The Week in Chess

The Tata Steel Masters moved to Den Haag for its second and final awayday from Wijk aan Zee. The players had a photo opportunity in the Mauritshuis art museum before moving on to the venue. The round saw quite a lot of theory played and perhaps wasn't one of the better ones this year. There were still three decisive games.

Magnus Carlsen said he wasn't that disappointed that his winning run was brought to an end by Vasil Ivanchuk who played fairly directly for a draw with the white pieces. Carlsen then spent quite some time in the commentary box talking about the games, chess in general, his rivals etc.

Carlsen maintained his one point lead over the field as his closest rivals Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Wesley So both drew in theory heavy forcing variations against Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Liren Ding.

Anish Giri defeated Ivan Saric in a Sicilian and Fabiano Caruana beat the tail-ender Baadur Jobava. Caruana built up a big advantage in a sharp position, then lost most of it before Jobava suddenly collapsed and lost again.

Loek van Wely decided a couple of years ago that 1.e4 was the best approach against women's world champion Hou Yifan and he played it again. He simply knew more about the Rossolimo Variation of the Sicilian than she did.

Teimour Radjabov and Levon Aronian blasted straight into a well known endgame. Radjabov pressed for a while but Aronian drew in the end.

Round 10 Standings: 1 Carlsen 7.5pts/10, 2-3 So, Vachier-Lagrave 6.5pts 4-7 Ivanchuk, Giri, Caruana, Ding Liren 6.0pts 8-9 Wojtaszek, Radjabov 5.0pts 10 Aronian 4.5pts 11 Van Wely 3.5pts 12-13 Hou Yifan, Saric 3.0pts 14 Jobava 1.5pts

Rest day Thursday 22nd Jan.

Round 11 Friday 23rd Jan 2015 12:30GMT Giri-Van Wely, So-Saric, Wojtaszek-Ding Liren, Carlsen-Vachier-Lagrave, Aronian-Ivanchuk, Caruana-Radjabov, Hou Yifan-Jobava