75th Tata Steel Chess Tournament Round 2

Hikaru Nakamura plays Ivan Sokolov during Round 2

Tata Steel Tournament organizers have done a great job to show the world high caliber players and how the games progress.  If you visit the Tata Steel Tournament website, you are able to get a gander at how all the grandmaster games unfold as they happen live.  You can also see live video images of the games and get an evaluation of each move by a chess engine, Houdini 2.0cx64.  If the number is positive, that means that white has the advantage.  If the number is negative, that means that black has the advantage.  The closer the number is to 0, the closer the two positions and material gains are.  This can be a guide as to the player most likely to win.  However, in the Nakamura/Sokolov game, Sokolov was in the lead (according to the chess engine) by nearly 5 points, but the game ended in a draw.  To me it seemed that Nakamura saw the ultimate outcome of the game around move 50, but he looked visibly nervous just prior to 47. ..f4.  GM Sokolov could not pry Nakamura's bishop away from the advancing pawn on the e-file or from the a-file.  So, evaluations don't necessarily determine the outcome of a game, but they provide a guide to the best possible moves (if you were a computer!).

Round 2 Report

Time Controls:  40 moves in 100 minutes, 20 more moves in 20 minutes, with the game ending after 15 more minutes with 30 seconds added for each move.

The Tata Steel window displayed above shares several nice features for viewers.  Using the play button will start the live video stream.  It will shuttle between several boards and stay mostly on boards with interesting games or tournament favorites.  Below the video stream window, you can highlight the game you would like to observe in real-time.  After selecting the game, you can see a board, scoresheet, and the players on the left hand side of the window.  There are some hot text keys that will bring you to player stats their ELO-profile.  The times above and below the scoreboard represent actual times each player has left.  Another nice feature is the running evaluation.  Houdini 2.0cx64 is the chess engine responsible for the numbers on the right side of each players score card.  A positive number represents an advantage to white and a negative number represents an advantage for black.  The further away from zero represents the material, position, and initiative of the player on move.  For example, a (-1.43) would represent a positive advantage for black equaling nearly one and a half pawns.  There is also a bar graph below the three best lines for the player on move (Computerkibitz).  The bar graph shows which player has the favorable evaluation move-by-move.  I wouldn't put too much on that however.  The above game ended in a draw with Sokolov having a favorable advantage almost all game.

(See Live Games here)

My Favorites:
H. Nakamura 1.0/2.0 pts.
L. Aronian 1.0/2.0 pts.
J. Smeets 1.0/2.0 pts.
L. Schut  0.5/2.0 pts.
A. Goryachkina 0.5/2.0 pts.

Group A
		Score	Rating	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
1	Karjakin, S.	1.5 / 2	2780				½										1
2	Harikrishna, P.	1.5 / 2	2698			½										1
3	Caruana, F.	1.0 / 2	2781		½							½
4	L'Ami, E.	1.0 / 2	2627	½						½
5	Nakamura, H.	1.0 / 2	2769								½				½
6	Wang, H.	1.0 / 2	2752							½	½
7	Leko, P.	1.0 / 2	2735				½		½
8	Sokolov, I.	1.0 / 2	2663					½	½
9	Carlsen, M.	1.0 / 2	2861			½							½
10	Aronian, L.	1.0 / 2	2802									½		½
11	van Wely, L.	1.0 / 2	2679										½				½
12	Anand, V.	1.0 / 2	2772					½								½
13	Giri, A.	0.5 / 2	2720		0										½
14	Hou, Y.	0.5 / 2	2603	0										½
Group B
1	Tiviakov, S.	2.0 / 2	2655												1	1
2	Rapport, R.	1.5 / 2	2621					½						1
3	Timman, J.	1.5 / 2	2566									½					1
4	Nikolic, P.	1.5 / 2	2619											½			1
5	van Kampen, R.	1.0 / 2	2581		½					½
6	Grandelius, N.	1.0 / 2	2572								½		½
7	Smeets, J.	1.0 / 2	2615					½			½
8	Dubov, D.	1.0 / 2	2600						½	½
9	Movsesian, S.	1.0 / 2	2688			½									½
10	Turov, M.	1.0 / 2	2630						½							½
11	Edouard, R.	0.5 / 2	2686		0		½
12	Naiditsch, A.	0.5 / 2	2708	0								½
13	Ipatov, A.	0.5 / 2	2587	0									½
14	Ernst, S.	0.0 / 2	2556			0	0
Group C
1	Brunello, S.	2.0 / 2	2572									1			1
2	Peralta, F.	2.0 / 2	2617										1			1
3	Gretarsson, H.	1.5 / 2	2516						½								1
4	Mekhitarian, K.	1.5 / 2	2543					½									1
5	Romanishin, O.	1.0 / 2	2521				½			½
6	van der Werf, M.	1.0 / 2	2450			½							½
7	Bitensky, I.	1.0 / 2	2400					½			½
8	Admiraal, M.	1.0 / 2	2321							½				½
9	Klein, D.	1.0 / 2	2445	0										1
10	Goryachkina, A.	0.5 / 2	2402		0				½
11	Schut, L.	0.5 / 2	2295								½	0
12	Kovchan, A.	0.5 / 2	2579	0												½
13	Swinkels, R.	0.5 / 2	2508		0										½
14	Burg, T.	0.0 / 2	2492			0	0