The Week in Chess

The fifth round of the Tata Steel Masters took place in Rotterdam and produced four decisive games. At the end Vassily Ivanchuk remained in the lead with 4/5 half a point clear of his opponent Ding Liren and the ACP qualifier Radoslaw Wojtaszek

The leader Vassily Ivanchuk played one of his closest rivals Liren Ding with black and the game finished in a quick draw.

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen faced long time number two Levon Aronian and produced a fine positional display to win in 47 moves. Carlsen said this was his best game of the event so far. Carlsen established some static pawn weaknesses on c7 and d5 against Aronian's Ragozin Defence and Aronian struggled to find the proper placement of his pieces in a passive position. Carlsen broke through tactically and won the d5 pawn after which Aronian's whole position collapsed.

Radoslaw Wojtaszek moved into joint second place with a second win against the Leningrad Dutch. He has now beaten the top two players in the world Carlsen in Round 3 and today Fabiano Caruana in Round 5 in this opening. Maybe he won't get too many volunteers to play it against him in the future. Wojtaszek again won a pawn and was pressing for the win. Caruana's 39...d3 giving up a pawn seems to have been the decisive mistake.

Anish Giri defeated Baadur Jobava in what was the game of the day. Jobava chose a very sharp King's Indian which was theoretically much better for white but in practice very frightening for white to face. 22.Nc3 seems to be an error, Giri missed the fantastic response 22...Nh4!! after this play was balanced. Jobava could have more or less forced a draw but his 33...Bg4, trying to win, turned out to be a terrible tactical error and Giri won a few moves later.

Ivan Saric had a rather depressing day being worse as white shortly after the opening in a Berlin against Teimour Radjabov and was ground down, Radjabov even missed a one move with with 32...Qf6 but converted the endgame all the same. Wesley So tried long and hard against Hou Yifan in the final game to finish but the Women's World Champion held the endgame rather impressively. Loek van Wely has never been afraid to play the Sicilian against the best in the world and today he had the better of a draw against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Round 5 Standings: 1 Ivanchuk 4/5pts 2-3 Wojtaszek, Ding 3.5pts 4-7 Caruana, So, Carlsen, Giri 3pts 8-9 Radjabov, Vachier-Lagrave 2.5pts 10 Saric 2pts 11-13 Aronian, Van Wely, Hou Yifan 1.5pts 14 Jobava 0.5pts

Round 6 Pairings 16th Jan 2015 12:30 GMT: Van Wely-Aronian, Caruana-Carlsen, Hou Yifan-Wojtaszek, Jobava-So, Radjabov-Giri, Ivanchuk-Saric, Vachier-Lagrave-Ding Liren