Chess (#1186)

Magnus Carlsen started 2016 brilliantly, winning the Tata Steel Masters. The world champion scored 9/13 (+ 5,=8 for a rating performance of 2880) finishing ahead of Fabiano Caruana and Ding Liren (both 8). Wesley So, Anish Giri and Pavel Eljanov tied for 4-6, scoring 7 each. Wei Yi and Shakhriyar Mamedaryov hit 50 per cent (6.5 each). Carlsen and So were the only unbeaten players.

This was Carlsen's third victory in quick succession, following London and Qatar. The 25-year-old Carlsen has logged five titles at Wijk An Zee in nine attempts. Viswanathan Anand, is the only other player with five WAZ wins and Anand has played WAZ 18 times.

Carlsen took calculated risks after starting with four draws. He sacrificed against Loek Van Wely when the Dutchman was in severe time-trouble. Carlsen was dead-lost at one stage. But he won and rode the momentum to log three wins in his next four games.

Caruana and Ding (who has worked with Carlsen) pushed Carlsen fairly hard. Caruana took too many chances in the last round and suffered his second loss, to Evgeny Tomashevsky. A win would have let him share first.

The Tata Steel Challengers saw Baskaran Adhiban take first on tiebreak in a photo-finish. Adhiban, Alexey Dreev and Eltaj Safarli all scored 9. But Adhiban won his games against the other two. So India's #5 will play the 2017 Masters.

In contrast to Carlsen, Anand has started 2016 very badly. At the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival, he suffered two shocking losses, to French GM Adrien Demuth and Hungarian IM Benjamin Gledura. Anand finished with 6.5/10. Hikaru Nakamura won a tiebreak to edge out Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (both 8/10). S P Sethurama and Pentala Harikrishna were among the six players sharing 3-8 (7.5 each).

At the DIAGRAM, BLACK TO PLAY, (White: Van Wely Vs Black: Carlsen, Tata Steel Masters 2016), black can keep easy equality with 23.-- Nf6. But Van Wely was in time trouble so 23...Qg5 !? 24.fxg4 Rxd4 25.Ke1 Qe5 26.Ne2 Rxg4 27.e4

So far, reasonable. Now black must stop Qh6 and 27.-- Rh8 would still be equal. Instead black plays 27.-- Rxg2 ? 28.Qh6+ Kf6 The win's there with a minute or two to spare. But Van Wely had seconds. White wins with [29. Qh4+! Kg7 30. Qh7+ Kf6 31. Rf1+; or 29.Qh4+ Qg5 30. e5+ Kg7 (30.-- Kxe5 31. Qd4# ) Qh7+; or 29. Qh4+ g5 30. Qh3 ; or 29. Qh4 + Rg5 30. Rg1 Qa5+ 31. Nc3 Qe5 32. Rxg5 Qxg5 33. e5+].

Instead the game went 29. Rc3? Rd8 30.Qh3 Qg5 31.Rf1+ Kg7 32.Qf3 Rd7 33.Rf2 Rg4 34.Nf4 Qh4 35.Be2 Rg1+ 36.Bf1 Kg8 37.Ne2 ? Rxf1+! 38.Kxf1 Rd1+ 39.Kg2 Bxe4 (0-1).

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player