The Week in Chess

Fabiano Caruana was the only winner in the final round of the 82nd Tata Steel tournament to finish on a score of 10/13. This was Caruana's first victory in the Masters Group in Wijk aan Zee although he had previously won the B and C Groups.

Caruana's performance was one of the best in this tournament's history going back to 1939. The top group has been 13 rounds since 1980 (but for a couple of years) and Caruana equalled the record score since then with 10/13 previously achieved by Garry Kasparov in 1999 and Magnus Carlsen in 2013. The margin of victory over Carlsen was two points, the largest ever in a 13 round event here. Records going further back show Korchnoi won with 12/15, 3 points clear of Portisch, Tal and Hort in 1968 and that Olafsson (1959) and Euwe (1952) won 9 round events by 2 points.

Caruana was again the last to finish. Artemiev certainly had drawing chances until near the end but it was a long defence for him and eventually he erred. All in all a fantastic 6.5/7 finish after a slow start but it did include a win against Anand where he was lost at one stage.

Wesley So played a drawish Four Knights against Magnus Carlsen and they rattled out over 40 moves extremely quickly and the game was agreed drawn after 52 moves, this meant Carlsen finished in second place and eventually confirmed So in sole 3rd place. Anish Giri against Jorden Van Foreest was a competitive game to decide who was the top finishing player from the Netherlands, Van Foreest won this battle by half a point and finished tied in fourth place. Duda-Anand, Firouzja-Dubov and Kovalev-Vitiugov were all short draws. On another day Yu Yangyi might have converted what looked like a sizable advantage against Jeffery Xiong but this too was drawn.

Carlsen was disappointed with his performance here and in classical chess for the last few months. Still according to Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS on twitter) "Carlsen has now played 168 classical games since January 2018 scoring +53 =113 -2 against an average rating of 2748. His only two losses came within two months in 2018 against So and Mamedyarov." His draw vs Wesley So was his 120th game undefeated. Carlsen next plays in the GRENKE Chess Classic in Karlsruhe/Baden Baden from 11th-20th April 2020.

In the Challengers Group David Anton Guijarro's draw was sufficient to qualify him for the Masters Group next year. He was half a point clear of Abdusattorov, Eljanov and L'Ami.

1st Caruana 10pts, 2nd Carlsen 8pts, 3rd So 7.5pts, 4th-5th Van Foreest, Dubov 7pts, 6th-9th Giri, Anand, Duda, Firouzja 6.5pts, 10th-11th Xiong, Artemiev 6pts, 12th Vitiugov 5pts, 13th Yu Yangyi 4.5pts, 14th Kovalev 4pts.