17 year old Alireza Firouzja leads the Tata Steel Masters alone on 5.5/8
half a point clear of the field, he beat Pentala Harikrishna today. The
headlines however were grabbed by Andrey Esipenko who defeated Magnus Carlsen
in their first ever game together. Esipenko seemed to take Carlsen by
surprise with a very aggressive variation of the Sicilian and soon Carlsen
got a very suspicious position which was destroyed by the winning sacrifice 17.Ncxb5
which quickly won material.
The remaining games were drawn, Caruana-Giri was fighting Jobava London System,
David Anton missed a very good chance to beat Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the middlegame,
Nils Grandelius was disappointed not to press harder after first time control against Radoslaw Wojtaszek,
Alexander Donchenko played a solid Catalan against Aryan Tari and
Jorden Van Foreest drew a Neo-Moller defence as black against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
Rest day Monday 25th January 2021.
Round 8 Standings:
1st Firouzja 5.5pts;
2nd-5th Giri, Caruana, Esipenko, Van Foreest 5pts;
6th Grandelius 4.5pts;
7th-8th Harikrishna, Carlsen 4pts;
9th Wojtaszek 3.5pts;
10th-13th Anton Guijarro, MVL, Tari, Duda 3pts;
14th Donchenko 2.5pts
Round 9 Pairings Tuesday 26th Jan 1pm GMT:
Carlsen-Grandelius,
Tari-Duda,
Van Foreest-Donchenko,
Wojtaszek-Caruana,
Firouzja-Esipenko,
Giri-MVL,
Anton-Harikrishna
