2015 London Chess Classic (Round #2)

Round #2: Saturday, 5 December 2015

Anish Giri ½-½ Michael Adams
Levon Aronian ½-½ Viswanathan Anand
Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Fabiano Caruana
Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ M Vachier-Lagrave
Veselin Topalov ½-½ Alexander Grischuk

Damp squib today in anticipated matchup.
Photo by Ray Morris-Hill.

Today’s games were easy to report on because there was not much action. Nakamura-MVL had a topsy-turvy battle where all three results were possible. Nakamura avoided the Grunfeld with 3.e3!? but ended up a tempo down in a Modern Benoni. This yielding of some initiative allowed black to obtain a dynamic position.

As the game progressed, it wasn’t clear who was winning. In a queenless middlegame, the pieces pranced around the board. After a dramatic series of moves, white had an exchange, but had to keep black’s queenside pawns at bay. A draw was agreed.

Anish Giri’s shirt provided most of the color in today’s games.
Photo by Ray Morris-Hill.

In the other games, rather quiet play ensued when Giri-Adams was the first to draw despite having some play on the board. Carlsen-Caruana sidestepped the Berlin and white came out with a passed d-pawn, but the America kept an eye on it. The rook sacrifice for the perpetual check was a nice motif.

Topalov-Grischuk was a fairly tame game that whittled down to a minor piece ending. Nothing left. Aronian-Anand saw a Ragozin without much imbalance. In the end, neither side wanted to jeopardize a worse position and a three-fold repetition followed.

Official Site: https://www.grandchesstour.com (live games)
Video Archive: https://livestream.com/accounts/3913412/events/4518826
Drum Coverage: https://www.thechessdrum.net/blog/2015/11/29/2015-london-chess-classic-london-england/