The world champion, Magnus Carlsen, made a bad start even before the first pawn was pushed at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee this week, before recovering strongly. Dancers performed at the opening ceremony, then the grandmasters chose a dancer whose dress concealed a pairing number. The Norwegian, 24, found No12 which meant not only an extra black but three blacks in the first four rounds.
The Dutchman Anish Giri halved with Carlsen in round one and the 20-year-old world No7 remarked caustically afterwards on his plus score against the champion, dating back to 2011. Round two was also a setback against a potential future rival. The world No10 Wesley So, also 20, played so calmly and solidly that Carlsen soon repeated moves for another draw.
All this may help to explain Carlsen’s frenetic third-round defeat by Radoslaw Wojtaszek. Instead of his usual slow grind he opened with the Leningrad Dutch (f5 and g6), pushed his a pawn down to a3, and later his h pawn to h3 too! It was a 50-year throwback to the great Dane Bent Larsen, rival of Bobby Fischer, who in his heyday liked to advance his rook pawns. Carlsen’s version misfired as the Polish GM captured the a3 pawn, calmly rejected a desperate bishop sacrifice, then cashed in his extra material.
Meanwhile Italy’s world No2, Fabiano Caruana, began with two wins while So beat the former No2 Levon Aronian. That meant that Caruana, Giri and So, all in the world top 10 and all younger than Carlsen, had all begun well while the world champion languished in the lower half of the score table.
It looked ominous until in round four Carlsen benefited from an endgame blunder and in round five he outplayed Aronian, while Wojtaszek completed a double by beating Caruana. Carlsen then beat Caruana in round six, and with eight rounds left was only half a point behind the surprise leader, the veteran Vassily Ivanchuk.
Games start at 12.30pm on the internet and are highly recommended viewing, live and free with human and computer move-by-move commentary plus videos of the play.
The quickest win so far was an instructive one-sided crush which shows what happens when Black makes too many weakening pawn moves. After 4...h6?! and 8...g5? Black dare not castle short but, when his king went to the opposite flank, White was ready with 16 b4! and 17 bxc5! after which dxc5 18 Nxd5 Nxd5 19 cxd5 is winning. The white rook broke through to b7 and at the end 22...Rxc3 23 Rxf7 sets up the winning double threat Qb7+ and Rxg7.
Ding Liren v Baadur Jobava
1 d4 d6 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 c4 Bf5 4 Nc3 h6?! 5 g3 Nbd7 6 Bg2 c6 7 d5 c5 8 0-0 g5? 9 h4 g4 10 Ne1 Bg7 11 e4 Bh7 12 Nd3 a6 13 a4 Qc7 14 Be3 0-0-0 15 Rb1 e6 16 b4! exd5 17 bxc5! dxc4 18 e5 Nxe5 19 Rxb7 Qa5 20 Nxe5 dxe5 21 Qa1! Rd3 22 Qb2 1-0
3373 1 Qh7+ Ke6 2 Rxg6+ Kd7 (or Nxg6 3 Qxg6+ Kd7 4 Qd6 mate) 3 Qxe7+! Kxe7 4 Rg7+ Ke6 5 Rh6 mate.
