Round 2 of the Tata Steel Masters resembled round 1: two games finished with a winner, and two other games should have. Magnus Carlsen defeated Vincent Keymer for the third time in the last two weeks - he defeated him in the World Rapid and the World Blitz Championships just before the new year, and now it’s a hat-trick. Carlsen played a rare move - 7…c6 - on the black side of a 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bg5 Gruenfeld - and outplayed his young opponent convincingly. It may have taken him longer than necessary to convert his advantage, but he never let Keymer save the game.
The other winner was Anish Giri, who won a beautiful game against Dommaraju Gukesh. It’s not clear how much of it was preparation, but regardless, it was a spectacular attack well executed from start to finish.
Carlsen and Giri thus caught the leaders, Ding Liren and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who (like everyone else in the round) drew their games. Ding was winning against Parham Maghsoodloo - more than once - but it was never simple. As for Abdusattorov, he was always better in his game with Fabiano Caruana, but it was never anything usable. Caruana played the game as if everything was prepared at home. It was a fascinating idea, perfectly executed, that led to a smooth draw.
There are therefore four co-leaders. It would have been five, if Wesley So had managed to convert a winning advantage against Arjun Erigaisi. He missed his chances, and in the games Aronian-Praggnanandhaa and Van Foreest-Rapport there weren’t any real chances to miss.
In my round 1 review I presented one of the games from the concurrent Challengers event; today, two of the games. Neither was as spectacular as the Warmerdam-Pechac game (which you should go back and see if you haven’t already), but both merit inclusion. Here’s the link to my analysis of today’s games, and here are the pairings for round 3, headlined by the battle of the top two seeds:
Carlsen (1.5) - Ding (1.5)
Gukesh (0) - Abdusattorov (1.5)
Maghsoodloo (1) - Giri (1.5)
Caruana (1) - Van Foreest (1)
Erigaisi (1) - Aronian (1)
Rapport (.5) - So (1)
Praggnanandhaa (1) - Keymer (.5)