Wins for Carlsen and Rapport in Tata Steel Masters Round 2 - 2

The second round of the 84th Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee only saw two decisive games but it could have been more and there were several striking games. Magnus Carlsen beat Anish Giri in a sharp Catalan where he was able to set problems the Dutchman couldn't deal with almost straight after the opening phase. Richard Rapport defeated Jorden van Foreest in a game where he got a small edge which led to pressure and a decisive error in the endgame. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov played a strikingly aggressive game against Andrey Esipenko but eventually they just called a stop to it and agreed a draw. The remaining games were drawn with Sam Shankland missing a number of opportunities to put his opponent Nils Grandelius away. A deeper summary of the round in the body of the article.

Round 2 Masters Standings: 1st-3rd Duda, Carlsen, Vidit, 1½pts; 4th-11th Caruana, Esipenko, Mamedyarov, Rapport, Karjakin, Dubov, Praggnanandhaa, Van Foreest 1pts; 12th-14th Giri, Shankland, Grandelius ½pts;

Round 3 pairings: Monday 17 January 2022 Caruana-Shankland, Dubov-Vidit, Esipenko-Karjakin, Giri-Mamedyarov, Duda-Carlsen, Van Foreest-Praggnanandhaa, Grandelius-Rapport.

Round 2 Standings Challengers: 1st Murzin 2pts, 2nd-4th Nguyen, Erigaisi, Ganguly 1½pts; 5th-10th Van Foreest, Jumabayev, Bjerre, Vogel, L'Ami, Shuvalova 1pt; 11th-13th Warmerdam, Dardha, Maurizzi ½pts 14th Zhu Jiner 0pts;