Are you not entertained? The climax of this year’s elite Tata Steel tournament was as riveting as it was vulgar. After two weeks of sublime classical chess played over-the-board in the Dutch town of Wijk aan Zee, the winner was decided by two blitz games and an armageddon playoff — crash, bang, wallop. Surprisingly, neither Carlsen nor Caruana remained in contention. Instead, it was the Netherlands’ two top players, Anish Giri and Jorden van Foreest, vying for the title. Giri is a steady world-class player who already tied for first in 2018, losing out to Carlsen in the playoff. The Dutch no. 2, van Foreest, is less experienced, but his games have always fizzed with ideas. He seems to have fused that with some extra maturity, and, like Giri, was undefeated on 8.5/13.
The playoff began with a kerfuffle, as the arbiters appeared keen to stage it while Firouzja and Wojtaszek were still at a critical stage of their final game, six hours in.
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