The Week in Chess

Before the first rest day the Tata Steel Masters went "on tour" to the beautiful city of Alkmaar. The city is famous for its cheese and the venue was the Taqa Theater De Vest.

Magnus Carlsen ended a run of 21 draws in a row in Classical Chess going back to Round 2 of the European Club Cup in October (where he beat Ian Nepomniachtchi's second Vladimir Potkin). Since then Carlsen drew the entirety of the classical part of his 12 game World Championship defence against Fabiano Caruana and then the first four rounds of this event. Today Carlsen beat Jorden van Foreest in a sharp Sicilian with opposite sides castling. Perhaps 24.Nd1 was nearly the decisive error, certainly the start of the wrong plan and Van Foreest resigned on move 33,s but in a sense he never really seemed to get going against the champion.

Ding Liren also won today, beating Sam Shankland with the black pieces. Shankland's pieces got in a tangled mess after the innocuous looking 18.Ng4? error and his position fell apart in just a few moves. This allowed Ding to catch Ian Nepomniachtchi who only drew. Nepomniachtchi had a temporary initiative against Richard Rapport but on untangling his pieces black was OK.

Teimour Radjabov was winning against Jan-Krzysztof Duda but once he didn't find 21.Qh2 he gradually frittered his advantage away. Anish Giri and Viswanathan Anand agreed a draw after 22 moves. The computer would have liked black to continue with 22...Qxb5 with a small edge. Kramnik and Mamedyarov reached sterile equality after 31 moves. Vidit looked to have outplayed Fedoseev to earn a late victory but couldn't finish the game off and it was finally drawn.

Round 5 Standings: 1 Nepomniachtchi 3½pts/5, 2 Ding Liren 3½pts, 3 Carlsen 3pts, 4 Vidit 3pts, 5 Giri 3pts, 6 Anand 3pts, 7 Mamedyarov 2½pts, 8 Radjabov 2½pts, 9 Duda 2½pts;, 10 Fedoseev 2pts, 11 Rapport 2pts, 12 Shankland 2pts, 13 Kramnik 1½pts; 14 Van Foreest 1pt

Rest day Thursday

Round 6 - Friday 18th Jan 1:30pm Carlsen-Mamedyarov, Rapport-Kramnik, Anand-Nepomniachtchi, Duda-Giri, Ding Liren-Radjabov, Vidit-Shankland, Van Foreest-Fedoseev,