2018 Wijk aan Zee 12 - 28 January

[Matt Mackenzie]

Hou finally gets a draw with Abdihan after passing the 100 move mark

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Carlsen looking like he might pull off a miracle against So.

That was an amazing game. Carlsen (correctly) gave up a pawn, then a piece, and then finished off with a (admittedly rather trivial at the end) flourish, giving up a rook for a bishop and leaving So with no option but to resign a rook up in the face of Carlsen's remorselessly advancing pawns.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Round 11 not setting the board on fire. The three leaders drew. Gawain looks set to lose to So and drop into the bottom three (though he is still best of the back-markers). Hou lost to Anand. Adhiban drew with Wei Yi. Karjakin may beat Kramnik (probably not, though). Top seven set to be a point-and-a-half ahead of the rest going into the final two rounds.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Karjakin did win, though maybe he shouldn't have done.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Shouldn't have won with best play, do you mean? Does that matter so much in human chess? Generally, I thought it was a great achievement, and that he deserved a win more than Kramnik deserved a draw.

So had a strong technical performance too, making the win look easier than it was (for a human).

Three leader still and Anand just half a point behind! Giri perhaps with the kindest pairings left.

[John Moore]

If the game today was any kind of preparation by Gawain, then it shouldn't have been. I was lucky enough to finish work around 3.30 today and I was trying to work out what was going on in the early part of the game but failed miserably.

[Roger de Coverly]

If the game today was any kind of preparation by Gawain, then it shouldn't have been.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. Nc3 c5 6. dxc5 Qa5 7. Qa4 Qxc5 8. Be3 Qc7 9. c5 Nc6 10. Rd1

I've played 5. .. c5 myself a couple of times. You expect White to continue with 6. d5 for a Benoni or 6. Nf3 to stay in Kings Indian/Symmetrical English territory.

The line with 6. dxc5 is rarely played and the follow up with 9. c5 may be a novelty. Full credit then to So for coming up with something new in an otherwise mainstream variation. You only need a depth of 1-ply to see a pawn en prise, so taking a loose pawn has to be logical as a candidate move.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Carlsen apart, his White opponents have all been serving towards his Kings Indian, or at least some kind of Pirc in Kramnik's case; generally with success. Perhaps Gawain should have had something else prepared? (Easy enough to say, of course).

[NickFaulks]

Carlsen apart, his White opponents have all been serving towards his Kings Indian, or at least some kind of Pirc in Kramnik's case; generally with success. Perhaps Gawain should have had something else prepared? (Easy enough to say, of course).

Prior to today, when 9.c5 was a genuine TN, the only loss was against Wei Yi, and there he was fine out of the opening.

[Jonathan Rogers]

But he went wrong very soon after, which should ring a bell; and he was much worse v Caruana and Kramnik. You are putting it too nicely when you say there was only game when he was clearly worse whilst still in the opening 12 moves and went on to lose. I can see why they have been targetting his KID.

[NickFaulks]

Yes, I was actually thinking all of those things when I wrote my post. Even though 9.c5 was a TN, it came in a position Gawain could be predicted to reach and if you want to play with the elite today you have to be prepared for that sort of thing. In my opinion that's an argument for 960, but that's a different story.

Nonetheless, I think Gawain held the other games largely because he understood the positions, and their problems, very well. He should stay with what he's good at. To avoid days like today, he just needs to work even harder. If he felt the game wasn't worth the candle I would understand.

[David Robertson]

If he felt the game wasn't worth the candle I would understand

Nor would he be alone

[IanCalvert]

Anish after his draw seemed, in a post game interview , amazingly modest. Is he playing like Smyslov in 1982??

[JustinHorton]

The line with 6. dxc5 is rarely played

Also the g1-knight usually comes out first, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me

[Kevin Thurlow]

I got hit by 9.c5 in a fairly similar position in a symmetrical English (Guernsey 2017 vs Dilleigh), which came as an awful shock as it looks so illogical. It is known in that line (but not by me at the time). Perhaps So was aware of that variation. Maybe Black should go Na6 instead of Qa5 after dxc5. That's normal for Benoni players.
Magnus lost a piece as the reply looked weird, this is not much different surely. Don't be too hard on the guy - he's playing non-stop very strong players!