Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2017 Round 1

The great American chess capital, St. Louis, continues to offer attractive tournaments, and this time rapid matches between some of the world’s best players are back. From the 20-24th of February there will be five high-profile matches to look out for: Hikaru Nakamura vs Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Fabiano Caruana vs Pentala Harikrishna, Wesley So vs David Navara, Leinier Dominguez vs Veselin Topalov and Sam Shankland vs Richard Rapport.

Rapid chess excitement, at a top-class level, returns to St. Louis. Five matches in which, according to the organizers, they have been looking for a clash in styles of play. In each match there will be 12 rapid games (15 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds per move) and 24 blitz (3 minutes plus 2 seconds increment for each move). The rapid games will have double the value of the blitz games. The winner of each match will receive 36,000 dollars and the loser 24,000.

Hikaru Nakamura vs. Jan-Krzysztof Duda
Probably the match that will draw the highest expectations among the public is the one between Nakamura, ranked second best rapid player and third best blitz player in the world, against the Polish superstar Duda, who came second in the last World Blitz Championship. If Duda is able to survive the rapid, where the difference should be the greatest between them, the match could be quite equal… even though, Nakamura should be the favourite in all rapid and blitz matches as long as his opponent isn’t Magnus Carlsen.

Fabiano Caruana vs. Pentala Harikrishna
Fabi returns to action after taking a break at the end of a very hectic 2018. The Indian, Pentala Harikrishna, is a very solid opponent with a lot of experience, who is difficult to beat in any game. A close match is to be expected, although Fabiano can be expected to break through in the end.

Wesley So vs. David Navara
Wesley So is paired against one of the most beloved top-level chess players, David Navara. Even though Wesley is the clear favourite, Navara stands out for his great preparation and no-one doubts that he will come well-prepared for this match.

Leinier Dominguez vs. Veselin Topalov
Leinier Dominguez will for the first time play with the American flag in this match against the Bulgarian Veselin Topalov. Leinier comes back after a few months without playing, and even a few years without playing classical games! Even less active is Topalov, although his last appearance in St. Louis was very remarkable as he was able to beat none other than Garry Kasparov, in Chess960. I think that it will be the most colorful match of them all, as they are both players that don’t try to hide and where it’s hard to make predictions. Leinier and Veselin will give us a show!

Sam Shankland vs. Richard Rapport
Shankland, the “academic”, against the “colourful” Rapport. This match will be dominated by the one who manages to bring the game onto his own territory. If the games manage to take a more classical direction, then Shankland is the favourite… But is this possible against Rapport? Our guess – no!

See also:

• Official website
• All the games with computer analysis here on chess24

Magnus Carlsen came within an inch of beating Sergey Karjakin in what our commentator Peter Svidler described as “an epic game”. What developed into a 7-hour thriller started with a Berlin Defence where it seemed the only talking point would be a puzzling rook shuffle in the opening. A couple of inaccuracies, though, and Magnus was scenting blood. You had the feeling almost anyone else in world chess would have gone down without a fight, but Karjakin clung on for dear life and got the draw his bravery deserved – even if he needed some help from his opponent!

This was the day the 2016 World Chess Championship match began in earnest, with both players coming close enough to taste victory and defeat. It left them visibly shell-shocked, with neither certain if Magnus had ever had a clear win within his grasp (our silicon friends answer in the affirmative).

It was a remarkable journey from a game which started with a 5.Re1 Berlin that failed to set the pulses racing. Eyebrows were at least raised by Carlsen’s retreat 10.Re2:

The move, of course, looks a little ridiculous, but it turned out what was much stranger was that Sergey and his team had apparently overlooked a move that had been played by players as familiar as Igor Kovalenko, Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Paco Vallejo, with the latter tweeting the lapidary:

Karjakin thought the move had been played in other positions, but not this one, and spent a full 25 minutes before coming up with 10…b6, looking to capitalise with 11…Ba6. Magnus repeated Kasimdzhanov’s 11.Re1, which led to one of the funniest moments of the post-game press conference. When Anastasia Karlovich asked if 10.Re2 had been a slip Magnus decided to roll with it and drew laughter with:

“Yeah, it slipped out of my hand, so I moved it back to e1 the next move!”

So a quarter of the match has already gone by and the players are still locked together:

Tune in at 2pm EST (8pm CET) on Tuesday.

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Nodirbek Abdusattorov is a draw against Jorden van Foreest away from at least a playoff for the Tata Steel Masters title after he drew against Wesley So in Round 12. Anish Giri, who could have caught him, survived by the skin of his teeth against Jorden, while Magnus Carlsen called his missed win against Praggnanandhaa a “backbreaker”. Alexander Donchenko will play next year’s Masters after winning the Challengers with a round to spare.

There were ultimately only two wins in Round 12 of the Tata Steel Masters, but our commentators felt it was the most exciting round yet.

• If Abdusattorov wins with White against Van Foreest he wins the title whatever happens elsewhere
• If he draws, then Giri can force a blitz playoff by beating Rapport with the white pieces
• If Nodirbek loses, then Carlsen (Black vs. Arjun) and So (Black vs. Praggnanandhaa) could reach a playoff with wins, while Anish could win the title outright with a win

Meanwhile there won’t be any last-minute drama in the Challengers, since Alexander Donchenko has already booked his place in next year’s Tata Steel Masters.

Yilmaz could still catch Donchenko, but there’s no playoff in the Challengers, and the first tiebreak is head-to-head encounter, which was won by Donchenko.

The final round of Tata Steel Chess 2023 starts two hours earlier than usual with the games kicking off at 12:00 CET (6am ET, 16:30 IST), but they’ll be visible from 12:15 due to the 15-minute delay: Tata Steel Masters | Tata Steel Challengers

See also:

• Official website
• Tata Steel Masters | Tata Steel Challengers
• Tata Steel Masters line-up announced
• Carlsen-Aronian in Tata Steel Masters Round 1
• Carlsen on 2900 target: “I’ve put that goal on hold a bit”
• Tata Steel Chess 1: Ding and Abdusattorov lead
• Tata Steel Chess 2: Carlsen and Giri strike
• Tata Steel Chess 3: Fabi joins leaders as Ding holds Magnus
• Tata Steel Chess 4: Both Carlsen and Ding defeated
• Tata Steel Chess 5: Abdusattorov hands Carlsen 2nd loss in a row
• Tata Steel Chess 6: Caruana gets Gukesh revenge
• Tata Steel Chess 7: Abdusattorov extends his lead
• Tata Steel Chess 8: Carlsen beats Caruana
• Tata Steel Chess 9: Giri beats Ding as Abdusattorov escapes
• Tata Steel Chess 10: Magnus within striking distance
• Tata Steel Chess 11: Maghsoodloo beats Pragg