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Report of round 2 - CCT 2010
 Spain’s Alexei Shirov defeated Fabiano Caruana of Italy in Sunday’s action at the Wijk-aan-Zee Corus Chess Tournament to take the lead in the top group of the annual event with a perfect score of two points from two rounds. (See picture)
Playing black in an open Ruy Lopez, Caruana equalized early on and seemed well on his way to picking up a half point, when he suddenly decided to sacrifice a pawn on his 47th move. What the Italian GM precisely intended remained unclear; Shirov held on to the extra pawn and took the full point on his 64th in a rooks-and-bishops ending.
The Spaniard, ranking 20th on the international rating list, was half a point free of the field, with Hikaru Nakamura of the US and Norway’s Magnus Carlsen following in a shared second place.
 Carlsen had white in an exciting game from a Botvinnik variation against Holland’s Jan Smeets, who seemed better prepared and reached a fine position only to fumble in time trouble towards his 40th. (See picture) The Dutchman resigned one move after the control.
Nakamura took the 500-euro prize for the best A-group game of the round for his excellent win with white in 39 moves from a Najdorf against Loek van Wely of the Netherlands. “Curiously enough,” the proud winner said at a news conference after the game, “the last time I played Loek was in Amsterdam (also in the Netherlands) and we had the same opening.” That earlier game was drawn but this time Nakamura had done his best preparing for the follow-up and Van Wely simply failed to find a way out at the board. “A fine plan in an obscure but interesting line; well prepared and excellently executed,” said Ivan Sokolov, who awarded to prize to Nakamura.
The four other encounters in Sunday’s round were all drawn but not for a lack of fighting spirit. Most interesting was the Najdorf between Sergei  Karjakin, formerly of the Ukraine but now playing under the banner of the Russian Federation, and Cuba’s Leinier Dominguez. (See picture) Karjakin sacrificed a piece and an exchange in an English Attack to obtain a clear advantage but agreed to sign the peace at his 31st after the Cuban returned the material to restore the balance.
In the B-group, the 250-euro daily prize for the best game was awarded to Dutch champion Anish Giri, who took the sole lead in this division of the tournament on the strength of a 30-move victory in a Petroff with black against Romania’s Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu.
Ray Robson became the leader in group C, earning 100 euros for his 66-move victory with white in a Ruy Lopez against Holland’s Robin Swinkels. |
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