8 April 2012, Kuala Lumpur – Here are abstracts of ChessBase Magazine No. 147, April 2012 of the 74th Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2012 held in the Netherlands. Levon Aronian of Armenia won this year’s edition of the chess tournament with a score of 9.0 points out of 14 rounds of play. Two of Aronian’s games are shown near the end of this post.
Below is the Aronian’s winning game against Italy’s GM Caruana Fabiano during the 74th Tata Steel Tournament 2012 in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.
Here is the important Aronian’s winning game against Giri, Anish. Aronian played black and won in 43 moves.
(source: Chess Base Magazine No. 147, April 2012)
Carlsen, meanwhile, played black in a Gruenfeld against Azerbaijan’s Teymour Radjabov (see picture), an inventive player with a reputation as a tough defender, who sprung an early proposal to split the point on his formidable opponent. The top-rated Norwegian refused, of course. “You should expect to have to fight to the end for every half point,” he told reporters afterwards. “But, okay, I think the position never strayed beyond the bounds of a draw, although I believe I was better to begin with and then, he might have tried for a win, because I over-pressed.” The game ended when a repetition of moves became unavoidable, which deprived Carlsen of the privilege to play on until just two kings were left on the board – as he did twice in earlier rounds.
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.
Second seed Levon Aronian of Armenia quickly reached a comfortable position as Black in a Ruy Lopez against Russia's Sergey Karjakin. A tense struggle ensued until Karjakin cracked under pressure with (see diagram) 32.Nh5?, where White could have struck with 32.Bxh6!! and after for example 32...gxh6 33.Rxd7 Nxd7 34.Ng5 Kh8 35.Nxf7 Kg8 36.Nxh6 Kf7 37.Qf7 Kxh6 38.Nf5 Kg5 39.Qxd7 White is certainly not worse as Black will soon have to give his knight to stave off bigger trouble. Aronian missed 32...Nxe4! 33.Ng5 Nxg5 34.Rxd7 Qe6 when White would soon have collapsed under the combined pressure of the black pieces. Instead, the game entered an endgame where Karjakin nonetheless succumbed to the continuous strain on his position.
The 500-euro “Piet Zwart Prize” for the best game of the day was awarded to Anish Giri (see picture) for his victory over World Championship contender Boris Gelfand of Israel. The Dutch prodigy, fresh off his formidable tournament victory at Reggio Emilia in Italy a week ago, made a big impression with another fine example of his mature positional style. Giri aptly neutralized Gelfand's initiative after the latter sacrificed a pawn out of a Queen's Gambit Accepted. Commentator of the day, Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov, was especially impressed with the 17-year-old's ability to keep posing his opponent new problems every time a safe haven came in view.
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