The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen leads the Tata Steel Masters going into the second rest day after defeating Baadur Jobava for his fifth consecutive victory. Jobava has proved a difficult opponent for Carlsen in the past and it proved so today again, at least in patches. Jobava's 4.Nc3 impressed no-one but did cause Carlsen to somewhat overestimate his position and Jobava then played the next phase very well leaving Carlsen with a light squared bishop with few prospects. Carlsen set about equalising which he felt he had done on move 29, he also felt the h3 pawn could give him chances later if allowed. Jobava's move 38.f4 was unnecessary as he had a fortress and his move 39.g4 was a terrible mistake after which there was no fixing his position.

Joint leader Vassily Ivanchuk went down to a loss with very little fight against Wesley So. Ivanchuk just walked into a line that is known to be bad for white and whilst he had some drawing chances after 13...Nf4 he didn't find the best and was in desparate trouble. However So did commit one inaccuracy with 21...Qd7 (21...Qd6!) and 22.Qe4 might have allowed Ivanchuk to escape with a draw. Ivanchuk didn't find it and he quickly came under a decisive attack.

Vachier-Lagrave was another winner with a lightening attack following an inaccuracy from Anish Giri. 15...exd4 rather than 15...Be6 suddenly gave white the advantage with 17.Bf4 and 18.Be5 and Giri couldn't defend a nasty attack without ruining his position.

Liren Ding was another winner after beating Ivan Saric in a Slav Defence. Saric bet his position on an attack on the kingside and it turned out that Ding could allow him to win his h3 pawn as he had a counter-combination picking up his rook after which he was lost.

Fabiano Caruana set up a Hedgehog structure against Loek van Wely and nothing much happened until move 25.Qd2 (which leads to the loss of material), nothing much except van Wely used most of his time up. Caruana was winning at first time control but then even though he was 3 pawns up some technical difficulties appeared as the opposite coloured bishop ending looked tricky and maybe even not winning. Caruana chose the Queen ending which was also tricky but ultimately winning for him.

Teimour Radjabov won a long grind against Radoslaw Wojtaszek which was not without interest. It looked like Wojtaszek might hold the bishops of opposite colours ending a pawn down but Radjabov launched a late attack on his king that proved decisive.

Hou Yifan played quite conservatively against Levon Aronian and was rewarded with some winning chances after Aronian suddenly got into trouble just before first time control. With best play Hou had some serious chances a pawn up but she didn't find the very best and the game was drawn.

Round 8 Standings 1 Carlsen 6pts, 2-4 So, Vachier-Lagrave, Ding 5.5pts, 5 Ivanchuk 5pts 6-7 Radjabov, Caruana 4.5pts, 8-9 Wojtaszek, Giri 4pts, 10 Aronian 3pts 11-12 Hou Yifan, Saric 2.5pts 13 Van Wely 2pts 14 Jobava 1.5pts

Monday 19th January rest day.

Tuesday 20th January 12:30 GMT: Saric-Van Wely, Giri-Ding Liren, So-Vachier-Lagrave, Wojtaszek-Ivanchuk, Carlsen-Radjabov, Aronian-Jobava, Caruana-Hou Yifan