzja: it will be on Wednesday (April 15) at 19:00 CEST/1 p.m. ET.

Magnus Carlsen Invitational: The Line-Up

This eight-player online event starts this coming Saturday, April 18, and features a fantastic field starting with the world champion. Magnus Carlsen is playing, as is world #2 (and 2018 challenger) Fabiano Caruana, world #3 Ding Liren, #4 (and Candidates co-leader) Ian Nepomniachtchi, world #5 (and Candidates co-leader) Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, world #10 (and renowned Twitter troll) Anish Giri, world #18 (and blitz legend) Hikaru Nakamura, and world #21 (and 16-year-old super-prodigy) Alireza Firouzja. The event will last 16 days, running through May 3, and has an impressive $250,000 prize fund.

The event has two stages. The first is a round-robin, with each pairing comprising a 4-game rapid match at a 15'+10" time control. The first six rounds will take two days, with two simultaneous matches each day, while all four matches will take place simultaneously on the last day. The scoring is unusual: if a player wins the 4-game match he gets three points, but if it finishes 2-2 they play an Armageddon game, in which case the winner gets two points and the loser one. After that there's a final four knockout, with the first semi on the first day, the second semi on the second, and the final on the third day. If any of those matches reach a 2-2 score, they play a pair of 5'+3" games, and Armageddon after that, if necessary.

The event will take place on Chess24, and I'm sure it will be viewable on YouTube as well.

More Interviews: Giri & Vachier-Lagrave

Here's Chess24's interview with Anish Giri, and the Times of India's interview with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. (HT, again, to Daniel Parmet)

Du Te Cup (Shenzhen): A Quick Look Back

For those willing to tolerate Google's translation of this report, you'll find plenty of information here. I'll just offer a few summary comments in retrospect on the 2019 Du Te Cup that took place in Shenzhen, China.

When we left off at the halfway point, Pentala Harikrishna had bounced back from a second-round loss to Anish Giri to win three in a row, taking a half point lead over Giri with 3.5/5. He started the next cycle with a win over Dmitry Jakovenko, but Giri won what had to be a drawn ending against Yu Yangyi, grinding out the victory in a 2012 move marathon.

Harikrishna's winning streak was snapped in his rematch with Giri, but since the game was drawn he kept his half-point lead. In round 8, however, he was upended, losing to Richard Rapport. This was Rapport's only win in the entire tournament, and it allowed Giri to catch up after drawing with pre-tournament favorite Ding Liren. Giri and Harikrishna lead with +2 scores, while Ding and Rapport were on 50%.

In round 9, Harikrishna bounced back again, defeating Yu Yangyi, while Giri drew with Rapport and Ding drew with Yakovenko. Harikrishna thus entered the last round with a half point lead over Giri; however, Giri had White against Jakovenko, while Harikrishna would have Black against Ding. White won in both games - long ones - and so Giri came out half a point ahead. It took him 97 moves to win his game, while Ding's victory (getting revenge for Harikrishna's win in the first cycle) went 72 moves. (Everyone was fighting--even the draw between Yu and Rapport went 75 moves.)

It wasn't a wonderful tournament for Ding, though it wasn't a disaster for him either, but it was a terrific outing for both Harikrishna and Giri. Harikrishna's TPR was more than 100 points over his rating, and his winning five games out of ten against a super-GM field in which he was the next-to-last seed was a fantastic achievement.

As for Giri, this was his first outright super-tournament victory, even if it was relatively weak by super-tournament standards. (Magnus Carlsen, asked by an interviewer about this tournament with a round to go, light-heartedly said he was rooting for Harikrishna to win, to keep Giri from winning his first super-GM event. As Carlsen said, "I'm nothing if not petty." Again, this was meant in a light-hearted spirit, as Giri and Carlsen have been engaging in trash talk and Twitter wars for years.)

Final Standings:

• 1. Giri 6.5/10
• 2. Harikrishna 6
• 3. Ding 5.5
• 4. Rapport 5
• 5-6. Jakovenko, Yu 3.5

Du Te Cup (Shenzhen) 2019: A Translated Report

I intend to say something about this tournament's finish as well, but for now you can find a long and interesting report on the event here, in Russian. Normally I wouldn't mention a Russian-language article, but Google's translation in the Chrome browser is serviceable enough that you might want to give it a try.