Wijk aan Zee, Round 10
Abdusattorov still leads, but Carlsen is within a point.
Are the top players taking a rest day? Nodirbek Abdusattorov played an anti-Berlin line against Ding Liren known to be very drawish, and nothing that happened in the game overturned that assessment. Wesley So and Anish Giri played a real game, but it too was drawn quickly and without any real drama, though probably due more to Giri’s good prep. (Maybe So hoped to catch Giri by surprise with 12.Bd2. Judging by the speed of Giri’s subsequent play, he was well-prepared, and held easily.)
Those trailing the top three were given the chance to do some catching up, but of the four players half a point behind So before the round (and a point behind Giri and a point and a half behind Abdusattorov) only one gained ground. With Black, Levon Aronian played the Berlin against Richard Rapport, who disappointingly played a drawing line that has been used at least 44 times before. Since Rapport had White and was half a point behind Aronian and the other three players, he’d stand to gain a lot with a win, but didn’t even try. (The drawing line he chose was very, very, very well known. There was a 0% chance that Aronian would be unfamiliar with the line and unsure of what to do.) Fabiano Caruana had White against Arjun Erigaisi, and while it wasn’t a drawing line in the same sense as the Rapport-Aronian game, he was unable to pose many difficulties for a well-prepared Erigaisi, and their game also finished in a draw.
The other two players in this part of the chase pack, Magnus Carlsen and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, had decisive results. For Pragg, it was the wrong sort of result; he lost rather easily to Dommaraju Gukesh. Gukesh played a very risky line on the white side of an English, and for half a move he was lost. Fortunately for him, but not for his countryman, Pragg’s reply brought him from winning to losing - he blundered/unsoundly sacrificed a piece - and Gukesh scored his second win in the last three games.
That left Carlsen, and he continued his comeback with a good win against Parham Maghsoodloo. He found a remarkable, sharp idea with Black in an Exchange Queen’s Gambit Declined, and though the position remained equal after good play by both sides all the way to the endgame, it was easier for Carlsen to handle than for his opponent - who was also relatively low on time. Over the course of five or six moves, almost all of them mistaken, Maghsoodloo’s position went from equal to completely lost. Carlsen reached a technically won ending, and being Carlsen had no trouble converting his advantage.
The day’s other game was a long draw between Jorden Van Foreest and Vincent Keymer. Just like yesterday, Keymer’s persistence paid off to the point of reaching a winning rook ending, but - also like yesterday - he was unable to reel in the full point, and his opponent escaped.
All the games - plus the (to my mind) shocking king and pawn ending in the Amin Tabatabei vs. Thomas Beerdsen game in the Challengers tournament - are here, with my notes. Here are the pairings for round 11, which feature dream matchups on the top two boards:
Giri (6.5) - Abdusattorov (7)
Carlsen (6) - So (6)
Aronian (5.5) - Caruana (5.5)
Praggnanandhaa (5) - Maghsoodloo (4)
Keymer (3.5) - Rapport (5)
Ding Liren (4.5) - Van Foreest (4)
Erigaisi (3.5) - Gukesh (4)