Tata Steel 2022, Round 1: Four Draws And a Win For Duda, Vidit and Van Foreest
Day 1 of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022 is over with GMs Van Foreest, Duda and Vidit leading the event, while Carlsen, Mamedyarov and Caruana missed their chances.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda grabbed the first win of the Tournament and seemed in excellent shape. Duda was a pawn down against GM Richard Rapport, but his very active pieces made him justice and won him the match.
The last to finish after a six-hour marathon, was India’s No.2 Vidit Santosh Gujrathi who managed to dominate over the American GM Sam Shankland. With this win, Vidit gained 4.7 rating points, moving to 2732 and World no.20 in the ranking board.
The third win of the tournament was the reigning Tata Steel Champion, Jorden van Foreest, who secured an early lead with white against the Swedish GM Nils Grandelius. The Dutch GM outplayed his opponent in a queenless position, with Grandelius making a wrong move with his bishop, and resigning on move 44.
One of the most anticipated matches, with the World Champion facing GM Andrey Esipenko, ended in a draw in just 21 moves. Carlsen had a clear chance to take the advantage, but instead he decided not to go for it.
“I was looking at it, but couldn’t quite make it work. I am not going to sit here and doubt the computer evaluations. If the computer says it was good, it probably was good. But it wasn’t obvious to me.” Carlsen confessed later.
Caruana and Mamedyarov also missed their chances for a decisive result, but this time due to time-trouble. Caruana had the opportunity to create a “kingside storm” with 22.f4 against Karjakin but commentators agreed that this move is not easy for a human! Mamedyarov as well was rushed by the clock and let almost all his advantage slip, ending in a draw against Dubov.
“This time it’s me! I’m probably far from my best shape but at least you can actually tell who played it as White. Put the bishop on g2, sacrifice pawns for nothing, start playing for tricks… it feels nice to be back, in a way!” Dubov stated after his match.
The case was not the same for the 16-year-old chess prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, who had a solid start against the tournament’s ambassador Anish Giri. The Dutch GM unleashed a novelty in the English opening but Pragg managed to equalize without too many difficulties.
Watch the next game with us, on Sunday the 16th, at 13:00 UTC: https://chessarena.com/broadcasts/11117
Standing after the first day:
