Wijk aan Zee 84th Tata Steel 2022 14 to 30 Jan

[Paolo Casaschi]

When has Dubov 'publicly shown little concern about basic preventive measures against the spread of the disease'? Until he appeared on the chess24 broadcast yesterday I don't recall him saying anything publicly on the subject.

When he was asked to wear a mask by the tournament organisers, made a big fuzz about it and lost a game by forfait for refusing to do as asked.

[Mick Norris]

Just checking out the Challengers (which I'd like to have looked at a bit but the chess in the top tournament has been too interesting) I see that after losing to Erigasi in round eight Bjerre has won three games in a row and is a point and a half behind, so it's not yet over. Nguyen is also on the same score, and is black against Erigasi today.

(I am probably going for a walk this afternoon, by the way, so probably no updates from me.)

Erigaisi wins with a round to spare; very impressive, so it will be interesting to see how he goes in the Masters next year

[Richard Bates]

Did he make a big fuss? He exercised his claimed right not to play rather than play in a mask.

Actually if he was considered a risk to other players then not playing actually reduced the risk in comparison to the organisers’ suggested “solution”.

[Paolo Casaschi]

Some actual quotes from the man himself here. His comments make perfect sense to me.

My favourite quote from the article above, Dubov talking about for how long he will have to self-isolate:

It really depends on where you start counting, and it seems to be a very flexible thing. I will not pretend I learnt all the details, but it seems to be very flexible, … It feels like you can basically find ways.

I haven’t looked at the Dutch Covid rules but looking at the UK rules and for few trips in Europe in the last 2 years, I never came across “flexible” rules where you could decide yourself when to test or how long to self-isolate for and that would allow to “find ways” to do what you want.

[David Robertson]

Meanwhile, in the chess....I'm speechless, nearly speechless anyway, having exhausted my stock of superlatives to describe Carlsen's play against Caruana today. He & I play the same game, to the same rules. But it doesn't seem so. Just calm, unfussy jaw-dropping perfection

[LawrenceCooper]

Standings (round 12)

RANK NAME FED RATING POINTS

1 Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2865 8.5
2 Rapport, Richard HUN 2763 7.5
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE 2767 7.5
4 Giri, Anish NED 2772 7.0
5 Esipenko, Andrey RUS 2714 6.5
6 Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi IND 2727 6.0
Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2743 6.0
Caruana, Fabiano USA 2792 6.0
Van Foreest, Jorden NED 2702 6.0
10 Duda, Jan-Krzysztof POL 2760 5.5
Shankland, Sam USA 2708 5.5
12 Praggnanandhaa R IND 2612 4.5
13 Grandelius, Nils SWE 2672 4.0
14 Dubov, Daniil RUS 2720 3.5

[Jonathan Rogers]

Interesting battle for 2nd and 3rd, anyway. Perhaps that was always likely to be the case.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Meanwhile, in the chess....I'm speechless, nearly speechless anyway, having exhausted my stock of superlatives to describe Carlsen's play against Caruana today. He & I play the same game, to the same rules. But it doesn't seem so. Just calm, unfussy jaw-dropping perfection

agreed

[Matt Mackenzie]

He's quite good at this chess lark, no doubt about that.

[LawrenceCooper]

An early start today (11:00) and an early finish in two games in each section.

[JustinHorton]

An early start today (11:00)

Heh, I'd missed that. Can't say I'm expecting a hard-fought day though (Sergey must be disappointed he's still playing).

[JustinHorton]

Sergey must be disappointed he's still playing.

Amusingly he actually seems to be grinding out a win from a level ending, who'd have thought it

[Matt Mackenzie]

In the end quite an eventful final round in both sections - overall the tournament has been very high standard despite the Dubov thing.

[LawrenceCooper]

Standings (round 13)
RANK NAME FED RATING POINTS
1 Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2865 9.5
2 Rapport, Richard HUN 2763 8.0
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE 2767 8.0
4 Giri, Anish NED 2772 7.5
5 Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2743 7.0
Van Foreest, Jorden NED 2702 7.0
7 Esipenko, Andrey RUS 2714 6.5
Caruana, Fabiano USA 2792 6.5
9 Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi IND 2727 6.0
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof POL 2760 6.0
11 Shankland, Sam USA 2708 5.5
Praggnanandhaa R IND 2612 5.5
13 Grandelius, Nils SWE 2672 4.5
14 Dubov, Daniil RUS 2720 3.5

Standings (round 13)
RANK NAME FED RATING POINTS
1 Erigaisi Arjun IND 2632 10.5
2 Nguyen, Thai Dai Van CZE 2613 8.5
Bjerre, Jonas Buhl DEN 2586 8.5
4 Jumabayev, Rinat KAZ 2631 7.5
L'Ami, Erwin NED 2622 7.5
6 Van Foreest, Lucas NED 2539 7.0
Murzin, Volodar RUS 2519 7.0
8 Warmerdam, Max NED 2607 6.5
9 Ganguly, Surya Shekhar IND 2627 6.0
10 Dardha, Daniel BEL 2532 5.5
11 Maurizzi, Marc`Andria FRA 2502 4.5
Shuvalova, Polina RUS 2516 4.5
13 Vogel, Roven GER 2452 4.0
14 Zhu, Jiner CHN 2478 3.5

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Great finish (and play) by Carlsen.

Why does chessbomb redirect to chess.com?

I liked the low-graphics interface at chessbomb. Chess.com is slow and clunky on slow computers and slow internet connections.

It seems Carlsen gained 3 rating points. Not helped by the win by default over Dubov in the final round. So he really got 9.5/12 for rating purposes, is that right?

EDIT: Dubov, not Duda!