Tata Steel 2011, previously known as Corus chess tournament, has started today in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. Three tournaments with 14 participants in each are being played with the round robin system.

Already in the first round of the main A tournament there was a clash between two players rated above 2800 elo. Magnus Carlsen used a novel approach in the Scotch Opening, but Levon Aronian skillfully combined careful defence and timely counterplay. Both Kings were under fire from enemy pieces, and Aronian claimed a perpetual check before White was able to include the dangerous Bishops into the attack.

World Champion Viswanathan Anand defeated the former ruler Ruslan Ponomariov after trapping his Queen in the middle of the board.

Tata Steel games with computer analysis

Jan Smeets claimed the fastest victory of the day. In a tactical position, Shirov blundered 23... Ra8 and resigned just a few moves after.

In the clash of the blitz chess masters, Hikaru Nakamura defeated Alexander Grischuk for a perfect start at Tata Steel (replay game)

Official website

Tata Steel A

Ruslan Ponomariov UKR 2744 - Viswanathan Anand IND 2810 0-1
Erwin l'Ami NED 2628 - Anish Giri NED 2686 draw
Jan Smeets NED 2662 - Alexey Shirov SPA 2722 1-0
Magnus Carlsen NOR 2814 - Levon Aronian ARM 2805 draw
Hikaru Nakamura USA 2751 - Alexander Grischuk RUS 2773 1-0
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave FRA 2721 - Wang Hao CHN 2731 draw
Ian Nepomniachtchi RUS 2715 - Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2784 draw

Tata Steel B

Hammer - Efimenko 0-1
Liem - So ½-½
McShane - Spoelman 1-0
Nijboer - Chao ½-½
Sargissian - Ganguly 1-0
Tkachiev - Fressinet ½-½
Wojtaszek - Navara 0-1

Tata Steel C

Ivanisevic - Sachdev 0-1
Lahno - Bluvshtein ½-½
Nyzhnyk - Kazhgaleyev 1-0
Siebrecht - Pruijssers ½-½
Swiercz - De Jong 1-0
Van Kampen - Vocaturo 0-1
Van der Werf - Bok ½-½