The Week in Chess

The 8th round of the 80th Tata Steel Masters saw a big shakeup of the leaderboard with a defeat for the leader Shakhriyar Mamedyarov allowing both his opponent Anish Giri and World Champion Magnus Carlsen to catch him. Carlsen's win was remarkable as he recovered from blundering a piece away in the opening phase.

Mamedyarov subsided to his first loss of the tournament in a Symmetrical English where he more or less had equality out of the opening (perhaps rather than the new 12...Qd6 the known 12...Qb6 was better) but about 10 moves later he was in trouble and 10 moves after that he resigned.

Magnus Carlsen didn't predict Gawain Jones' choice of the Dragon Sicilian in spite of the Englishman having written a book about it. Carlsen was dissatisfied with the result of his opening and after a long think he uncorked the "crude" - his word - blunder 17.g4, this just lost a piece to 17...f4. Carlsen admitted that he was lucky to have any compensation at all, but he did have some, and having nothing to lose he found a good practical chance. Jones had choices to realise his advantage but it was his 22...Qb6?! (22...g5 or Kh8 were still large advantages) that reduced it quite a bit and after 23.g5 his 23...hxg5?! (23..Bf8 or gxh5 were better) his entire advantage had gone. The further error 25...Qd8? left Carlsen with a big advantage and Jones did not resist long after that.

Hou Yifan had quite a substantial advantage against Fabiano Caruana but it was all quite difficult and after 33.Qd2? Qh4! Caruana took the initiative and brought home the full point.

The remaining games were all drawn. Svidler-Anand, Kramnik-So and Wei Yi-Matlakov all lasted less than 30 moves. Adhiban-Karjakin was in a Rook and Pawn ending after 26 moves where white had a pawn extra on the king side but with few winning chances and it was drawn after 43 moves.

There was also a similar change in the leadership of Challengers Group with Anton Korobov losing while his only real rival Santosh Vidit won. The winner will surely come from one of these two players as they are two point clear of the rest of the field.

Masters Round 8 standings: 1st= Giri, Carlsen, Mamedyarov 5.5pts 4th= Kramnik, Wesley So 5pts 6th= Anand, Karjakin 4.5pts 8th= Svidler, Matlakov 4pts 10th Jones 3.5pts 11th= Wei Yi, Caruana 3pts 13th Adhiban 2pts 14th Hou Yifan 1pt

Rest Day Monday 22nd January 2018.

Masters Round 9 Pairings Tuesday 23rd January 2018 12:30 GMT: Jones-Hou Yifan, Anand-Carlsen, Wesley So-Svidler, Mamedyarov-Kramnik, Matlakov-Giri, Karjakin-Wei Yi, Caruana-Adhiban.