75th Tata Steel Chess 2013 Round 5: Anand, Carlsen Draw

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

Exciting things were happening all around in Round 5 at the 75th Tata Steel Chess 2013 even though World No. 1 and World Chess Champion decided to draw early in a Petroff.

Although the eagerly awaited match-up between World Champion Viswanathan Anand and World Number One Magnus Carlsen petered out soon after the opening resulting in a quick draw Tournament, the audience in Wijk aan Zee was not let down. It was a day full of stunning chess and decisive results: only 4 out of 21 games ended peacefully. Coincidentally, Sergey Karjakin was among those drawing his hard-fought game against Anish Giri, and the Russian Grandmaster still shares the lead with Anand and Carlsen.

Among those catching up with the leaders is Hikaru Nakamura of the USA. Using a tricky mover order in a Sicilian Dragon against Hou Yifan, he obtained a pleasant position and went on to outplay the 18-year-old from China moving quickly and with a steady hand. Still, the Chinese fans had some reason to cheer, as Wang Hao soon had the upper hand on the black side of a Bogo Indian against Erwin l'Ami. In the end, two connected passed pawns delivered the final blow.

Moving to 3 out of 5 points together with Nakamura and Wang Hao is Pentala Harikrishna of India. He faced Holland's Loek van Wely who showed his aggressive intentions by playing his bel

oved Sicilian Defence. Harikrishna went for it, and soon directed his army towards the black king. In the end, Van Wely was unable to withstand the pressure and was checkmated beautifully. You can replay the game with Chess King.

The fourth player to join the runner ups was Peter Leko who beat Fabiano Caruana. After a successful Ruy Lopez, the Hungarian Grandmaster finished off his slow build-up launching an irresistable. kingside attack a few moves before the first time control.

The first to leave the stage was Ivan Sokolov whose side line against Levon Aronian's Grunfeld Indian backfired badly leaving him a piece down in an endgame after a mere twenty moves.

In Grandmaster Group B Hungary's Richard Rapport moved into clear first with 4,5 out of 5 after beating co-leader Sergey Tiviakov on the black side of a topical French Tarrasch. The most spectacular game in group B was Sweden's Nils Grandelius master piece against World Junior Champion Alexander Ipatov of Turkey. The young Swede marched his king from c1 to e7 to create mating net around the black king. In Group C Fernanda Peralta kept the lead by beating Irael's Igor Bitensky, although Sabino Brunello kept pace defeating Alexandra Goryachkina and is half a point behind with 4 out of 5.

Round 5 - Thursday the 17th
Harikrishna, P. - van Wely, L. 1-0
Anand, V. - Carlsen, M. ½-½
Sokolov, I. - Aronian, L. 0-1
Leko, P. - Caruana, F. 1-0
Karjakin, S. - Giri, A. ½-½
Hou, Y. - Nakamura, H. 0-1
L'Ami, E. - Wang, H. 0-1

Standings after Round 5

1 Carlsen, M. 3.5
2 Anand, V. 3.5
3 Karjakin, S. 3.5
4 Nakamura, H. 3.0
5 Leko, P. 3.0
6 Harikrishna, P. 3.0
7 Wang, H. 3.0
8 Aronian, L. 2.5
9 Giri, A. 2.0

10 Caruana, F. 2.0
11 van Wely, L. 2.0

12 Sokolov, I. 1.5
13 L'Ami, E. 1.5

14 Hou, Y. 1.0

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