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The last round of the Tata Steel (TS) was mildly anti-climactic. The winners in both Masters and Challengers groups had been decided. Levon Aronian was guaranteed the Masters title and Ivan Saric had clinched the Challengers.
It looked as though Aronian would wind up with a comfortable last round win until an awful blunder against Van Wely. Saric optimistically sacrificed a piece against Sabino Brunello. Brunello probably missed wins in a difficult 2Kts+P Vs Kt +2P ending before it burnt out to a draw.
It was a 2900 performance by Aronian who ended with 8/11. Second place went to Anish Giri who had a better tiebreak than Sergey Karjakin - they both scored 6.5. Giri was the only player to go undefeated through the event. Pendyala Harikrishna scored exactly 50 per cent at 5.5 - enough to gain some Elo.
Saric booked his place in the 2015 masters with 10/13. Jan Timman took second place in the Challengers - he had a better tiebreak than Baadur Jobava though they both scored 8.5. The Croatian Saric was the only undefeated player in the Challengers. Timman played good chess throughout and only tiredness prevented the 62-year-old from challenging for first.
The Zurich Challenge is as the strongest tournament ever with an average Elo of 2801 and a field of Magnus Carlsen, Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Viswanathan Anand and Boris Gelfand. One indication of the change of guard is that the last world champion and the challenger of 2011 are the two lowest rated players.
The chief sponsor is Oleg Skvortsov who owns International Gemological Laboratories (IGL), Moscow. IGL examines, values and "diagnoses" semi-precious and precious stones. Zurich had a blitz (4 mins +2 secs increment) to determine pairings for the main classical Round-Robin and that will be followed by a Rapid. Both RR and Rapids will count towards prizes/ placements.
The event started well for Carlsen and Aronian who won their first rounds against Gelfand and Anand respectively. Carlsen played sharp chess to gain a grip against Gelfand while Aronian provoked Anand into a desperation sacrifice after the former world champion got a poor opening. It was Carlsen's first game as world champion.
The TS saw a lot of spectacular tactics. One of the most awesome was this little cameo - THE DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (Leinier Dominguez Vs Wesley So Tata Steel Masters 2014). It looks about equal but White found 19.Rh7!! d4. If 19.--Kxh7 20. Qxf7 and Rh1+ to come.
White followed up 20.Bc4 Qe7 The alternative 20.-- Rf8 21. Qh2 Bxf3 22. Rxg7+ Kxg7 23. Qh6+ Kg8 24. Qxg6+ Kh8 25. Qh6+ Kg8 26. g6 is as convincing.
21.Qh4 (1-0). There's no reasonable way to prevent the Rxg7/ Rh1 thematic.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
