Giri triumphs because Abdusattórov fails at the key moment

Anish Giri, 28, whose talent is as great as his fear of losing, took a risk for once, and the play paid off. He brilliantly beat Romanian Richard Rapport while his compatriot Jorden van Foreest knocked out the tournament leader, 18-year-old Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who sank at the decisive moment despite his coolness seeming like a deactivator. of bombs. That gives first prize to Giri at the Wijk aan Zee Tata Festival, the Roland Garros of chess, where the world champion, the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, 3rd and defeated by Giri and Abdusattórov, failed at the beginning of the year to renounce the title.

Even on the brightest day of his career so far (it’s his first win in Wijk aan Zee), Giri confirmed his lack of ambition and murderous instinct: “I didn’t expect this outcome, frankly. I did consider the possibility that Jorden would win, Magnus would win, and I would draw, which would have forced us to play a sudden death [ajedrez relámpago] which I am absolutely against as a tie-breaking method; I even thought about not playing the tournament for that reason, ”he explained, after hugging his wife, the Georgian grandmaster Sopiko Guramishvili, and her two children.

“Sometimes I am capable of taking risks,” added Giri, who beat Carlsen in the 4th round, with a sneer, referring to the numerous criticisms he has received for many years for not doing so. Then he turned more serious to thank his compatriot van Foreest for his golden help: “He didn’t have any special motivation to fight hard in the last round against the tournament leader. And he yet he has done it. It is very impressive, because we have played as if it were a team competition, looking at each other’s positions every so often. I’m really grateful to you”. And he underlined the enormous hardness of the Tata Festival, a league system between fourteen: “Winning a tournament where Carlsen plays is already very difficult in itself. But it is also that this one in particular has been very hard due to the great quality of all the participants. A good example of this is that it would not have been a big surprise if the last one, Arjun Erigaisi, had been the winner because the fourteen of us had the strength to be so”.

As things were going in the 3rd hour of the last day, everything indicated that Abdusattórov could not lose, due to the solidity of his position, while Giri put a lot of pressure on Rapport, but still without achieving a clear advantage. Suddenly, the Romanian, as brilliant as he was unstable, made a serious tactical error and was struck down by Giri in spectacular fashion. Seeing him, Abdusattórov’s supposed bombproof serenity melted like a sugar cube: he had a logical continuation that guaranteed him a tie and he opted for another that left him clearly worse. And Van Foreest did not fail in his patriotic duty.

Giri’s victory, which moves him to 5th place on the world list, eliminated Carlsen’s remote chance of winning the tournament. However, the champion kept fighting until, after five and a half hours, he defeated Erigaisi. In addition to his failure, the weakness of the 2nd in the world, the Chinese Liren Ding (who now drops to 3rd), is striking, although it must be taken into account that he saves his best weapons for the duel for the title against the Russian Ian Niepómniashi in April. And also the Iranian Parham Maghsoodloo, 22, tied for 5th place and now 23rd in the world, who reinforces the great rise of chess in his country after the flight of the phenomenon Alireza Firouzja, 4th in the world at 19, to France at beginning of 2020.

Last round: Praggnanandhaa – So, tables; Erigaisi-Carlsen, 0-1; Aronian – Maghsoodloo, 0-1; Keymer – Gukesh, draws; Ding – Caruana, draws; Giri-Rapport, 1-0; Abdusattorov – Van Foreest, 0-1.

Final classification: 1st Giri 8.5; 2nd-3rd Abdusattórov and Carlsen 8; 4th So 7.5; 5th-6th Caruana and Maghsoodloo 7; 7th-8th Aronian and Rapport 6.5; 9th-10th Praggnanandhaa and Van Foreest 6; 11th-12th Ding and Gukesh 5.5; 13th Keymer 5; 14th Erigaisi 4.

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