The Week in Chess

Wesley So leads the Tata Steel Masters after 8 rounds going into the second rest day. So equalised with black quickly against Sergey Karjakin's rather quiet setup.

Magnus Carlsen's failure to win against Giri the day before may have contributed to his complete loss of objectivity against Richard Rapport's 1.Nf3 d5 2.b3 opening. Carlsen had equality after 22 moves but after a long thought went for the dubious 22...d3 presumably a winning attempt and move by move his position went downhill until he resigned on move 33. A very strange loss.

There were two fantastic games in the round. Levon Aronian recovered from a poor loss in round 7 with aggression against Anish Giri. He sharpened things up with 8.Na3 in the Catalan, sacrificed the exchange a few moves later and Giri never really escaped the resulting bind. Giri resigned on move 43.

Baskaran Adhiban scored his third win in a row with a fine attacking effort against Dmitry Andreikin. Adhiban continued his policy of playing a new opening with the Vienna Game (which transposed to a Closed Sicilian) and then broke through with a long sustained king-side attack in an impressive manner.

Pentala Harikrishna had an edge against Wei Yi's Petroff Defence but couldn't make anything of it. Pavel Eljanov was winning at various stages against Radoslaw Wojtaszek but it wasn't easy in the face of king-side pressure and the game finished in perpetual check. It seemed like Loek van Wely must beat Ian Nepomniachtchi with the advantage he had after first time control but it was not at all easy and the game was drawn.

Markus Ragger and Gawain Jones continue to lead the Challengers Group with 6/8.

Round 8 standings: 1st Wesley So 5.5pts 2nd Eljanov, Wei Yi 5pts 4th Aronian, Carlsen, Adhiban, Karjakin 4.5pts 8th Harikrishna, Giri 4pts 10th Andreikin, Wojtaszek 3.5pts 12th Rapport, Nepomniachtchi 3pts 14th Van Wely 1.5pts

Rest day Monday 23rd January 2017.

Round 9 Tuesday 24th January 2017 12:30pm So-Aronian, Wojtaszek-Karjakin, Andreikin-Eljanov, Wei Yi-Adhiban, Nepomniachtchi-Harikrishna, Carlsen-Van Wely, Giri-Rapport