Schacksnack

Results from round 1:

Tejmour Radjabov, Azerbaijan (2734) – Loek van Wely, Netherlands (2667) draw
Vassily Ivanchuk, Ukraina (2715) – Baadur Jobava, Georgia (2727) 1-0
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, France (2757) – Hou Yifan, China (2673) 1-0
Ding Liren, China (2732) – Fabiano Caruana, Italy (2820) 0-1
Ivan Saric, Croatia (2666) – Levon Aronian, Armenia (2797) draw
Anish Giri, Netherlands (2784) – Magnus Carlsen, Norway (2862) draw
Wesley So, U.S. (2762) – Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Poland (2744) draw

A surprising and premature resignation occurred in the game Ivanchuk-Jobava when the following position arose:

Ivanchuk,Vassily (2715) – Jobava,Baadur (2727)
The Tata Steel Chess Tournament (1), 10.01.2015

Black to move resigned, why?

If the game had continued it would probably have ended like this: 43…bxa4 44.Kc4 Kc6 45.Kd3 Kd5 46.e6 This is the key idea giving White two farther advanced passed pawns. 46…fxe6 47.f6 Kd6 48.c4 e5 49.c5+ Ke6 50.c6 and one of white’s pawns queens first.

This win means that Ivanchuk joins the two other winners from the first round. Caruana convincingly defeated Ding Liren and Vachier-Lagrave beat Hou Yifan.

A complete recap from round 1 is available here.

Round 2 has the following meetings:

Loek van Wely, Netherlands (2667) – Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Poland (2744)
Magnus Carlsen, Norway (2862) – Wesley So, U.S. (2762)
Levon Aronian, Armenia (2797) – Anish Giri, Netherlands (2784)
Fabiano Caruana, Italy (2820) – Ivan Saric, Croatia (2666)
Hou Yifan, China (2673) – Ding Liren, China (2732)
Baadur Jobava, Georgia (2727) – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, France (2757)
Tejmour Radjabov, Azerbaijan (2734) – Vassily Ivanchuk, Ukraina (2715)

All rounds in Wijk aan Zee begin at 13.30 CET (7:30 AM EST), except for the last round on January 25th, which begins at 12.00 Noon (6:00 AM EST). Players receive 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for the next 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with a 30 seconds bonus for each move starting from move one. More information at the official site: www.tatasteelchess.com

Live games