Schacksnack

Results from round 7:

Ding Liren, China (2732) – Loek van Wely, Netherlands (2667) 1-0
Ivan Saric, Croatia (2666)  – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, France (2757) 0-1
Anish Giri, Netherlands (2784) – Vassily Ivanchuk, Ukraina (2715) draw
Tejmour Radjabov, Azerbaijan (2734) – Wesley So, U.S. (2762) draw
Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Poland (2744) – Baadur Jobava, Georgia (2727) 0-1
Magnus Carlsen, Norway (2862) – Hou Yifan, China (2673) 1-0
Levon Aronian, Armenia (2797) 2 – Fabiano Caruana, Italy (2820) draw

Carlsen won his fourth game in a row by a convincing victory against Hou Yifan who conducted the game too passively. Carlsen has finally managed to catch up the leader Ivanchuk and the duo has 5/7. The longest game was that between Giri-Ivanchuk but it would have been shorter if Ivanchuk had discovered the forced draw which was available in this position:

Giri,Anish (2784) – Ivanchuk,Vassily (2715)
77th Tata Steel Chess Tournament (7), 17.01.2015

Black to move has a forced draw!

76…Qc6? 76…f5! forces a drawn pawn ending: 77.f4 ( If 77.Qxh6+ Kxh6 78.Kh3 Kg5 79.Kg2 Kf6 80.Kf2 Ke5 81.Ke1 (After 81.Ke3 the familiar device 81…f4+! 82.gxf4+ Kf5 will draw immediately. 81.Ke2 Ke6! and Black keeps the distant opposition) 81…Ke6 82.Kd2 Kd6! It is important to hold the distant opposition (82…Kd5? loses the opposition after 83.Kd3 and after 83…Kc5 84.Ke3 Kd5 85.Kf4 Ke6 86.Kg5 Ke5 87.f4+ Ke6 88.Kg6 White wins.) 83.Ke3 Ke5 and the game is a draw.) 77…Kh7 78.g4 Qxh5+ 79.Kxh5 fxg4 80.Kxg4 Kg6 81.f5+ Kf6 82.Kf4 Kf7 83.Kg5 Kg7 84.f6+ Kf7 85.Kf5 Kf8 86.Kg6 Kg8 87.f7+ Kf8 88.Kf6 stalemate. Instead the game dragged on until move 102 and more than seven hours when the players finally agreed to a draw. Of course this means they will have a tough day tomorrow with less energy compared with the other competitors who played shorter games.

Recap from round 7

Standings and pairings for round 8:

Loek van Wely, Netherlands (2667) 2 – Fabiano Caruana, Italy (2820) 3.5
Hou Yifan, China (2673) 2 – Levon Aronian, Armenia (2797) 2.5
Baadur Jobava, Georgia (2727) 1.5 – Magnus Carlsen, Norway (2862) 5
Tejmour Radjabov, Azerbaijan (2734) 3.5 – Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Poland (2744) 4
Vassily Ivanchuk, Ukraina (2715) 5 – Wesley So, U.S. (2762) 4.5
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, France (2757) 4.5 – Anish Giri, Netherlands (2784) 4
Ding Liren, China (2732) 4.5 – Ivan Saric, Croatia (2666) 2.5

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