Chess-in-Malaysia: Leadership changes hands to Levon Aronian!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Leadership changes hands to Levon Aronian!

Pix 1. Daniellan, Cmilyte, Lahno. (Photo by Fred Lucas)

18 January 2012, Kuala Lumpur – In the Netherlands, the leadership has changed hands yet again as Levon Aronian joins Carlsen at the top after round 4 play in the closely followed Tata Steel Chess 2012.

TWIC website reported that Levon Aronian scored his third win in four rounds of the 74th Tata Steel tournament to join Magnus Carlsen in the lead going into the first rest day. Aronian kept grinding away against Gata Kamsky and eventually emerged with a winning position. Fabiano Caruana drew with Carlsen in a Berlin where both players thought white should be much better but they couldn't point out where and the game drifted to a draw. Sergey Karjakin got back to 50% with a win against David Navara on the black side of a Berlin where Navara should have taken a draw by repetition. Vassily Ivanchuk was visably upset when Loek van Wely found a tactical escape to draw after being under strong pressure. Remaining games drawn.

The official website of the tournament reported that a fine technical victory with white over Gata Kamsky of the U.S. in fourth-round action brought Armenia’s Levon Aronian back on top of the standings in Grandmaster Group A of the 74th annual Tata Steel Chess Tournament at Wijk-aan-Zee Tuesday (see picture). The world’s second highest ranked player was level with Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, who headed the field as the sole leader at the outset of the round but had to settle for a draw with black in a hard-fought Berlin Wall game against Fabiano Caruana of Italy (see picture). Fabiano vs Carlsen, round 4

Referring to his defeat at Carlsen’s hands the day before, Aronian expressed his joy at finding himself “on the other side today. This time it was me who was pressing, and even though I also managed to let my opponent get away, in the end he was the one to make the final mistake.”