The Week in Chess

The 10th round of the Tata Steel Masters took place in the Railway Museum in Utrecht. There was a big spectator turnout that pleased both the players and organisers. Magnus Carlsen leads on 7/10 half a point clear of Fabiano Caruana going into the final rest day.

Fabiano Caruana defeated Wei Yi in an Open Ruy Lopez. Caruana's 10. Bc2 is an old continuation but he had prepared it deeply and drove Wei Yi into serious time trouble and a losing position. Caruana felt 17...c6? was practically the decisive error and that 17...Nxc3 was necessary.

Magnus Carlsen was critical both of his own poor opening play which pretty much left him a tempo down in a Lasker Variation of the Queen's Gambit by transposition and his opponent Anish Giri's failure to make anything very much of this. The game was drawn in 34 moves.

Sergey Karjakin tried the fashionable London System but Michael Adams just played a known plan and rather quickly got a decisive attack. Hou Yifan lost a complex battle with Pavel Eljanov.

Wesley So was in danger of being substantially worse with white against Evgeny Tomashevsky but successfully took the game to a draw. David Navara and Shakhriyar had a lively draw. Ding Liren and Loek van Wely drew a long struggle where both had winning positions at various points.

Baskaran Adhiban defeated Eltaj Safarli in the battle of the leaders in the B-Group. Adhiban leads on 7.5/10 half a point clear of Aleksey Dreev.

Round 10 Standings: 1st Carlsen 7pts 2nd Caruana 6.5pts, 3rd-6th Giri, Wesley So, Ding Liren, Eljanov 5.5pts, 7th-8th Wei Yi, Mamedyarov 5pts 9th-10th Navara, Karjakin 4.5pts, 11th-13th Hou Yifan, Tomashevsky, Van Wely 4pts 14th Adams 3.5pts

Rest Day Thursday

Round 11 Pairings: Friday 29th Jan 2016 12:30pm Wei-Karjakin, Mamedyarov-Caruana, Van Wely-Navara, Tomashevsky-Ding, Eljanov-So, Carlsen-Hou, Adams-Giri.