Wei Yi won the Tata Steel Masters for the first time following a tie-break, he had previously won the B-Group way back in 2015. Indeed after becoming a GM at 13 years old and the youngest ever player to reach 2700 at 15 he hasn't really lived up to this promise, this result came a bit out of the blue, and it was a late run of 4.5/5 that took him to a tie-break including a win against Santosh Vidit today. This win is 24 year old Wei Yi's greatest result.

Four players reached the tie-breaks with wins today. Anish Giri played a super aggressive Reti system against Max Warmerdam and eventually broke through. Nodirbek Abdusattorov won a fluctuating struggle against Alexander Donchenko, he was a bit better, then worse, then equal and finally winning. Parham Maghsoodloo sacrificed unsoundly with 16.Nxf7? against Gukesh, it was a mess though with Gukesh's king very unsafe and for one move he was back in it 29...Ke6? 30.Rb1? (30.dxe4! is almost equal) before Gukesh converted.

The other games were drawn, Ding Liren vs Ju Wenjun and Ian Nepomniachtchi against Jorden van Foreest quickly, and Praggnanandhaa against Alireza Firouzja very slowly, indeed this fight was the last one to finish in the Masters before the tie-breaks. Praggnanandhaa could have overtaken Anand in the rating list with a win and he came very close, with Firouzja defending excellently and with great effort and determination.

The tie-breaks were a four player knockout with 3 minute plus 2 seconds a move games. Wei Yi came back from the dead to draw against Abdusattorov in their first game and was worse in the second until it suddenly turned in his favour with an error 34.Bf4? soon the game was level again before a final blunder 38.Bc7 (38.Qe2! is the only playable move). Anish Giri won the first game against Gukesh with white but couldn't hold on to this lead losing the second and the final Armageddon game.

In the final against Gukesh the first game was drawn and Wei Yi won a long second game where he gradually got a decisive advantage in a long blitz at the end where the players were surviving on the increment.

This has been a fascinating tournament, lots of fighting chess, lots of mistakes, a big fight at the top but a lot of struggling players too, including the World Champion Ding Liren. I don't know what it says about the state of modern chess. The Candidates should tell us more.

In the Challengers Leon Luke Mendonca finished with 6.5/7 to win alone and book a place in the Masters next year. IM Arthur Pijpers won the Tienkamp and will play in the Challengers.

Masters Final Standings: 1st Wei Yi 8.5pts, won the four player tie-break 2nd= Gukesh, Abdusattorov, Giri 8.5pts 5th= Vidit, Praggnanandhaa, Firouzja 7.5pts 8th Nepomniachtchi 6.5pts 9th Ding Liren 6pts 10th= Ju Wenjun, Donchenko, Van Foreest, Maghsoodloo, Parham 4.5pts 14th Warmerdam, Max 4pts

86th Tata Steel 2024 (13)

Mark Crowther (Sun Jan 28 21:50:00 2024)