Anish Giri beats World No.2 Ding Liren in Round 9 of the Tata Steel Masters 2023
Round 9 of the Tata Steel Masters 2023 is over with Anish Giri beating World No.2 and 2023 Challenger Ding Liren, who suffered his second loss in the tournament. The leader of the tournament, 18-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov, drew against Vincent Keymer in a fascinating rooks endgame.
GM Anish Giri is undoubtably having one of the greatest tournaments of his life. After beating D. Gukesh with a double sacrifice in Round 2 and World Champion Magnus Carlsen in Round 4, Giri beats World No.2 Ding Liren in Round 9 of the Tata Steel Masters 2023.
Ding Liren built up tension to Black’s kingside putting both of them into a continuous struggle to find the best positional decisions. Giri had good piece-activity against Ding’s attacking strategy which led to a chaotic but very beautiful position, where White was inevitably mated.
“I was very happy. I feel so very lucky because the game was not looking good. At one point, I even thought, I’m borderline lost.” Anish said at his post-game interview. With a 6/9 score, the Dutch GM narrows the difference with the tournament’s leader Abdusattorov to half a point.
This game took Ding out of the 2800 club in live rating, right before his big World Chess Championship match against Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Another exciting game was Keymer against Abdusattorov. It was a seven-hour encounter with the players exchanging queens after 23 moves, and moving into a complicated rook & knight endgame.
Keymer had all odds on his favor as he had a powerful knight on e5, an active rook on the 6th rank, and Black’s isolated d-pawn after 37 moves. The game shifted to a technical rook endgame though and after a resourceful defence by the Uzbeki GM, the game ended in a draw.
After 9 Rounds, Abdusattorov keeps his lead with 6.5/9, followed by Anish Giri with 6/9, and Wesley So with 5.5/9. In Round 10, Anish Giri will face Wesley So, while the leader of the tournament Nodirbek Abdusattorov will fight against World No.2 Ding Liren.
