Tata Steel round 1 report

Photo by Fred Lucas

Tata Steel Round 1 Report (update)
The successor of Corus started today in Wijk Aan Zee

Tata Steel 2011, previously known as Corus chess tournament, has started today in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. Three tournaments with 14 participants in each are being played with the round robin system.

Already in the first round of the main A tournament there was a clash between two players rated above 2800 elo. Magnus Carlsen used a novel approach in the Scotch Opening, but Levon Aronian skillfully combined careful defence and timely counterplay. Both Kings were under fire from enemy pieces, and Aronian claimed a perpetual check before White was able to include the dangerous Bishops into the attack.

World Champion Viswanathan Anand defeated the former ruler Ruslan Ponomariov after trapping his Queen in the middle of the board.
Tata Steel games with computer analysis

Jan Smeets claimed the fastest victory of the day. In a tactical position, Shirov blundered 23… Ra8 and resigned just a few moves after.
In the clash of the blitz chess masters, Hikaru Nakamura defeated Alexander Grischuk for a perfect start at Tata Steel (replay game).

Tata Steel B group saw more decisive results. In the direct clash of the top seeded, GM David Navara prevailed, as he defeated GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek with black. The 2008 Olympic champion GM Sargissian defeated Anand’s second GM Ganguly, while GM Efimenko won with black against the talanted GM Hammer.

In the game of the young stars, Le Quang Liem signed draw with Wesley so (replay game with commentary).

Tata Steel C had a remarkable start as well. Last seeded Tania Sachdev won against second seeded Ivan Ivanisevic in a sharp game that started with Allgaier gambit. After a blunder and missing a perpetual check, Ivanisevic was forced to start with a loss his first participation in Wijk Aan Zee (replay game).

The 2008 European champion Kateryna Lahno started with a draw against Canada’s GM Mark Bluvshtein, the same result occurred in the encounters Van der Werf – Bok and Siebrecht – Pruijssers.

The star of the round was Ilya Nyzhnyk who defeated the top seeded Kazhgaleyev (replay game)

Swiercz and Vocaturo completed the list of young players in Tata Steel C with full points, after winning their games.

Replay all games with Chessdom / Chessbomb computer analysis