The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen was not really impressed with his own play in beating women's world champion Hou Yifan in the seventh round of the Tata Steel Masters tournament. Carlsen thought she played too passively initially but then had chances to hold. "If she had taken with the queen instead of the knight on e4, I'm not sure if I would've won." said Carlsen but he won in the end in 54 moves.

Leader Vassily Ivanchuk had much the better of the opening against Anish Giri but lost this advantage and then started to play quite poorly. Giri said he didn't believe in his winning chances in the Queen and two pawns vs Queen and one pawn ending but Ivanchuk gave him a chance which he didn't take (89.Qf4 or 90.Qd6+ were the computer suggestions).

In a poor day for the Dutch players Loek van Wely turned a winning into a lost one in the space of a few moves after move 50 in what must have been a pretty upsetting loss to Liren Ding.

Ivan Saric and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave played a sharp Sicilian which ended suddenly after 31.Rd2? (31.Qc1) allowing Vachier-Lagrave to mate him.

Finally Baadur Jobova's risky and creative play paid off when he won against surprise package Radoslaw Wojtaszek in 37 moves.

Wesley So was held to a draw by Teimour Radjabov and Fabiano Caruana was substantially better against a struggling Levon Aronian but that too was drawn.

Round 7 Standings: 1-2 Ivanchuk, Carlsen 5/7pts, 3-5 So, Vachier-Lagrave, Ding Liren 4.5, 6-7 Wojtaszek, Giri 4pts, 8-9 Caruana, Radjabov 3.5pts, 10-11 Aronian, Saric 2.5pts, 12-13 Hou Yifan, Van Wely 2pts, 14 Jobava 1.5pts

Round 8 Pairings: Sunday 18th Jan 12:30 GMT. I will host commentary on ICC with GM John Fedorowicz please join us if you can. Van Wely-Caruana, Hou, Yifan-Aronian, Jobava-Carlsen, Radjabov-Wojtaszek, Ivanchuk-So, Vachier-Lagrave-Giri, Ding Liren-Saric.