Wijk aan Zee, Round 1
The latest edition of the annual tournament in Wijk aan Zee (currently sponsored by Tata Steel) is underway, and although it's missing the world champion and his predecessors, the A-group (now renamed the Masters Group) is still immensely strong. World #2 Levon Aronian and #3 Hikaru Nakamura are both playing, along with #6 Fabiano Caruana, #8 Boris Gelfand and a host of other elite grandmasters.
Four of the six games had a winner. (Only 12 players this year, not 14.) Nakamura enjoyed a slightly better ending that turned into a win when Arkadij Naiditsch unnecessarily "sacced" a piece for three pawns. Caruana bludgeoned Gelfand with a kingside attack that wasn't decisive until 28...Nd7(??). Sergey Karjakin gradually won an ending against Loek van Wely, and Wesley So defeated Richard Rapport and his 1.b3. (Apparently Baadur Jobava's bad habit is spreading.) Here are the games, with my light comments.
There's also a B-group (now the "Challengers"; there are still 14 players in this section), but unfortunately the C-group is gone. The top seed in the Challengers is Radoslaw Wojtaszek, who lost his first round game; for U.S. interest Kayden Troff is participating, and he won his opener.
Round 2 Pairings (Masters Group):
- Giri - Naiditsch
- So - Nakamura
- Gelfand - Rapport
- Aronian - Caruana
- Karjakin - Harikrishna
- Dominguez - van Wely