Schacksnack

Results from round 2:

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

Caruana is now the only player with a full score after winning two games convincingly. A journalist interviewed him and asked if there is any secret behind his success.

Hou Yifan has got a terrible start with two losses. It seems she mixed the variations against Ding Liren. After the moves: 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 Be6 she played 7.Nge2?! (7.a3 is the main move.) and after 7…dxc4 Ding Liren already had a good position. 6.Nge2! is only regarded as the best move after the immediate 5…Be6.

A complete recap from round 2 can be seen here.

The most surprising mistake from round 2 happened in this position:

Van Wely,Loek (2667) – Wojtaszek,Radoslaw (2744)
77th Tata Steel Chess Tournament (2), 11.01.2015

White to move and win!

53.f3? Surprisingly White missed that the pawn ending is an easy win with 53.Qxg4 hxg4 54.Kg2 Ke7 55.f3 Kd6 56.fxg4 Kxd5 57.Kf3 Ke5 58.Ke3 Whatever Black does White will conquer the square f4 with his king and then push his g-pawn to g5 with an elementary win. For instance 58…f5 59.g5 Kd5 60.Kf4 Ke6 61.g6 Kf6 62.g7 Kxg7 63.Kxf5 Kf7 64.Kg5 Kg7 65.g4 and Black must give away one of the key squares to white’s king. 53…Qg5 54.Kh3? 54.f4 Qg4 55.d6 was a better try. 54…Qc1 Black got counterplay and the game ended in a draw after 81 moves.

Round 3 has the following meetings:

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

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