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Tata Steel Masters 2021 Round 5 Summary

Nils Grandelius beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a theoretical duel in the Najdorf Sicilian. MVL's novelty of 19...Qe6? could be described as the losing move, it seems to be at least reasonably well known that strong computers think 19...Nh5 is the only move, MVL didn't trust this move but according to Leko who was commentating he should have simply known it (it had come up in Leko's work with Vincent Keymer). Grandelius was a little unhappy with his conversion - in particular his clock management but he finished things crisply enough.

Magnus Carlsen put huge pressure on Alexander Donchenko in a technical endgame finding a really cunning try with 43.exd5 and 46.c4. Donchenko however held firm and earned a great drawn.

Anish Giri and Pentala Harikrishna drew very interesting Queen's Gambit Accepted. It looked like Giri was getting the upper hand with a fabulous regrouping of Bc4-f1-g2 followed by Qf1 but he suddenly became very unhappy after playing 24.Rad1 and then immediately wishing that he had played 24.Nd2 instead, it's actually not that clear that Rad1 isn't the best move but 25.Bc3 was not a good move, instead Giri would have had to find 25.Re3. Both players were short on time and agreed a draw on move 26 on Giri's offer.

Andrey Esipenko survived a theoretical test on the black side of an English Four Knights against Fabiano Caruana. "Probably somewhere I had big problems" was Esipenko's comment after the game but it really doesn't seem so, Caruana played quite quickly and set a number of problems but Esipenko seems to have played well throughout.

Alireza Firouzja took the game out of theory very early (6.Nh4) and a lively game followed which was more or less balanced throughout. Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Jan-Krzysztof Duda drew a Gruenfeld in 27 moves.

David Anton reached a winning position on the white side of a Berlin Defence against Aryan Tari fairly quickly, it looks like 17...f6? (17...Bxc2) was not a good move. Anton continued to play accurately for a very long time (although he had the option of saving his a2 pawn which might have saved him a lot of heartache later. Only in the final few moves before time control did things start to go wrong 38.Rb8?! (38.Ra8) 39.Rb5? (39.Kf2) is already equal 39...b6? (39...Rxe5!=). After first time control they quickly reached a fascinating endgame 4 white pawns vs Bishop and Single Pawn. 45.Kf2? (45.a4!) was the end of white's objective winning although the position remained difficult. In the end the game was drawn but 52.Kf4? could have actually been a losing mistake, 54...c2? secured a draw but 54....Bb5! is zugzwang, white will have to give up every single one of his pawns eventually and have to resign, a remarkable concept.

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