One definition of a blunder is a move so bad that the player perpetuating it should see the downside instantly. Yet, even the greatest players blunder. Kramnik famously missed mate in one, Anand once dumped a piece on move 7, etc. Often there’s no objective explanation for the error, especially when it occurs early in a familiar situation where there’s no time trouble.
The Tata Steel at Wijk An Zee has seen an astonishingly high proportion of howlers. In round one, Shirov dumped a piece against Smeets. Then Carlsen dropped a piece against Giri. To top this, Nepomniachtchi dropped a rook on move 9 against Aronyan.
It’s been an exciting tournament due to the sensational errors, despite a high 65 per cent draw ratio. Wijk An Zee is now an outlier due to its stubborn refusal to adopt Sofia Rules but quite a few of the draws were hard-fought, natural conclusions to battles between members of the Top 20.
Anand leads with 4 points from 5 rounds (+3,=2). The world champion appears to be in excellent form and focussed. One of his wins came from a two-year novelty that he had prepared for the Kramnik Match (2008). The other two were determined middle-game and endgame dominations of Ponomariov and Smeets.
Anand’s nearest rival is Hikaru Nakamura, who’s generated 3.5 (+2,=3). A notch below, Aronyan, Giri and Vachier-Lagrave are all on 3. Carlsen has struggled to a 50 per cent score where he is tied with Kramnik, Nepomniachtchi and Ponomariov. Anand and Aronyan have both overtaken Carlsen on the live rating list though of course, this could change within the next eight rounds. The cluster at the top suggests that we could see a close finish with several players in contention in the last stages.
The diagram, WHITE TO PLAY, (Anand Vs Wang Hao, Tata 2011) is the setting for a positional piece sacrifice with 16. Nd4! An idea Anand claimed to have cooked up for the 2008 title match — it is a top engine recommendation so it’s not that hard to find, perhaps. The idea is to get a menacing pawn roller that just pushes through.
Play continued 16...exd4 17.cxd4 Nbc6 18.Qc3 Ne7 19.Rfd1 Rad8 20.Bf2 a6 21.Bg3 Qc8 22.Bf1 b6 23.Rab1 Nb3 24.Rxb3 Bxb3 25.Qxb3 bxc5 26.d5. If black has a defence, it’s somewhere earlier. Here white has a clear and stable advantage with the bishop pair and the pawn roller more than compensating for the exchange down. Play concluded 26...Ng6 27.Qb6 f5 28.Bxa6 Qd7 29.Bb5 Qf7 30.exf5 Qxf5 31.Qxc5 Rc8 32.Qd4 Rfd8 33.a4 (1-0). A mildly premature resignation but the pawns will just go through and white actually has a material advantage by now.
[Devangshu Datta is an internationally-rated chess and correspondence chess player]