The Week in Chess

Levon Aronian has started with a tremendous 4/5 score in the 76th Tata Steel Chess tournament after an exciting round with just one draw. This left Aronian with a half point lead over Anish Giri and Wesley So. Aronian has white against So in Saturday's sixth round.

Levon Aronian was modest about his win against Arkadij Naiditsch "I won't say it's my achievement, more the mistakes of my opponent." but it certainly felt like a great example of how a leading player can take an unpromising position and apply really serious pressure using the clock and accurate moves. A really impressive win.

Fabiano Caruana said he predicted his opponent's choice of the Sveshinikov and played a solid line which gave him what Caruana believed to be only a small advantage. The position certainly looked difficult for Van Wely but Caruana said that it was only when Van Wely sacrificed a second pawn was the position winning for him.

Anish Giri was reasonably pleased with his play in beating Pentala Harikrishna at least up to a point. Giri made life hard for himself by not playing ending at all well eg 49...Rxb2 "for a while I was worried I even spoilt it" was Giri's comment but in the end he earned the full point.

Wesley So faces the leader Levon Aronian in Round 6. Today he beat Boris Gelfand very quickly, it seems 20...Qe4? is just a mistake (20...Qa6 and life goes on) and soon Gelfand's position just fell apart. The opening was also interesting with 8.Qd2 being an idea So thought of over the board and played it instead of the normal 8.f3 and the novelty led to time trouble for both players.

Leinier Dominguez Perez was particularly brutal on some unusual play from Richard Rapport. 1.c4 c5 2.Nc3 g6 3.g4!? was a highly creative idea with some point to it but it certainly weakened white's king-side and Rapport never found a home for his king (15.0-0 is the computer suggestion but it hardly looks appetising), in an already tricky position 19.Nb3 cut off most of white's army from the defence of his king and after 19...Bxe2 Dominguez finished things quickly.

Hikaru Nakamura's Nimzo-Indian opening didn't go to plan against Sergey Karjakin and after 13.Ke2 he had to be terribly careful he didn't get checkmated with many sacrificial ideas in the air. One of those was 19...Rxe3+ but this only led to a draw by perpetual check.

Round 5 Standings: Aronian 4.0pts, Giri, So 3.5pts, Dominguez, Karjakin, Caruana 3.0pts, Harikrishna, Nakamura 2.5pts, Van Wely, Rapport 1.5pts, Naiditsch, Gelfand 1pt.

Round 6 Pairings 12:30pm Sat 18th 2014: Giri-Gelfand, Aronian-So, Karjakin-Naiditsch, Dominguez-Nakamura, Van Wely-Rapport and Harikrishna-Caruana.