With Magnus Carlsen having wrapped up first place in the Tata Steel Masters and out of action because his opponent Daniil Dubov had tested positive for Covid-19 it looked like there might not be much of interest on the final day.

Quick draws in the games Richard Rapport vs Anish Giri very quickly followed by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov against Fabiano Caruana meant that intrigue over the top four was over too. The remaining four games however were all full of interest and white won three and there was a wild draw in the fourth.

Sergey Karjakin said he was extremely upset about his loss to Sam Shankland in Round 12 and implied he might easily have taken a quick draw under the right circumstances. Vidit Gujrathi did indeed offer a draw on move 10 but Karjakin wanted to see a few more moves at least. Vidit gradually drifted into trouble after not playing the accurate 21...Be2 of the game Wesley So vs Magnus Carlsen and when he decided to give up the c-pawn (the passive 28...Rc6 would probably have held) he was probably just lost. After such a great first half Vidit's play fell away alarmingly.

Jorden van Foreest beat Sam Shankland with the London System once again showing that although black has many supposed equalising schemes white usually can find a little twists or too to create problems. Shankland found himself under pressure straight out of the opening when he had to give up his d-pawn, but he had compensating good pieces and it was only after blundering within sight of the draw 53...Ra5? (53...b3=) that he lost.

Praggnanandhaa won his fourth game of the tournament (8 players in the field didn't manage this) using the Saemisch Nimzo-Indian to create a mess against Andrey Esipenko. Around moves 27 and 28 were Esipenko's last chances, he needed to take off the Nd5 - when he didn't he almost immediately had to return and exchange with a lost position.

Nils Grandelius and Jan-Krzysztof Duda drew a wild Richter-Rauzer with opposite sides castling where the evaluation fluctuated from winning for white to winning for black before settling down to be a draw. He revealed that he is to play a long classical match with David Howell in London fairly soon.

Final Standings Masters: 1st Carlsen 9.5 2nd Mamedyarov 8 3rd Rapport 8 4th Giri 7.5 5th Karjakin 7 6th Van Foreest 7 7th Esipenko 6.5 8th Caruana 6.5 9th Duda 6 10th Vidit 6 11th Shankland 5.5 12th Praggnanandhaa 5.5 13th Grandelius 4.5 14th Dubov 3.5

Final Standings Challengers: 1st Erigaisi Arjun 10.5 2nd Nguyen 8.5 3rd Bjerre 8.5 4th Jumabayev 7.5 5th L'Ami 7.5 6th Van Foreest 7 7th Murzin 7 8th Warmerdam 6.5 9th Ganguly 6 10th Dardha 5.5 11th Maurizzi 4.5 12th Shuvalova 4.5 13th Vogel 4 14th Zhu Jiner 3.5

84th Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022 (13)

Mark Crowther (Sun Jan 30 20:47:00 2022)