Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Richard Rapport scored victories in Round 5 of Tata Steel Masters and joined Vidit Gujrathi at the top of the standings with 3½/5. The other five games, although very interesting and hard-fought, were drawn. Magnus Carlsen and Andrey Esipenko are trailing the leaders by a half-point. 

Jorden Van Foreest had a very interesting theoretical discussion with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in the Open Variation of the Ruy Lopez, in which the Dutchman opted for a rare line on move ten. Jorden demonstrated a sensible idea of planting one his night on d4, but Shakhriyar struck with 18…c5 going for complications. Apparently, White missed something (20.Bc2 instead of 20.Ng5 looks better) as after the dust settled, Black emerged with two minor pieces for a rook and good practical winning chances. Van Foreest put up a stubborn defence, but when a draw was near at hand, he made a fatal error allowing Mamedyarov to protect his c-passer with tempo. Combining threats to White’s king with advancing his c-pawn, Shakhriyar won the game on the move 44.

Richard Rapport fell into an excellent opening preparation of Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa in the Nimtzo-Indian and had to assume the defensive despite an extra pawn. However, the young Indian squandered a couple of good attacking opportunities and, after erroneous 17…d3? the Hungrian got the upper hand. Indeed, White preserved an extra pawn while his queen covered critical squares on the queenside. A few moves down the road, Rapport traded the queens and transposed in an endgame where his queenside pawns quickly decided the battle.

Magnus Carlsen sowed the wind but nearly reaped the whirlwind in the game with Nils Grandelisus. On move 18, the World Champion, playing with Black, opened up the center at the potential cost of two pawns. However, Nils snatched just one of them and opted for solid but somewhat passive 20.Ba4 instead of 20.Qb4+ followed by 21.Qb3. After White missed this chance, Black was pressuring for the rest of the game, but the Swedish GM held his ground and reached a draw.

Andrey Esipenko essayed sharp 7.g4 gambit in the Semi-Slave (introduced by Shirov and Shabalov in the 1990s) against Fabiano Caruana but ended up down a pawn with some compensation that seemed insufficient. The opponents exchanged inaccuracies in a highly complicated position, but at some point, many thought that Fabiano took control as he got two passers on the queenside. To his credit, Esipenko did not lose heart and found a tremendous defensive idea of attacking Black’s g7 pawn and escaped with a draw, although Caruana might have missed his winning chance on move 33. As played, the opponents transposed into a drawish ending in which Andrey demonstrated necessary accuracy.

Jan-Krzysztof Duda – Sergey Karjakin was another fierce battle. The Russian GM caught his opponent unprepared in a sharp line of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted and emerged with an extra pawn. However, the position remained extremely complicated, with White launching an onslaught on the kingside. Trying to convert his extra pawn Karjakin overplayed his position with 34…Rg4, but being in time trouble, Duda missed the winning refutation 35.Rf1 and settled for a draw by repetition.  

Anish Giri surprised  Vidit Gujrathi with his line choice in the Petroff Defense and got an edge, but one somewhat abstract, rule-of-thumb move from his part (17.Rad1) allowed the leader to intitiate massive exchanges in the center and completely equalize.

Sam Shankland went for a long and forced sequence with a pawn sacrifice against Daniil Dubov in the Catalan opening to transpose into an endgame. White preserved an extra pawn, but Black had a sufficient positional compensation and made a draw quite comfortably.

Standings after Round 5: 1-3. Vidit Gujrathi, Richard Rapport, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov – 3½; 4-5. Magnus Calsen, Andrey Esipenko – 3; 6-8. Fabiano Caruana, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Jorden Van Foreest – 2½; 9-13. Sam Shankland, Sergey Karjakin, Daniil Dubov, Anish Giri, Praggnanandhaa R. – 2; 14.Nils Grandelius – 1.

Official website: tatasteelchess.com/

Photo: Jurriaan Hoefsmit and Lennart Ootes – Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022