Tata Steel Chess: Aronian Leads; Harikrishna beats Nakamura

Second-highest rated Indian, Grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna has clocked two straight wins in Rounds 8 and 9 beating Hikaru Nakamura and Arkadij Naiditsch. Meanwhile, Armenia's Levon Aronian - the world no. 2 - retains lead a full 1.5 points ahead of the rest of the field.

 

Gary Kasparov will open Round 10 in Wijk aan Zee on Saturday and also be in the commentary room. -- Official website

Earlier, in Round 4, the Indian Grandmaster drew with Loek van Wely. In Round 5 Harikrishna lost to Anish Giri and allowed Fabiano Caruana to escape with a draw in Round 6. Harikrishna lost to Richard Rapport in Round 7, but returned to pick up two straight wins in Round 8 and 9. 

World No. 2 Levon Aronian continues to lead the group and is set to win the title with only two rounds to go. 

 

 

 

 

The 76th edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament is taking place January 10-26, 2014 in two groups (instead of the traditional three), with twelve players in each, instead of fourteen. Two rounds will be played in Amsterdam and Eindhoven. 

Standings after Round 9

1. Levon Aronian 7

2. Anish Giri

3. Fabiano Caruana

4. Leinier Dominguez

5. Sergey Karjaki all at 5.5

6. Pentala Harikrishna 

7. Wesley So both at 5.0

8. Loek van Wely 4.5

9. Richard Rapport

10. Hikaru Nakamura both at 3.5

11. Boris Gelfand 2.4

12. Arkadij Naiditsch 1.5

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Tata Steel Chess R3: Harikrishna in Joint Lead with win over Dominguez

India's second highest rated chess Grandmaster, Pentala Harikrishna is cruising along in joint lead at the 76th Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee with two points from three rounds. Tuesday was a rest day. The fourth round resumes on Wednesday and you can watch it Live at the official website.

Harikrishna has scored two very commendable draws versus World No. 2 Levon Aronian and World No. 11 Sergey Karjakin. In the first round, Levon Aronian said, "it was a strange game" and he did not feel that he could push his position too much. Both players agreed to a repetition of moves. 

In the second round, Sergey Karjakin and Pentala Harikrishna quickly reached a position in the Queen’s Gambit declined that looked highly drawish. Karjakin had the slightly better bishop but Harikrishna defended adequately for a draw.

For the third round, Pentala Harikrishna and Leinier Dominguez played out a Sicilian Najdorf. Neither player managed to obtain a clear advantage out of the opening. An endgame with both sides having rooks and opposite-coloured bishops was reached. Harikrishna later said: “His moves 27. …b6 and 32. …a5 were too committal and after that only I could play for a win.” Dominguez was left with a difficult defensive task and when Harikrishna pushed his passed d-pawn things got dangerous for Dominguez. When Harikrishna obtained a passed c-pawn as well it was only a matter of time before the Indian Grandmaster got his first win of the tournament.

Round 4 - Wednesday the 15thGiri, A. - So, W.
Gelfand, B. - Naiditsch, A.
Aronian, L. - Nakamura, H.
Karjakin, S. - Rapport, R.
Dominguez, L. - Caruana, F.
Van Wely, L. - Harikrishna, P

Schedule

The Tata Steel Chess Tournament has two main tournaments. They are played according to the 'round robin' system, whereby each competitor plays in turn against every other during the tournament. The Tata Steel Masters has 12 players and the Tata Steel Challengers has 14 players. Both groups start on January 11th 2014. All rounds in Wijk aan Zee begin at 13.30 hours, except for the last round on January 26th, which begins at 12.00 hours. The two rounds in Amsterdam and Eindhoven start at 14:00 hours.
Time control

The time control is: 100 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for 20 moves, then 15 minutes for the remaining moves with 30 seconds cumulative increment for each move starting from the first move. (With inputs via official website)

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Tata Steel Chess R1: Watch Live Harikrishna begins vs Levon Aronian

76th Tata Steel Chess 2014: Talented Indian (No. 2) chess Grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna (World No. 42/Live 31) takes on World No. 2 Levon Aronian in the first round of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2014 on Saturday. 

The 76th edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament takes place January 11-26, 2014 in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian won the Tata Steel Chess in 2012. Harikrishna himself, as a debutant in A group of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in January 2013 Harikrishna finished in the first half (7th place) and reached an elo rating of over 2700.

Watch the games live at the official website.

Participants of Tata Steel MastersNameCountryRating World Ranking
GM Aronian, Levon ARM 2812 2
GM Nakamura, Hikaru USA 2789 3
GM Caruana, Fabiano ITA 2782 6
GM Gelfand, Boris ISR 2777 8
GM Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2759 10
GM Dominguez, Leinier CUB 2754 14
GM Giri, Anish NED 2734 19
GM So, Wesley PHL 2719 28
GM Naiditsch, Arkadij GER 2718 29
GM Harikrishna, Pentala IND 2706 42
GM Rapport, Richard HUN 2691 56
GM Van Wely, Loek NED 2672 77
Average rating : 2743
Category : 20
FIDE-ratings of January 2014

Participants of Tata Steel Challengers
NameCountryRatingGM Wojtaszek, Radek POL 2711

GM Jobava, Baadur GEO 2710 

GM Yu, Yangyi CHN 2677 

GM Saric, Ivan CRO 2637 

GM Timman, Jan NED 2607 

GM Brunello, Sabino ITA 2602 

GM Reinderman, Dimitri NED 2593 

GM Zhao, Xue CHN 2567 

GM Muzychuk, Anna SLO 2566 

IM Bok, Benjamin NED 2560 

GM Duda, Jan-Krzysztof POL 2553 

IM Troff, Kayden USA 2457 

IM Goudriaan, Etienne NED 2431 

IM Van Delft, Merijn NED 2430 

Average rating : 2579
Category : 14
FIDE-ratings of January 2014

On Friday, the opening ceremony took place with an interesting theatrical presentation based on 'The Night Watch'. 

Photo: Opening ceremony theatrical presentation/official website

(More photos and report at www.chessvibes.com)

 -- Team Black and White

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World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen at CES Las Vegas (Updated)

(The event update available now at partner chess site) World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen spent a whole afternoon signing autographs at CES in Las Vegas - to be precise at Booth MP25277 of Norwegian exhibitors, Nordic Semiconductor. You can find some great photographs on the Nordic Semiconductor Facebook Page. Needless to add, there was a huge crowd at the booth as Magnus Carlsen got down to some 'hard work' signing chess boards and wowing fans.

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen signing autographs at CES Las Vegas at sponsor Nordic Semiconductor's booth. Photo: Nordic Semi

On Thursday afternoon, the very talented World Chess Champion will play a simul against 20 opponents in an auditorium. Magnus Carlsen, and his opponents, will all be hooked to a special wireless pulse gauge that uses Bluetooth Low Energy chips, says Managing Director, Nordic Semiconductor, Svein Tore Larsen.

Nordic Semiconductor is an industry leader in ultra low-power wireless devices. With a world-class mixed-signal R&D team Nordic develops innovative ground-breaking devices for Bluetooth low energy, ANT and 2.4GHz proprietary markets. The ARM Cortex M-series lie at the core of Nordic's highly flexible, ultra low-power wireless SoC solutions.

Ultra-low power (ULP) wireless sensors that are small enough to be worn on the body are transforming the sports & fitness world by making it easy to track and log training data – such as heart-rate, speed, and distance – and share the results on-line with others. This benefits everyone from elite athletes seeking to fine-tune their training regimes to those who simply want to get fit and stay motivated by seeing the results of their hard work.

Typical products in this segment are:Wearable sensors
Heart-rate belts
Speed-distance foot pods
GPS pods
Pedometers
Activity sensors
Bike cadence sensors
Bike speed sensors
Bike power sensors
Weight scales

The International CES is the world’s largest tradeshow for consumer technology and America’s largest annual tradeshow of any kind. With more than four decades of success, the International CES reaches across global markets, connects the “who’s who” of the industry and enables consumer electronics (CE) innovations to grow and thrive.

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