Tata Steel Masters, Round 9 (Revised)
White wins, wins, wins, wins, and wins. Plus: Warmerdam's tragedy.
[There was a minor omission in the first paragraph of the original post. More importantly, the link to the games was misplaced. So here’s a second version, with those errors fixed.]
Round 9 of the Tata Steel Masters was the bloodiest round yet - and it was those playing the black pieces who did all the bleeding. Two games - featuring two of the leaders - were drawn, and the remaining five games were all won by the white pieces.
Let’s start with the draws. Anish Giri had no trouble with Black against Ding Liren, and probably should have been more ambitious at the end. Giri remains tied for first, but it has been five rounds since he has won a game. The other draw was the short game between Dommaraju Gukesh and Santosh Vidit Gujrathi. My inclination upon seeing such games, especially between countrymen, is to think that the game was as good as prearranged, but since Vidit spent more than half an hour in reply to Gukesh’s novelty on move 19, I’m not certain. At any rate, Vidit solved all his problems without much difficulty, and the players finished the game quickly. Gukesh remains tied for first, with Vidit half a point behind.
Now to the wins. Nodirbek Abdusattorov had been tied for first before losing in round 8; today, he bounced back to rejoin the leaders. His victim was Jorden Van Foreest, who chose a risky line, mishandled it, and was lost as early as move 11. Abdusattorov’s mistake on move 13 reduced the advantage, but the position was still both bad and dangerous for Black. Another error by Van Foreest on move 18 left him lost again, and he resigned on move 24.
As Abdusattorov yo-yoed back into first, Alireza Firouzja yo-yoed in the opposite direction, falling out of first after losing for the third time in his last five games. He was doing fine against Alexander Donchenko - more than “fine”, even, as he would have had a decisive advantage after 21…Bf8. But from that point on he made error after error, and while he had one big opportunity to save the game after Donchenko’s error on move 33, Firouzja immediately returned the favor and resigned two moves later.
The previous quota of co-leaders was three, but now it’s four thanks to Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa’s win over Ju Wenjun. Ju may have done a good job of preparing the Two Knights with 4.Ng5, but she was unable to handle the irrational positions as well as her opponent. She was bamboozled, and Pragg won convincingly.
Something similar happened in the Wei Yi - Ian Nepomniachtchi game. Again 1.e4 e5, again a museum opening (the Bishop’s Opening), again competent prep by Black…and again a middlegame where White did a much better job of navigating the irrational position. Nepo played on to the time control, but was lost as early as move 24. (An aside, but not really: check out the variation given on move 16 of the game. Black’s 22nd move in that line is extraordinary, and if it were played in a game there’s a good chance you’d see it in book after book for the foreseeable future.)
Finally, we come to the game between Parham Maghsoodloo and Max Warmerdam. Warmerdam again played the frisky Von Hennig-Schara gambit, as he did against Gukesh in round 7, and again got away with it. More than that: he was winning after 13 moves. Maghsoodloo gradually worked his way back to equality, but a further error just before the time control left Black with a winning position once again. But from then on, Maghsoodloo found one ingenious resource after another, forcing Warmerdam to work through a slew of tricky tactical lines to keep his advantage.
On move 51, Warmerdam’s accuracy slipped, but it was understandable. The best move won, but not obviously, while the problem with Warmerdam’s move was also hard to spot. After 51…Ba3? 52.Rxc5 a1Q 53.e7 an amazing position appeared. Black was up a queen for a knight, with White’s king in the middle of the board and the e-pawn unable to promote because of a skewer. And yet the position was equal, and the burden of keeping it that way was probably greater for Black than for White. Warmerdam made one of the obvious moves, 53…Qh8, but it was a blunder. Maghsoodloo could hardly believe his eyes, doing the neck-bob version of a double-take around at least 5-6 times before checking his analysis for the 20th time and playing the winning move. There was nothing to be done, and Warmerdam resigned on his 57th move.
A very exciting round, obviously, and you can replay the games (with my notes) here. We have one more round before the third and final rest day (followed by the last three rounds), and here are its pairings:
Firouzja (5) - Giri (5.5)
Nepomniachtchi (4.5) - Ding Liren (4)
Van Foreest (3) - Wei Yi (5)
Warmerdam (4) - Abdusattorov (5.5)
Ju Wenjun (3.5) - Maghsoodloo (3.5)
Vidit (5) - Praggnanandhaa (5.5)
Donchenko (3.5) - Gukesh (5.5)
Dennis, what do you mean by “a museum opening”?-Thanks, great coverage!