Tata Steel 2022 Round 8: Mamedyarov beats Pragg and leads the Masters with Carlsen
In Round 8 of the 2022 Tata Steel Chess Tournament Mamedyarov won against Rameshbabu and now shares the lead with Carlsen who drew against Shankland. The two leaders will face each other on Tuesday the 25th, after a well-deserved rest day!
The first decisive game of Round 8 was Vidit against Grandelius. Vidit admitted afterward that due to his preparation, he decided to move into a complicated position, and go for the win. The Swedish GM missed a few opportunities and didn’t take advantage of his defensive chances. The Indian GM grew a huge advantage and eventually won his third game.
Another complicated battle had Mamedyarov and Rameshbabu. Both players delayed castling, with the Azeri GM controlling the center and creating a big advantage through the endgame. After the game, the Indian prodigy highlighted that he learns a lot from his Tata Steel participation, and Mamedyarov admitted “It’s not easy to change style when you play to a young or old chess player”.
The last decisive game of the day was Esipenko against Giri. The Dutch GM surprised Esipenko with a new opening, entering a sharp variation of the Italian as black. After sacrificing a piece on g4, Giri had three pawns for a knight, which were proven enough to win the game. The tournament’s ambassador achieved his third win in a row and totally recovered from his slow start, climbing to the Top3.
In Round 7, Giri had a “free day” against Dubov, who decided not to show up instead of playing with a mask. Tata Steel made an official announcement explaining that Dubov had close contact with a COVID-positive individual. After his quick test was negative, Dubov was allowed to continue with the tournament but the Russian GM decided to forfeit and wait for his PCR test results. After his negative results, Dubov continued in Round 8, against Duda, which ended in a draw.
Another chess drama thread is about to begin, this time occasioned by Carlsen’s opening choice on Round 8. The World Champion played the Hennig-Schara gambit of the Tarrasch defense in his game against Shankland, and the FIDE Vice-President made quite a comment about it.
The chess community found it unacceptable that Nigel Short used a gender-biased metaphor to praise what should be gender-neutral chess, with the founder of Lichess, Thibault Duplessis, calling him a misogynist.
The game though was kind of fascinating. Shankland was a pawn up in the opening, with Carlsen having enough compensation to regain the pawn, but not to win the game. Afterward, the American confessed that he has had a frustrating tournament so far, but he still enjoys it.
Round 8 found the two most recent Tata Steel Champions fighting each other in an intense Spanish. After a theoretical battle, Caruana had two minor pieces for a rook, but Van Foreest had two extra central pawns. Despite the full-of-opportunities positions, neither side wanted to take risks and the game ended in a draw after a position repetition.
Karjakin and Rapport, on the other hand, had a quick draw after the Russian dived into a creative position, which is usually the territory of his Hungarian opponent.
Watch R9 with us: https://chessarena.com/broadcasts/11117
