Tata Steel Masters, Round 8
It's still a three-way tie for first, but not all three are the same.
There were only two wins in round 8 of the Tata Steel Masters, but both were relevant to the race for first. One leader fell behind, and another took his place.
In round 7, Nodirbek Abdusattorov was one of the heroes, defeating then-sole leader Anish Giri to produce a three-way tie them sharing the lead with Dommaraju Gukesh. Easy come, easy go: Abdusattorov didn’t manage to make sense of the position resulting from Ian Nepomniachtchi’s 18.c5, winding up with a bunch of weak pawns and losing two of them on the way to defeat. As neither Giri nor Gukesh won their games, he fell only half a point back - which is also where Nepo is.
Meanwhile, one player joined the tie at the top: Alireza Firouzja. He lost in the previous round to Vidit Gujrathi, but no problem. For him it was easy go, easy come. He defeated Ding Liren, who is now at -1. Firouzja played a rare, tricky line in a Semi-Tarrasch/QGA hybrid, and it worked perfectly when Ding couldn’t work out the tactics on move 18, trying to bail out with the blunder 18…Qc7?? Firouzja wound up with two minor pieces against a rook (and no pawns) and smoothly converted his advantage.
The remaining games were drawn, but two came close to a decisive result. Max Warmerdam probably should have beaten Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, and Jorden Van Foreest was at least nearly winning at a couple of points in his game with Parham Maghsoodloo. There were smaller moments in the other three games, with shifts of momentum but no one too close to landing a knockout blow in the Vidit vs. Alexander Donchenko, Ju Wenjun vs. Gukesh, and Giri vs. Wei Yi games. (The games, with my comments, can be replayed here.)
Monday is a rest day for the players (and possibly your blogger); here’s what we’ve got to look forward to in round 9, on Tuesday:
Donchenko (2.5) - Firouzja (5)
Ding Liren (3.5) - Giri (5)
Gukesh (5) - Vidit (4.5)
Maghsoodloo (2.5) - Warmerdam (4)
Abdusattorov (4.5) - Van Foreest (3)
Wei Yi (4) - Nepomniachtchi (4.5)
Praggnanandhaa (4.5) - Ju Wenjun (3.5)
Fun fact: while Black had a +9 score after three rounds, “gravity” has kicked in (and then some) since then. Black has only won two games since then while White has won 11. So the score is dead even.
Also, a quick note on the Challengers tournament (the winner of that event gets promoted to the Masters next year). Top seed Hans Niemann isn’t having a good event: he’s at 50%, alone in eighth place (out of 14, like the Masters). He’s a point and a half behind the surprise leader, 16-year-old Marc’Andria Maurizzi of France, who is also the current World Junior Champion. (The World Junior isn’t what it used to be, as top GMs typically ignore it, but even so: it’s an U-20 event, so it’s still an outstanding achievement for a 16-year-old to win it.) Maybe he’s not yet showing the super-prodigy levels of the best young Indians and Uzbek GMs, but he’s worth keeping an eye on.