Tata Metal Chess R2: Carlsen Will get 1st Win, Rapport Beats Van Foreest

GM Magnus Carlsen obtained his first win within the Tata Metal Chess Event’s second spherical because the world champion scored a reasonably fast full-point vs. Dutch GM Anish Giri. GM Richard Rapport was the one different winner within the Masters because the Hungarian participant beat final 12 months’s winner GM Jorden van Foreest.

Again in 2011, of their first-ever encounter, Giri sensationally beat Carlsen in simply 22 strikes in Wijk aan Zee. In the meantime, Carlsen had improved their mutual rating to 4-1 in classical chess (not counting attracts), but it surely took him 11 years to beat his opponent on Dutch soil in a classical sport (and make it 5-1).

Carlsen performed the opening a bit within the type of GM Daniil Dubov, who described it the opposite day as: “Put the bishop on g2, sacrifice a pawn for nothing, begin enjoying for tips.”

As his first massive suppose solely got here on transfer 14, it’s protected to say that Carlsen was utilizing left-over preparation for his 2021 world championship match, the place Dubov was one among his seconds. 

Requested about this, Carlsen countered: “It was possibly backup world championship prep!”

On transfer 16, the world champion sacrificed an alternate, which was attention-grabbing however not essentially higher for White. Giri, nevertheless, miscalculated together with his response, and simply two strikes later he began shaking his head, revealing on digital camera that he was in deep trouble. 

Carlsen: “It was very tense. I feel the opening was fairly profitable in that it was a recent place the place he needed to navigate some actually troublesome variations. Thankfully for me, he form of went unsuitable sooner or later and I had a transparent initiative.”

The Norwegian GM then missed a refined intermediate transfer (19.Be4) however so did Giri (20…Qxd5 and even 20…Nc3!?), whose disappointment might need blurred his calculation much more. After he missed that final likelihood it was throughout in any case. It was and fast win for Carlsen and a sport fast to neglect for Giri.

It was a nasty day for the native gamers as Van Foreest, who had began with a win within the first spherical, misplaced as effectively. Each Giri and Van Foreest did not lose a single sport final 12 months.

The 2021 winner misplayed a knight endgame vs. GM Richard Rapport and misplaced relatively unnecessarily. The Hungarian participant felt he had been “extraordinarily fortunate” as a result of he was the one preventing to equalize within the opening.

About his opponent’s mistake, Rapport mentioned: “We had been each form of brief on time so he simply form of panicked I feel.”

Early within the spherical, all the eye went to the sport between GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and GM Andrey Esipenko. The explanation was easy: Mamedyarov’s daring third transfer 3.g4!?. Dubbed “the prolonged Catalan,” this coffee-house transfer was simply pretty to see at this degree.

Carlsen would later say: “I’d have snapped it off I feel, as Black! I feel he will need to have seen a few of my father’s blitz video games ‘trigger he at all times does this on transfer two, 1.d4 Nf6 2.g4; that is his pet opening, which might be significantly worse model than what Mamedyarov did.”

I feel he will need to have seen a few of my father’s blitz video games.
—Magnus Carlsen

Whereas commentator GM Robert Hess praised Mamedyarov for it (joined by principally the entire chess neighborhood on social media), Esipenko could not keep away from just a few smiles himself whereas pondering on the very best response. Do you are taking the pawn, which certainly can’t be unhealthy however enters difficult residence preparation from the opponent, or do you decline with some wholesome strikes as an alternative, hoping that White’s pawn aggression will be countered within the middle?

After eight minutes of considering, Esipenko selected the latter plan with 3…d5. As the sport progressed, the place remained considerably unclear, however Mamedyarov received the opening battle anyway due to the clock scenario: after 11 strikes he nonetheless had greater than an hour on the clock, with 24 minutes left for Esipenko.

The younger Russian participant was helped by the truth that he might quickly commerce queens and, by transfer 26, the gamers all of a sudden agreed to a draw relatively early, which was one thing our commentators had been much less ecstatic about.

As Hess put it, plainly: “BAN THE DRAW OFFER!”

The conflict between GM Sergey Karjakin and Dubov was probably a spicy one as Karjakin had overtly criticized his compatriot for serving to Carlsen in a match towards a co-Russian participant. The sport was, nevertheless, one of many quickest attracts of the spherical as Dubov rapidly managed to equalize with the Tarrasch Protection:

An even bigger battle, however with the identical end result, was GM Sam Shankland vs. GM Nils Grandelius. Ultimately, it was Shankland who had a fortress with a rook and knight towards a queen, however the American GM had extra cause to be sad with the end result as he was very near successful within the middlegame:

Spherical 2 Standings Masters

The Dutch torture prolonged partly to the Challengers group, the place the reigning Dutch champion GM Max Warmerdam—final 12 months in Wijk aan Zee because the second for Van Foreest—erred in a barely higher place regardless of a 38-minute suppose. Generally, the extra you suppose, the much less you see…

Generally the mind simply does not work. #TataSteelChess

— Max Warmerdam (@max_warmerdam) January 16, 2022

It wasn’t all distress for the Dutch as GM Erwin l’Ami, who began off with a loss the day gone by, received his sport vs. China’s WGM Zhu Jiner.

On this group, we discover the one participant nonetheless on an ideal rating after two days, and it isn’t one of many grandmasters. 15-year-old IM Volodar Murzin, initially from Nizhny Tagil, a city 125 km north of Yekaterinburg, Russia, beat the Belgian GM Daniel Dardha the opposite day and IM Polina Shuvalova, additionally from Russia, at this time:

Spherical 2 Standings Challengers

#	Fed	Identify	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	3	4
1		Murzin,Volodar	2519	3324										1		1			2.0/2
2		Nguyen,Thai Dai Van	2613	2799						½	1								1.5/2	1.5
3		Erigaisi,Arjun	2632	2763					½						1				1.5/2	1
4		Ganguly,Surya Shekhar	2627	2711					½								1		1.5/2	1
5		Van Foreest,Lucas	2539	2629			½	½											1.0/2	1.5
6		Jumabayev,Rinat	2631	2558		½											½		1.0/2	1
7		Bjerre,Jonas Buhl	2586	2617		0							1						1.0/2	1
8		Vogel,Roven	2452	2569											½	½			1.0/2	0.5
9		L’Ami,Erwin	2622	2532							0							1	1.0/2	0
10		Shuvalova,Polina	2516	2499	0													1	1.0/2	0
11		Warmerdam,Max	2607	2352			0					½							0.5/2	0.5
12		Dardha,Daniel	2532	2295	0							½							0.5/2	0.5
13		Maurizzi,Marc`Andria	2502	2439				0		½									0.5/2	0.5
14		Zhu,Jiner	2478	1769									0	0					0.0/2

All video games spherical 2 

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Earlier report: