Wijk aan Zee, Round 11
Drawing conclusions
Recent rounds have had plenty of action, so we shouldn’t feel too bad that today’s was a dud. Only one game, with no impact on the race for first, finished with a winner, and of the six draws only one - again, with no real bearing on the battle for the top spot - was ever more than minimally distant from equality.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov maintained his half-point lead over Anish Giri with a solid draw in their game. Giri was surprised by Abdusattorov’s choice of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, apparently forgot or mixed up something in his preparation, and the game was soon completely equal on its way to a very short (29-move) draw.
Had Magnus Carlsen defeated Wesley So (or vice-versa), he’d have caught Giri and closed to within half a point of first, but he got nothing against So. In the World Rapid & Blitz tournaments Carlsen regularly managed to squeeze wins out of “dead” drawn games, and maybe if this had been a blitz game he would have succeeded again. In classical, against So, it wasn’t going to happen. They both remain in a tie for third.
As if preparing to board Noah’s ark, the next pairing featured players tied for the next spots - 5th-6th. Levon Aronian tried putting Dubov’s Tarrasch line to the test, but Fabiano Caruana knew what he was doing and held easily.
Richard Rapport is alone in 7th place now, after his shaky draw with Vincent Keymer. Keymer has been coming close for three rounds in a row, but once again failed to close the deal. Rapport was tied with Praggnanandhaa at the start of the round, but Pragg spoiled a good opening against Parham Maghsoodloo. His 17.Nf5 was a terrible misjudgment, and he went from clearly better to worse, and just a few moves later he was completely lost. Maghsoodloo almost made it interesting at the end, but had it all calculated to a conclusion. Pragg and Maghsoodloo are part of a tie for the 8th-10th places, along with Ding Liren. Ding had White against Jorden Van Foreest, who sprang some terrific preparation on his opponent. All things considered, Ding did well to avoid trouble and fight his way to a draw. Finally, Arjun Erigaisi tried for a long time to squeeze something out of an equal position against Dommaraju Gukesh, to no avail.
The games, with my comments, are here; here are the pairings for round 12, the penultimate round:
So (6.5) - Abdusattorov (7.5)
Van Foreest (4.5) - Giri (7)
Rapport (5.5) - Ding (5)
Caruana (6) - Keymer (4)
Gukesh (4.5) - Aronian (6)
Maghsoodloo (5) - Erigaisi (4)
Carlsen (6.5) - Praggnanandhaa (5)