2022 Tata Steel Chess Tournament is over with Carlsen, Mamedyarov, and Rapport forming the top3
Even if we already knew the Champion of the 2022 Tata Steel Chess Tournament, the second and third places were about to be determined in the last round. A draw was enough for both Mamedyarov and Rapport to be in the top3, while Pragg stole the show of Round 13 with his win against Esipenko.
Carlsen has won his eighth Tata Steel Masters Tournament with 9.5/13, gaining 3.1 rating points and moving firmly to his 2900 goal. Mamedyarov responded to which was his favourite game in the tournament, he said: “It was the game I lost against Magnus Carlsen. Before the tournament, I thought that humans have no chance against the engines, but I think Magnus has a chance because he played absurdly well.”
The 2021 Tata Steel Champion, GM Jordan Van Foreest, didn’t manage to climb to the top this time, but he scored five wins, with his decisive last match against Shankland. ”I am really exhausted after this game” Van Foreest confessed after the last round.
Mamedyarov and Rapport shared the second and third place respectively, with Mamedyarov making a quick draw in the Queens’s Gambit Declined against Caruana, and Rapport following a well-known repetition of moves in the Grünfeld against Giri.
Karjakin ended the tournament on a high note with a victory over Vidit who lost the thread in an equal but difficult ending. It was generally heartbreaking to watch Vidit fighting so hard the last two rounds, and losing in a disastrous way each time, but this will maybe give the Indian GM strength for the upcoming Grand Prix.
Nils Grandelius concluded his decent tournament with a very entertaining draw against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. It was Grandelius who had to play precisely to reach this result, as Duda missed his opportunity to win the game.
Certainly, a highlight was the young Indian prodigy, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa who won his last game of the tournament against Esipenko, and finished 12th with 5.5/13. Pragg was only one of two players rated below 2700, but still managed to win three games in the tournament, Grandelius in Round 4, Vidit in Round 10, and Esipenko in Round 13.
See you in Berlin!
