Five way tie in the lead after three rounds of the Tata Steel Masters 2021

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83rd Tata Steel Chess 2021 (3)

Five way tie in the lead after three rounds of the Tata Steel Masters 2021

Mark Crowther - Monday 18th January 2021

Caruana trying to find his way to the win against Duda. Photo ©

Caruana trying to find his way to the win against Duda. Photo © | https://chess.com

Pentala Harikrishna, Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, Fabiano Caruana and Nils Grandelius all share the lead on 2/3 in the early stages of the Tata Steel Masters. For a while it looked like Fabiano Caruana would take the sole lead of the tournament but his opponent Jan-Krzysztof Duda put up maximum resistance and eventually escaped with a draw. Alireza Firouzja beat David Anton in the final game of the day to finish, he eventually broke through in a queenless middle game to win in 61 moves. Pentala Harikrishna beat leader Nils Grandelius on the black side of a French where he completely took over the initiative following the error 25.Bc1? The remaining games were drawn Magnus Carlsen was frustrated by a solid opening from Aryan Tari, Alexander Donchenko finally got on the scoreboard with a comfortable draw with black against Giri, Radoslaw Wojtaszek drew a Semi-Tarrasch with Jorden van Foreest and MVL sacrificed his Queen with black against Andrey Esipenko for more than enough compensation but the game too was drawn.

A more detailed summary in the body of the article.

Round 3 standings: 1st-5th Harikrishna, Carlsen, Giri, Caruana, Grandelius 2pts; 6th-10th Vachier-Lagrave, Van Foreest, Esipenko, Firouzja, Wojtaszek 1.5pts 11th-13th Duda, Anton Guijarro, Tari 1pt 14th Donchenko 0.5pts.

Round 4 pairings 19th Jan 1pm GMT: MVL-Anton, Tari-Firouzja, Van Foreest-Carlsen, Donchenko-Wojtaszek, Duda-Giri, Harikrishna-Caruana, Esipenko-Grandelius.

Tata Steel Masters 2021 Round 3

Fabiano Caruana almost played a brilliancy against Jan-Krzysztof Duda but the complexity and time trouble meant that he allowed his opponent to escape with a draw. Caruana thought for 45 minutes over the correct sacrifice 16.Ne6 and followed up excellently with 18.g5, 22.Bd4, 25.Qf7 and even taking Queens off with 33.Qa3 but he had little time before first time control at move 40 and 38.Re1 was perhaps not accurate but it seems 41.Rg1 was where the win went, 41.Kc3 needed to be played, it soon became clear that black was at least equal. For all Caruana's great play Duda's strong resistance deserves great praise.

Leader Nils Grandelius played the Advanced French against Pentala Harikrishna and got a space advantage to play with. It wasn't terribly much and after 17.Bf4?! (17.Bxb4) black was at least equal and was the one who had a slight initiative. Following 25.Bc1? (25.g4 or the strange 25.Ndc1 are computer suggestions for equality) black quickly took over and following 29.Rc1? and 30.g3? it was all over.

Alireza Firouzja won the final game of the day to finish against David Anton. Firouzja played the London System and most likely got no advantage at all. Anton took the Queen's off with 14...Qb5 which left him very slightly worse for a very long time, after 42...Nd7 (42...Nxg6 maybe) things started to get very hard for black and Firouzja said that after 49...Nd6? he understood Anton had missed the winning 51.Ne7 that decided the game.

Aryan Tari played a very solid line of the Semi-Tarrasch against World Champion Magnus Carlsen and he felt afterwards this might have surprised the World Champion. Carlsen did find ways to complicate things but Tari found his way into a drawn endgame which he easily held.

Alexander Donchenko looked relieved to get off the mark, he said that his last minute invitation as a replacement from Daniil Duda meant that he wasn't quite mentally ready to play such a strong event right away. Today he got a good position with black in a Nimzo-Indian against Anish Giri and there was a liquidation of the pieces for a draw in 42 moves.

Radoslaw Wojtaszek was pressing a tiny bit against Jorden Van Foreest's Semi-Tarrasch but after 30.Nc2 (30.Be5 is to preferred according to Stockfish) the game quickly became equal and was drawn in 40 moves.

Andrey Esipenko played 4.Qxd4 followed by 5.Qe3 against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - a very modern line of the Sicilian that has been used a bit at the top level in blitz chess online. 15.b4 forced MVL to give up his Queen for just a couple of pieces and pawns but it looked more than enough. 18...Nb4 won more material for black but 21.Qd5 was an excellent move by white that established some control and computers even briefly like white a bit (22.Be3 or 22.Bh6 instead of the placed 22.Bg5) but the game quickly settled into equality and was drawn in 33 moves.

83rd Tata Steel Masters Wijk aan Zee (NED), 15-31 i 2021																cat. XIX (2725)
					1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	3	4
1.	Harikrishna, Pentala	g	IND	2732	*	.	.	.	1	.	½	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	2	2833
2.	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2862	.	*	.	.	.	.	.	.	1	.	.	½	½	.	2	2809
3.	Giri, Anish	g	NED	2764	.	.	*	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	1	½	2	2779
4.	Caruana, Fabiano	g	USA	2823	.	.	.	*	.	½	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	1	2	2819
5.	Grandelius, Nils	g	SWE	2663	0	.	.	.	*	.	.	.	.	.	1	.	.	1	2	2839
6.	Van Foreest, Jorden	g	NED	2671	.	.	½	½	.	*	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	.	1½	2764
7.	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	g	FRA	2784	½	.	.	.	.	.	*	½	½	.	.	.	.	.	1½	2719
8.	Esipenko, Andrey	g	RUS	2677	½	.	.	.	.	.	½	*	.	.	½	.	.	.	1½	2753
9.	Firouzja, Alireza	g	FID	2749	.	0	.	.	.	.	½	.	*	.	.	1	.	.	1½	2775
10.	Wojtaszek, Radoslaw	g	POL	2705	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	.	*	.	½	½	.	1½	2658
11.	Duda, Jan-Krzysztof	g	POL	2743	.	.	.	½	0	.	.	½	.	.	*	.	.	.	1	2596
12.	Anton Guijarro, David	g	ESP	2679	.	½	.	.	.	.	.	.	0	½	.	*	.	.	1	2647
13.	Tari, Aryan	g	NOR	2625	.	½	0	.	.	.	.	.	.	½	.	.	*	.	1	2652
14.	Donchenko, Alexander	g	GER	2668	.	.	½	0	0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	.	*	½	2477

Round 3 (January 18, 2021)
Carlsen, Magnus	- Tari, Aryan	½-½	56	D41	Semi-Tarrasch Defence
Giri, Anish	- Donchenko, Alexander	½-½	42	E21	Nimzo Indian 4.Nf3
Caruana, Fabiano	- Duda, Jan-Krzysztof	½-½	51	C42	Petroff's Defence
Grandelius, Nils	- Harikrishna, Pentala	0-1	38	C02	French Advance
Esipenko, Andrey	- Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	½-½	33	B53	Sicilian Hungarian
Firouzja, Alireza	- Anton Guijarro, David	1-0	61	D02	Queen's Pawn Game
Wojtaszek, Radoslaw	- Van Foreest, Jorden	½-½	40	D41	Semi-Tarrasch Defence