Aronian Leads In Tata Steel Chess

Pix 1. Groups A and B, Tata Steel Chess 2012. (Photo by Fred Lucas)

16 January 2012, Kuala Lumpur – In the Netherlands, Levon Aronian has taken the lead in the Grandmaster Group A after winning against Nakamura during round 2 of play in Tata Steel Chess 2012.

The official website of the tournament reported that in round 2 of Tata Steel Chess, world number two Levon Aronian took sole lead by beating last year's winner Hikaru Nakamura (see picture). The American grandmaster of Japanese descent had little to complain about a Dutch opening, as Aronian freely admitted: “That was not the way to play against the Dutch!”. Soon White give up a queen for rook and bishop and it seemed Black was doing fine (see diagram). Somehow, some way, over the next 30 moves Aronian used his surplus of pieces to greater effect than Nakamura used his queen, and collected the full point.

World number one Magnus Carlsen could not keep in pace, as he soon found himself in a lifeless position against Vasily Ivanchuk of Ukraine. The matadors gave it 30 more moves, but the evaluation never dipped below dead even. The third leader after day one, Dutch Anish Giri, had by then long left the premises. Teymour Radjabov had comfortably taken the sting out of Giri's Samisch King's Indian and even though the youngster was up a pawn, there was no way to exploit this asset and his draw offer after 24 moves was accepted.

 

Official website: http://www.tatasteelchess.com