Dear chessfriends,
last Sunday the 2021 TataSteelChess tournament was completed. The TataSteelChess Festival is a prestigious event that in 2021 had already its 83th occurance! 14 top players including the best of the best plus some strong young talents had to match each other in a classical round tournament.
Despite of Corona it nevertheless was carried out face-to-face (on real boards) which is a nice change after seeing only online chess, right? Since no public audience was allowed, there was a decent live coverage, and live streams throughout the rounds. Here are some impressions from the final rounds.
The setup of the boards, in the middle you can see current world champion Magnus Carlsen and on the left side Alireza Firouzja.
From time to time you could see a "birds view" with all 7 games simultaneously.
Anish Giri, sole leader during the second half of the tournament, in deep thinking in his game against Alireza Firouzja.
There were two likable but competent live commentators, IM (and WGM) Sopiko Guramischwili (happens to be the wife of Anish Giri) and GM Robert Hess.
Magnus Carlsen staring on the board after returning from a break (during which players apparently were supposed to wear masks) and only later realized he had still his mask on.
Fabiano Caruana in this position from his game against David Anton Guijarro is threatening Qh6x and at the same time a discovery against the Black Queen (the game later ended in a draw).
Alireza Firouzja in a very difficult position - b5 will fall (Bb5x, Rb5x and Ka4x) and White will have 2 connected passed pawns. At the end he was still able to draw this - unbelievably strong defending skills!
Fabiano Caruana and David Anton analyzing after agreeing to a draw in the 12th round
In the final round underdog Jorden Van Foreest (he has started in the tournament as lowest ranked player) was able to beat Nils Grandelius by a brilliant preparation and is here already in winning position. He is waiting for Nils to resign (which he actually did a move later).
On the lower right side you see the final position at which Nils has resigned. The mate on g7 is unavoidable. A check with Qd2 is simply answered by f4. But what about if White would have moved his Queen to a7 to prevent the mate? This position is on the big board. What would you play?
There is a mate in 2 for White (White to move), can you spot it?
With this win (and Anish´s draw) Jordan could close the gap and at the end both had 8,5 out of 13 points. So a tiebreak needed to decide: 2 Blitz games!
Anish Giri (with white shirt) and Jorden Van Foreest (with black shirt) at the second Blitz game of the tiebreak. Anish had just played Nb3 to prevent a break on c5.
Both Blitz games ended in a draw, so an "Armageddon" had to bring the final decision. One player has 5 minutes on the clock, the other only 4. But for the latter a draw would be enough to win the tournament. Anish Giri with White and 5 min had to win, but despite of the time advantage, he ulimately lost on time in a dramatic game, just 2 moves away from the 60th move where he would have gained some time increment.
A very lucky, but overall well deserved win for the young talent (he is only 21) Jorden Van Foreest! After this tournament he has not only crossed the 2700 Elo rating mark, but also has risen from the 66th to the 37th position on the world ranking. Remarkable!
Here is the final standing. Magnus Carlsen was quite disappointed with his performance. Does it already indicated a change after he was dominating for so many years already? Too early to tell I guess.
Credit: All pictures were taken from the Twitch live stream, from Youtube where the live coverage was also broadcasted, and from the tournament web site.
By the way, the first round of the Hivechess tournament, season 5, will start not this Friday, but on the 12th February! Stay tuned!