Magnus Carlsen won the 77th Tata Steel Masters with 9/11 half a point clear of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Wesley So and Liren Ding.

Magnus Carlsen secured a draw in his final round game against Ivan Saric that proved enough for him to take first place alone in the 2015 Tata Steel Masters. Carlsen was not happy with the quality of the final round game where he "just blundered a pawn" he was unhappy with his play even after this but eventually the game swapped down to a dead draw. This is Carlsen's 4th victory in the Wijk aan Zee top group. The 78th Tata Steel Chess takes place 15th to 31st January 2016. Carlsen didn't guarantee a return but thought it "not unlikely".

There were some pluses which Carlsen outlined on twitter as "First tournament win since April, first gain of rating since February, and my longest winning streak ever."

Anish Giri could have caught Carlsen with a final round win over Radoslaw Wojtaszek but instead a complex Gruenfeld traded off to a dull draw. Giri thought at various points he may have had chances but the tactics led to an equal position. Giri has moved to 2797 and 6 in the world and his progress is obvious.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave played perhaps the most impressive game of the day to also share second place. He defeated Fabiano Caruana with a creative pawn sacrifice that almost immediately led to consessions by white. Vachier-Lagrave finished the game with a very nice mating flourish too.

Liren Ding defeated Levon Aronian in a very strange King's Indian. Aronian must have forgotten his preparation because he thought for 15 minutes over 16.g5 which is just losing after 16...Ne8! Aronian extended the game for a very long time but he never came close to recovering.

Wesley So defeated Loek van Wely in a Benoni. It didn't look like Van Wely had much patience to defend and once his aggression finished white simply broke through in the centre.

Baadur Jobava at least finished a catastrophic event for him with a win. It was a very odd game which started as a King's Indian and went into Benko style play. Rajdabov missed the winning sacrifice 20.Nxf3+! and the game looked to be heading for a draw. 46.Rb4? was a bad error (46.Rb3+ first saves the game) and then was practically losing. However Jobava gave Radjabov at least some hope with the crude 50.Nxb2 giving up a piece (50.Nd2 is wining) but 51....Ke7? (51.Bxe5 and if white is still winning it is tricky) led to a white win.

Hou Yifan was better against Vassily Ivanchuk out of the opening but they locked the position up after which a draw was the natural result.

Final Round 13 Standings: 1 Carlsen 9pts, 2-5 Vachier-Lagrave, Giri, So, Ding Liren 8.5pts, 6 Ivanchuk 7.5pts, 7 Caruana 7pts, 8 Radjabov 6pts, 9-10 Wojtaszek, Aronian 5.5pts, 11 Hou Yifan 5pts, 12 Saric 4.5pts, 13 Van Wely 4pts, 14 Jobava 3pts.

In the Challengers group Yi Wei won with 10.5/13 half a point clear of David Navara. Yi Wei has earned a place in the Masters next year.

Next events: Gibraltar Masters 27th Jan to 5th Feb 2015. Topalov, Nakamura, Svidler, Vitiugov, Jakovenko etc

GRENKEChess in Baden-Baden 2nd-9th February 2015. Carlsen, Caruana, Anand, Aronian, Adams, Bacrot, Naiditsch, Baramidze

77th Tata Steel Masters 2015 (13)

Mark Crowther (Sun Jan 25 22:22:00 2015)