Giri Beats Donchenko, Catches Firouzja In 1st Place

GM Anish Giri caught GM Alireza Firouzja in first place in round three of the 2024 Tata Steel Chess Tournament Masters. The Dutchman defeated GM Alexander Donchenko and saw his compatriot GM Max Warmerdam hold Firouzja to a draw. As in the first round, there were four wins for Black.

After a day with five decisive results, there is now a group of six players in a tie for first place in the Challengers section.

Results - Masters Round 3

Standings - Masters Round 3

It's an odd statistic: out of the 11 decisive games in the Masters, 10 were won by Black. But just as young chess players can sometimes play a brilliant tournament without anyone needing to suspect them of cheating, this huge black overscore is simply something that, statistically, would occur at some point in a big event. When something is not impossible to happen, it will happen.

It helps that the tournament, unlike for instance Norway Chess, doesn't have only players from the world's top 20. With rating differences of a hundred points or more, the favorites tend to play for a win also with the black pieces, as we saw today, particularly in the games of the two former tournament winners from the Netherlands.

It almost looked like Giri and GM Jorden van Foreest had prepared together, but that wasn't the case. (Giri works with GM Jan Smeets and Van Foreest with GM Sipke Ernst.) Giri said: "We came independently to a very similar conclusion. He played ...g6 and I played ...d6 but essentially we got this King's Indian/Pirc type of setup, so that was just kind of funny."

In the game between the 2023 winner of the Masters and the 2023 winner of the Challengers, Giri had prepared quite deeply. "The position I got in the game was all preparation," he said. "I've got this knight on d8... To be very honest, I used my Titled Tuesday preparation for this. This year I don't really care about classical chess so I prepare really hard for Titled Tuesdays and this was actually part of my Titled Tuesday preparation.

This year I don't really care about classical chess so I prepare really hard for Titled Tuesdays and this was actually part of my Titled Tuesday preparation.

—Anish Giri

"Another fellow Titled Tuesday player plays this a lot with with Black, so this was my prep, this knight on d8 thing," he added. "The knight is actually quite funny on d8. It looks absolutely horrible at first, it looks completely dominated with pawns on b7 and f7, but then you see that it can come out via b7, it can come out via f7, and also in the game it can, if White takes en passant like he took, it can come out by e6."

Even so, Donchenko wasn't actually worse out of the opening, and he was hanging on, for 34 moves. "I think it was only because I was sort of putting the pressure that he kind of started cracking, because I don't think the position is really, like, I don't think Black can really be better, but I'm glad that putting pressure worked out," said Giri.

For Van Foreest, the reasoning before the game had in fact been entirely different. "I just wanted to play a fighting game and I didn't want to do too much preparation," he said. "There wasn't too much to it; I just wanted to play a game."

For the third time in as many games, the 2021 winner had a blunder on the board, but this time he was on the good side of things. GM Ju Wenjun actually played another good game, but in the time-trouble phase it all collapsed for her.

"I was quite worried at several moments in the game," Van Foreest admitted. "I mean, at some point we reached some endgame and I thought at least we're going to get a slow game and I cannot blunder, but then she started playing extremely aggressively and I got very worried after she sacrificed this piece. It looked super dangerous for me with a lot of mating attacks. I don't know what happened in time trouble, probably several mistakes, but she made the last mistake."

GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov and GM Parham Maghsoodloo played a very entertaining game today. As commentator GM Daniel Naroditsky put it: "This is a thriller, Die Hard, Bruce Willis, Furious Five, stuff-happening, cars-exploding type of action!" 

In the end, it was Abdusattorov who emerged victorious against GM Parham Maghsoodloo after the Uzbek grandmaster had played an early gambit: 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 e4 4.Ng5 c6!?. There was some psychology involved there.

"I played this line because, you know, I felt like he might be in bad shape after yesterday's tough loss, so I tried to choose some sharp opening," Abdusattorov said.

Maghsoodloo reacted quite well, up to the point where he was even winning briefly, but both players had missed 19.Qa3. After that, Abdusattorov was in control and finished it off with a beautiful 23rd move and a strong follow-up. "An entertaining game by two uncompromising fighters" was a good description from GM Rafael Leitao.

After two relatively quiet draws, mostly to warm up (as he said himself), GM Ding Liren scored his first win in the tournament. The world champion beat GM Gukesh Dommaraju.

"At first I was on the defensive side; I was a pawn up but my queen was misplaced," Ding said. "But suddenly I turned the tables by sacrificing the pawn on b7. I think he might have missed my move 32...Qg1. It's hard to say, because the line looks so forced and it's just winning for Black, so I don't know where he went wrong."

Firouzja's winning streak was stopped by Warmerdam, who played another good game today. GM Ian Nepomniachtchi was probably OK with a draw against GM Vidit Gujrathi as he played the Petroff, and reached a draw after 55 moves, having an hour more on the clock. GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu vs. GM Wei Yi was about equal throughout.

Results - Challengers Round 3

Standings - Challengers Round 3

GM Anton Korobov started with a loss, but just two days later he finds himself in a tie for first place in the Challengers. The Ukrainian grandmaster defeated the luckless IM Eline Roebers, who spoiled another good position with White.

Korobov's interview is highly recommended. One quote, from his preparation for this Scheveningen Sicilian: "To tell the truth, I analyzed this position many, many years ago, prior to Covid and the computer epoch. Back then, I had a coaching session with Gennadi Kuzmin, a strong grandmaster from the Soviet Union who passed away. That was more than 20 years ago. I remember the assessment; White has nothing special but on the other hand is very solid, rock solid, controlling the baseline. It's very difficult to produce some ideas for Black in order to play for a win and not bearing any risk, and I went on for the risk and probably I was lost because yeah, I wasn't able to calculate, but all of a sudden I smelled and there was checkmate in the air!"

Roebers should have traded queens to win a pawn, when the ending is probably winning. She kept playing for a win with the queens on the board, and then got outplayed.

Indian IM Divya Deshmukh won her first game, and what a nice one it was! With a sacrificial attack, she defeated the Spanish GM Jaime Santos in great style.

"I was mostly very nervous," she said about that moment, "because I'm not sure if it's working or not but when I was like, okay, fine, what's the harm in going there? I think I was just like, okay, let's go there, and I thought the worst case would be I would be a pawn up, so yeah, anyway it felt okay."

Pairings - Masters Round 4

Pairings - Challengers Round 4

The Tata Steel Chess tournament takes place January 13-28, 2024, in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. The time control is 100 minutes for 40 moves followed by 50 minutes to finish each game with a 30-second increment. Both the Masters and Challengers groups are 14-player round-robin tournaments.

Previous posts:

• Firouzja Moves To 2/2 In Tata Steel Chess Masters
• 4 Black Wins In Tata Steel Chess Masters Opening Round
• Ding Liren Ready For Tata: 'I Feel Much Better Than Before'
• 2024 Tata Steel Chess: World Champion Ding Returns, Carlsen Missing