For the first time, the chess centre Baden-Baden is a host a category 19 Grandmaster tournament, the Grenke Classic. The event is scheduled for 7th to 17th Feb.2013. Participants of the tournament are as under.

- Viswanathan Anand, World Champion, 43, India
- Fabiano Caruana, No. 13 in the world, 20, Italy
- Michael Adams, No. 23 in the world, 41, England
- Arkadij Naiditsch, No. 29 in the world, 27, Germany
- Daniel Fridman, No. 78 in the world, 36, Germany
- Georg Meier, No. 120 in the world, 25, Germany

Vishy won his first game in Grenke Classic against Arkadij Naiditsch. The game was very complicated with closed pawn structure in Spanish opening, although it clears Anand’s path towards victory after the German sacrificed his Knight on move 28..Kh7 for an attack. The game finished on move no. 38 when Anand defended position and forces queen exchanges. Now Anand is half point behind from the tournament leader Caruana.

While on the other table the German, Daniel Fridman drew with Caruana. It was the straight 5th draw for German. The game played by Italian with opposite side castling structure but Daniel managed to trade pieces quickly and the piece was signed on move no 41. The other game between Michael Adams and Georg Meier of Germany finished in a draw after three fold repetition on 31st move.

Highlights

- In the first round only Caruana won the game. He trapped Georg Meier’s King in the centre before giving finishing touch. Vishy’s joke to close the discussion for his round 1 game against Adams. “It would have been a reasonable bluff just to play Rad1 and see if I have the guts to take on a2!”
- In Round 2 Naiditsch defeated Adams in 7- hour game (The game of the round) while Anand and Caruana signed with quick play in Spanish opening with deep opening preparation.
- Naiditsch blunderd in time trouble against Fabiano after that Caruanan emerged as a sole leader of the tournament after round 3
- Anand missed his win in the forth round while Naiditsch bounced back and won his forth game against Meier.

Anand’s first win

Ashvin Chauhan

The event took place on 21-31 January, 2013 where Nikita Vitiugov won the Master’s event by defeating Nigel Short in last round tie-break and became the winner of the £ 20,000 first prize. Main attractions of the tournament were seven players from 2700+ club.

In the first tie-break game, The Russian showed great technique to win the game with almost no time on the clock. In second tense game, Nikita managed to draw to clinch the title. Vachier-Lagrave Maxime who lost against short in knockout match of tie-break got the second place with 8 points while Indian GM Sandipan got the third rank by scoring 8 points but losing in tiebreak against the champion. There was a disappointment for the Ivanchuk who arrived as first seed but finished with 9th rank while Adams Michael, Navara David, Kamsky Gata got 6th, 7th and 8th place respectively. In the women’s section the Chinese GM won the title and prize of £ 12,000.
Here are the tie-break games.

Game 1 :

Game 2 :

Have a look at opening and closing ceremony of the event (Attraction – uncle Nigel Short).

Opening Ceremony :

Closing ceremony :

Uncle Nigel Short :

Ashvin Chauhan

Tata Steel Chess tournament had 3 main tournaments (Group A, B and C) with round robin system, held at Dutch sea resort of Wijk aan Zee.

Participants

Magnus Carlsen won the tournament in the group A with 10/13 and equalize Garry’s 1999 record in the same tournament. In the final game, According to expert Magnus was bit lucky and Anish Giri missed Qa3 on 28th and 29th move while fighting for second Anand lost against Wang Hao. With the score 8.5 Aronian (Defending Champion) had to settle for silver while Anand got the third place while inthe Group B, A. Naiditsch emerged as winner on the basis of tie-break points and Rapport had to satisfy with second place after scoring equal points (9) as Naiditsch. Smeets Jan ended up with third place on the basis of tie break. In Group C, Brunello emerged as sole winner of the group with 2764 Rating performance and 11 points out of 13.

Game of the tournament in the eye of Amateurs

The game was played between Anand and Aronian which was only 23 moves long and a complete demolition for Aronian. In Anand’s Words “This could easily be one of the best games I have played. To win a game like this against Levon, who is my nightmare opponent, as you probably know, is definitely wonderful. Funnily enough both my black wins against him have been real classics. I don’t win that often, but when I do it is at least a good one.”

AICF,AAI cup is held at Delhi, India with the total prize money of 21500 USD approx. All players with an average rating of over 2675 would play double round robin.

Participants

·        GM Wojtaszek Radoslaw –2734

·        GM Anoton Korobov – 2702

·        GM Evgeny Alekseev – 2691

·        GM Krishnan Sasikaran – 2676

·        GM Abhijit Gupta – 2662

·        GM Parimarjan Negi – 2641

Summary till Round 5

·                    All players signed piece in the first round.

·                    Grandmaster and Asian champion Parimarjan Negi crashed Krishnan Sasikaran and emerged as Joint leader with Wojtaszek who outclassedEvgeny Alekseev while Anoton Korobov drew with former world junior champion Abhijit Gupta in the round two.

·                    On the third day Korobov Joined Wojtaszek after Sasikarn misplayed promising position against him while Evgeny caught Negi in the opening itself.

·                    In the round 4 Korobov emerged as a sole leader and tighten his chances for championship by defeating top seed RadoslavWojtaszek although Korobov was not happy with his position but a blunder by Radoslav gave him winning chances

After round 5 grandmaster Korobov stayed in sole lead by making a draw with Negi and still 5 games remaining in which he will have 3 games with white piece, become strong candidate for the crown while Evgeny Alekseev becomes his closest competitor by defeating Abhijit Gupta. Sasikaran did not find his first win in this tournament yet and have to satisfy with draw against Wojtaszek.

Korobov played breyer variation in the Ruy lopez against Negi where Negi could not get his king side attacks while Korobov make some progress on other flank so Negi decided play safe. On the other table Gupta came up with an opening surprise by going centre counter gambit which turned to be a boomeranged when he blundered a pawn.

Here is the Korobov game with tournament top seed RadoslavWojtaszek of Round 4.