GM Magnus Carlsen secured his eighth victory in Wijk aan Zee with a round to spare. The world champion defeated GM Fabiano Caruana on Saturday and now leads the 2022 Tata Steel Chess Tournament by a full point. He will earn a forfeit win tomorrow vs. GM Daniil Dubov, who cannot get back into the tournament despite a negative PCR test today. GM Arjun Erigaisi is also certain of victory in the Challengers as the Indian GM is going into the final round with a 1.5-point lead.
Carlsen had already won in Wijk aan Zee more than anyone else in the long history of the tournament. Behind him is GM Viswanathan Anand with five titles, and GMs Max Euwe, Levon Aronian, Viktor Korchnoi, and Lajos Portisch all won four times. The world champion winning here eight times is truly something special. The next number to go for is 10, which now seems doable.
Carlsen: “I’m very happy to get back to winning ways here and I also now got back to winning more than 50 percent of my A groups here, which is something that I was kind of thinking of a bit the last year. I didn’t want to dip below. If I do the same thing the next few years, I have great chances.”
It was the victory of a strange tournament, heavily affected by the Covid pandemic this time. The Dubov saga had another twist on Saturday when a voluntary PCR test, requested by the Russian GM himself, came out negative. While Carlsen and Caruana were still playing, the tournament organizers came out with a statement that made it clear that Dubov could not return and play on the final day.
At that point, GM Richard Rapport had already drawn his game, which meant that Carlsen only needed a draw vs. Caruana, but he decided to play on since he wasn’t running any risk anyway. An exchange sacrifice (kind of the theme of the tournament, by now!) had given him a very pleasant endgame and the world champion steered it to a win nicely.
“I’m very happy of course with the result in total and also today,” Carlsen said. “A draw was very good for me, but I guess I was feeling a bit bolder than normal; I kind of wanted to play. He clearly wanted to play as well, so we got a good fight.”
In what was a Rossolimo Sicilian, Carlsen said that he went for a somewhat risky plan with moves like 23…a4 and 24…Rd8, because Black would have to spend some time to get the queen back into the game, and the question was whether White could use that time.
Caruana’s 25th and 26th were “the wrong plan” according to Carlsen, when “the exchange sac was just screaming to be played.” The world champion thought he was a bit better but that his advantage only became serious when the queens went off the board.
“It might seem a bit paradoxical that I should exchange queens while I am an exchange down, but I think my bishops are so strong in the endgame that he just has no chance,” said Carlsen. “I feel like the endgame was pretty much winning from the get-go. He found some nice resources, but I think eventually it’s always gonna win.”
Yesterday, he was still set to lose one Elo point, but thanks to this win, Carlsen will leave Wijk aan Zee with a three-point gain to reach 2868. 2900 is still a long way to go, but it’s a start!
The only player left with a serious chance to catch Carlsen was Rapport, but the Hungarian GM said that he didn’t really look too much at the tournament standings: “I lost to Magnus earlier, so I think it would be kind of fair if I’m the one to stop him, that he would win the tournament because he’s beaten me, yet again.”
Rapport used the interesting 4…Ne7 again in the Berlin Ruy Lopez, despite losing an important game with it against Carlsen at last year’s Norway Chess tournament. “I figured, I shouldn’t leave it at that and try to score. But probably it’s just a really bad move, to be honest. But it’s kind of a cool move!”
Better prepared, Esipenko went for a very principled line which, according to Rapport, was kind of forced until 13.exf5. It meant that it was already tough to play for a win as Black.
Rapport: “I don’t really have chances unless he over-pushes.”
This draw gave GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov the chance to catch Rapport in second place. The Azerbaijani GM did so after receiving a present from GM Vidit Gujrathi, who blundered terribly in a position where he had the better chances.
Mamedyarov: “He just missed …f5. It’s very sad, but he just missed it.”
GM Sam Shankland scored his first win in the tournament and did so in under two hours. He defeated GM Sergey Karjakin, who got caught in his opponent’s prep and also missed a key attacking move (21.Qc7), when it was basically over.
“I got some nice preparation,” said Shankland. “I think he mishandled it later on, but I think White should be slightly better.”
About the tactical phase, the American GM said: “It’s messy, but I think it just works for White.”
During the game, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi tweeted something that, as they say, didn’t age well:
Asked for his reaction to the tweet, Shankland said: “I had some ideas, of course. It’s difficult: you play against Karjakin, just go and prove an advantage with White—it’s not easy. There’s definitely some drawish lines in the f3-Nimzo; I did not come blank. I had ideas to put him under pressure. My attitude towards this game was: I have some new ideas and if he finds all the moves he can equalize—and otherwise, no.”
With one more round to go, Carlsen’s tournament is over. Looking back, he said:
“I think there have been a lot of very good moments here in this tournament. I think I’ve had nine winning positions and I converted five of them, which is probably one or two too little considering what I had, but there are a lot of positives, especially compared to the last couple of years where I didn’t play well and frankly didn’t get many chances. So the huge amount of chances that I got, it’s of course partly due to my opponents playing a bit weaker than usual, but I think I also managed to create more of them than normal. And obviously the total score, plus five, is great and more than enough for tournament victory, but there’s always this thought that it could have been even better, but that will have to be another time. I’m really satisfied, in general.”
Dutch GM Erwin l’Ami won a nice game, also following the theme of the tournament, with an exchange sacrifice:
