Wei Yi wins the 2024 Tata Steel Masters after a four player tie-break

Wei Yi won the Tata Steel Masters for the first
time following a tie-break, he had previously won
the B-Group way back in 2015. Indeed after becoming
a GM at 13 years old and the youngest ever player to reach 2700
at 15 he hasn’t really lived up to this promise, this
result came a bit out of the blue, and it was a late run of 4.5/5 that took him
to a tie-break including a win against Santosh
Vidit today. This win is 24 year old Wei Yi’s
greatest result.

Four players reached the tie-breaks with wins today.
Anish Giri played a super aggressive Reti system
against Max Warmerdam and eventually broke through.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov won a fluctuating struggle
against Alexander Donchenko, he was a bit better,
then worse, then equal and finally winning.
Parham Maghsoodloo sacrificed unsoundly with
16.Nxf7? against Gukesh, it was
a mess though with Gukesh’s king very
unsafe and for one move he was back in it
29…Ke6? 30.Rb1? (30.dxe4! is almost equal)
before Gukesh converted.

The other games were drawn, Ding Liren vs Ju Wenjun
and Ian Nepomniachtchi against Jorden van Foreest quickly,
and Praggnanandhaa against Alireza Firouzja very slowly,
indeed this fight was the last one to finish in the Masters
before the tie-breaks. Praggnanandhaa could have overtaken Anand
in the rating list with a win and he came very close, with
Firouzja defending excellently and with great effort and determination.

The tie-breaks were a four player knockout with 3 minute plus 2 seconds a move games.

Wei Yi came back from the dead to draw
against Abdusattorov in their first game and was worse
in the second until it suddenly turned in his favour with
an error 34.Bf4? soon the game was level again before
a final blunder 38.Bc7 (38.Qe2! is the only playable move).
Anish Giri won the first game against Gukesh with white but
couldn’t hold on to this lead losing the second and the
final Armageddon game.

In the final against Gukesh the first game was drawn and Wei Yi
won a long second game where he gradually got a decisive advantage
in a long blitz at the end where the players were surviving on the increment.

This has been a fascinating tournament, lots of fighting chess, lots
of mistakes, a big fight at the top but a lot of struggling players
too, including the World Champion Ding Liren. I don’t know what it
says about the state of modern chess. The Candidates should
tell us more.

In the Challengers Leon Luke Mendonca finished with 6.5/7 to
win alone and book a place in the Masters next year.
IM Arthur Pijpers won the Tienkamp and will play in the
Challengers.

Masters Final Standings:
1st Wei Yi 8.5pts, won the four player tie-break
2nd= Gukesh, Abdusattorov, Giri 8.5pts
5th= Vidit, Praggnanandhaa, Firouzja 7.5pts
8th Nepomniachtchi 6.5pts
9th Ding Liren 6pts
10th= Ju Wenjun, Donchenko, Van Foreest, Maghsoodloo, Parham 4.5pts
14th Warmerdam, Max 4pts