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Friday, 24 Jan 2020 22:00
Tata Steel Masters 2020: Caruana pulls away

Black finally had their first "winning day" in Round 11 of Tata Steel Masters, but Fabiano Caruana’s win that almost guaranteed him a tournament victory is a fact of much greater importance. Alireza Firouzja suffered his third defeat in a row after Vishwanathan Anand demonstrated an impeccable endgame technique and created a positional masterpiece.

Caruana had Black against tournament outsider Vladislav Kovalev and was planning to take an opportunity to play for a win if he had a chance. An opportunity presented itself quite soon as Kovalev, who has two major problems in this event - opening preparation and permanent time trouble - mixed up the lines once again in a sharp variation of Ruy Lopez. He played 15.f4 almost instantly while 15.Kh1 is proved to be the best option; in the game, he retreated with his king to h1 two moves later and soon realized that something went wrong. Kovalev started to hesitate and after he didn't return his knight to b5 on move 21 his center just collapsed. In-form Caruana easily finished White's king off, comfortably attacking with an extra pawn.

Magnus Carlsen could not keep up with Caruana and was quite disappointed after drawing his game with Jan-Krzystof Duda. The World Champion thought that Duda's early attack on the kingside was premature, although engines actually approve it and give White advantage after possible 21.h4. Duda played 21.g4 instead and Carlsen was doing fine until he missed an exchanging combination. White was slightly better once again, but then according to Magnus himself, something weird happened - Polish GM continued to look for drawing opportunities instead of playing optimally. It was definitely not the perfect way to handle the situation, and in the final position Magnus was even a pawn up, but White’s strong pair of bishops made it impossible for Black to play for a win anyway.

Game of the day was played by Anand; it's only his second win in the tournament, but both of them are worth analyzing. The former World Champion admitted that he was a bit nervous before the game despite Firouzja's losing streak as he knew that Alireza would play very aggressively. Anand was expecting the line with 4.f3 in Nimzo-Indian and opted for a rare line with 7...c5 (he played only 7...e5 before). Firouzja's reply was probably a novelty and the game immediately transposed into a complex endgame with a highly unorthodox pawn structure. Anand just understood the essence of the endgame much better and gradually outplayed his young opponent. It's difficult to point out when exactly things went astray for Firouzja - it looks like 21.Nd6+ was premature and 25.Kd2 allowing Black to fix white's weak pawn on f3 was definitely a mistake. After that Vishwanathan was at his best skillfully outplaying his opponent in a position that still looked unclear for an untrained eye.

Three games in a row against the game greatest was a real test for 16-year-old talent who is now living in France. One can say that he didn't pass the test as he lost all three games. On the other hand, he can only blame himself for the game versus Carlsen; in two other encounters his opponents were simply at their best and this level is just out of reach at the age of 16.

Jorden van Foreest - another hero of the early stages of the event - also bit the dust today. His early aggression on the kingside was met with a counterpunch in the center by Vladislav Artemiev and White forced into a better endgame. Soon Artemiev won a pawn and eventually the game. It is a third win for the Russian with White, but he had too many problems with Black to call this tournament a success.

In the three other games, Anish Giri was unable to break through Yu Yangyi's favorite Petroff's fortifications, Nikita Vitiugov went for a drawing opening line against Daniil Dubov, and Wesley So just forced a draw on move 11 versus Jeffery Xiong which is somewhat strange as he still had chances to win the whole thing.

Talking to a tournament press officer after the game Carlsen quipped that the tournament win was out of sight for him after today's round, but he would still try his best in the last two rounds. Caruana understandably is not willing to discuss these issues at the moment. In Round 11 he is playing Duda with White while Carlsen will probably test Artemiev's Caro-Cann which definitely does not look unbreakable in this event.

In the Challengers event David Anton Guijarro who was a clear favorite before the event, especially after his amazing score in the Grand Swiss, finally took the sole lead after Round 10 when he won a crucial game against Pavel Eljanov. In Round 11 he moved further ahead beating Anton Smirnov. 15-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who held Carlsen for a draw in World Blitz Championship on December 29, won three games in a row and now is sharing the second place with Erwin L'Ami.

Official site: https://www.tatasteelchess.com/
Photo: Alina l’Ami

Tata Steel Masters 2020 Standings after Round 11:

1. Caruana - 8;
2. Carlsen - 7;
3. So - 6½;
4-5. Van Foreest, Duda - 6;
6-10. Firouzja, Dubov, Giri, Artemiev, Anand - 5½;
11. Xiong - 5;
12-13. Vitiugov, Yu Yangyi - 4;
14. Kovalev - 3.