Gukesh leads the Tata Steel Masters on 8/11 half a point clear of Praggnanandhaa and Abdusattorov - 10

The Tata Steel Masters heads into the final two rounds with three players in contention for first place. Gukesh's draw took him to 8/11 and a win for Praggnanandhaa put him right back in it on 7.5 points. Nodirbek Abdusattorov let a win escape against Vincent Keymer but stays very much in contention on 7.5 points as well. The leaders now all face players in the bottom half of the field, one of those players is however Arjun Erigaisi who faces two of them and may try to salvage something from an otherwise terrible event by winning these key games.

World Champion Gukesh was held to a draw by Wei Yi. The Chinese player felt he was under pressure for much of the game although the engines didn't have such worries. Praggnanandhaa emerged victorious in a wild struggle against Fabiano Caruana where both players were happy to head for unclear complications. Caruana had the chance to head for an endgame with 28.Qf2 when most likely he would not have lost and maybe he would have won, in the end he was down to a minute and under attack when he blundered with 32.Qe3? the engine thinks 32.Qe2 is equal but the game would still have been wide open at least. Vincent Keymer was doing fine against Abdusattorov until his terrible idea of 28.h4? followed by 29.dxe5 left him dead lost. Abdusattorov only needed to find 38...Qh5 to win the game, instead he blundered into a drawn endgame with 38...Qe7? Pentala Harikrishna beat Alexey Sarana in a fine game where he found a sneaky tactic to win material.

Anish Giri beat Max Warmerdam in a Giuoco Pianissimo where black was doing fine until he played 25...Bg6? and 27...Ra6?, and then he wasn't. Leon Luke Mendonca was probably the happiest player today when his game tournament was crowned with a win against Vladimir Fedoseev who blundered with 27.Be2? and found there was no fixing it. Erigaisi against Jorden Van Foreest was a Saemisch Nimzo-Indian which might be theoretically interesting but just drifted to a draw after the opening.

In the Challengers it was all change at the top when Frederik Svane beat the leader Thai Dai Van Nguyen allowing Erwin L'Ami to retake the lead alone when he beat Miaoyi Lu and Aydin Suleymanli is also now tied for second after beating Vaishali. This event definitely isn't settled.

My thanks to Michiel Abeln for the photos and notes to the games.

Masters Round 11 Standings: 1st Gukesh 8pts, 2nd= Praggnanandhaa, Abdusattorov 7.5pts, 4th= Fedoseev, Giri, Wei Yi 6pts, 7th= Caruana, Harikrishna 5.5pts, 9th Sarana 5pts, 10th= Van Foreest 4.5pts, 12th Mendonca 4pts, 13th= Warmerdam, Erigaisi 3.5pts,

Masters Round 12 pairings on Feb 1st at 13.00 GMT Erigaisi vs Abdusattorov, Harikrishna vs Keymer, Praggnanandhaa vs Sarana, Mendonca vs Caruana, Warmerdam vs Fedoseev, Wei vs Giri, Van Foreest vs Gukesh,

Challengers Round 11 Standings: 1st L'Ami 8pts, 2nd= Nguyen, Suleymanli 7.5pts, 4th= Bok, Svane 7pts, 6th= Gurel, Nogerbek, Yakubboev 6pts, 9th Lu 5.5pts, 10th= Pijpers, Vaishali 5pts, 12th Divya, Deshmukh 3pts, 13th Oro, Faustino 2.5pts, 14th Bulmaga, Irina 1pt

Challengers Round 12 pairings: Feb 01 at 13.00 GMT Yakubboev vs Pijpers, Divya vs Bok, Nguyen vs Bulmaga, Suleymanli vs Svane, Gurel vs Vaishali, L'Ami vs Nogerbek, Oro vs Lu,

Tienkamp Round 7 of 9 Standings: 1st= Slagboom, Grutter 5pts, 3rd Panesar Vedant 4.5pts, 4th Smeets 4pts, 5th Tudor 3.5pts, 6th Beukema 3pts, 7th= Holzke, Lohia, Zwirs, Sofronie 2.5pts.