Draw memes vanquished: Giri crushes Carlsen to take all-important lead at Tata Steel

After three rounds of play in prestigious Tata Steel chess tournament, Anish Giri and Nodirbek Abdusattorov are leading the pack, with the former taking an incredible scalp by defeating Magnus Carlsen in an explosive tactical affair.

With Ding Liren also succumbing to Praggnanandhaa, the world number one and world number two both suffered important defeats in Wijk aan Zee, setting an intrigue-field scene for the play to follow after tomorrow’s rest day.

Giri defeats Carlsen, vanquishes the draw memes

Often memed on because of his supposed tendency to go for easy draws, Anish Giri has turned on all cylinders in this tournament after the first four rounds of play. The Dutch super-GM has been the runner-up in Wijk aan Zee on five separate occasions, and based on how he’s been playing so far—scoring three points out of four with this victory over Magnus Carlsen—he may very well break the duck in 2023.

It was an impressively played game that earned him a well-deserved full point against the world champion, one that followed one of the Norwegian’s past matches from 2008 for the first seventeen moves, albeit with reversed colors.

Here, 18. Ne5 led to an explosive set of tactical complications, allowing Black to fork the two rooks with Nc2 and leaving a handful of minor pieces hanging for both sides. After a set of precise moves, Carlsen erred by trying to take out Giri’s advanced d-pawn, misjudging the complications that would follow after 24. Bd5!, a move that completely discombobulated his opponent’s piece activity and was, in effect, the beginning of the end.

Once the dust settled, Giri had an extra pawn, an outside passer, no less, plus monstrous piece activity and a great spatial advantage to make things worse. The world champ didn’t even try to put up significant resistance—but at this point, there really wasn’t a way to do so. Carlsen resigned on move 35, throwing the tournament into complete chaos.

This was a massive victory for Giri, 12 years to a day since his last triumph over Carlsen in classical chess. After finishing in second on five separate occasions on home soil in the Tata Steel tournaments, this may be when he goes all the way.

Nodirbek, Pragg on the podium as Ding, Maghsoodloo fall

The generational clash in elite-level chess continues to play out apace, and right now, the youngsters seem to have a small edge on their established opposition. 17-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa defeated 1992-born Ding Liren, world #2 and classical world championship contender with the Black pieces after an expertly handled endgame, while 18-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov defeated Parham Maghsoodloo to clinch third place after four rounds of play.

The tournament continues after a rest day, where Carlsen will go up against Nodirbek with the White pieces. There’s some spice and history here: Nodirbek snatched the World Rapid championship title back in 2021, which Carlsen won back just a few weeks ago, while defeating Nodirbek himself along the way to the blitz title.

Here are the other matchups from the fifth round:

• Fabiano Caruana vs. Wesley So
• Gukesh D vs. Richárd Rapport
• Parham Maghsoodloo vs. Jorden Van Foreest
• Pragg R vs. Anish Giri
• Arjun Erigaisi vs. Ding Liren
• Levon Aronian vs. Vincent Keymer