Tal Memorial Rd1 – White sweeps round with four wins

Seventh Tal Memorial in Moscow The event is a ten-player round robin event, is taking place from June 8th to 18th in the Pashkov House (Vozdvizhenka Street 3/5, p.1), Moscow, Russia. Rest days are June 11 and 15. Time control: 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves, and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one. Games start at 15:00h local time (last round 13:00h). Draw offers are not allowed until after the first time control. The participants are required to comment on their games in the press center after each round. The prize fund is 100,000 Euros.

View from the venue

Round one

After a thrilling opening blitz tournament, the only question was whether the momentum built could be maintained. A quick glance at the scores of the day certainly favors it. The roster of players known for their uncompromising play doesn’t hurt either.

Vladimir Kramnik and Magnus Carlsen shake hands before their game

The first game of the day to end was also the highest profile game of the day: Carlsen-Kramnik. It was hardly boring, and the number one found himself in dire straits in which the game might end before move 25 as Kramnik put it in the press conference. The game took an incredibly volatile turn, and the Russian chose to take the repetition when his time began to dwindle and he could see no concrete path to an edge.

Teimor Radjabov has been fairly inactive of late, but showed that rust is not a factor

The next game to finish was a class of elite chess at its finest as Radjabov managed to show just how wrong a superficial analysis of a position can be, when he took apart Tomashevsky with clinical precision.

Two games annotated by GM Alejandro Ramirez

Hikaru Nakamura did not hide his bellicose intentions but was possibly overeager

Hikaru Nakamura came out swinging against Levon Aronian, but underestimated his opponent’s resources, and was punished by an oversight as he rushed to attack.

Tal Memorial 2012 Round 1 Play of the day by Daniel King: Aronian - Nakamura

Every day, GM Daniel King will be selecting a "play of the day" that he will analyze

Last year saw the rocket comeback of Morozevich and this year the rise of Caruana

The most exciting game of the day was Alexander Morozevich’s win over Fabiano Caruana. In spite of the incredible complications Morozevich stamped the game with, the truth is they never really seemed out of control and instead it was a masterpiece of dynamic play as he weaved his way ahead, snuffing out Caruana’s attempts to create threats of his own.

Luke McShane, voted into the tournament via popular vote, and recently breaking 2700 for the first time, had a tough lesson at the hands of Alexander Grischuk. The opening just got out of hand and little by little Grischuk accumulated a huge advantage that he had no trouble converting.

It was a rough first round for Luke McShane

Pictures by Eteri Kublashvili

Complete round one games

Schedule and Results

Playchess live commentary plan for the Tal Memorial 2012

Links Official tournament site + video clips All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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