First round wins for Niemann, Keymer and Erigaisi following delayed start for the Tata Steel Masters 2026 - 1

There were three decisive games in the first round of the Tata Steel Masters, there could even have been a couple more. The first story was that the start to the tournament was delayed, climate protesters targeting Tata Steel drew attention to their heavy use of coal and the environmental damage it causes. The start of play was delayed for a couple of hours but perhaps this disruption caused early uncharacteristic blunders from a couple of the players. Hans Moke Niemann was still in theory when Vladimir Fedoseev miscalculated and he had to resign in 16 moves. Anish Giri played the inferior 21...Rb8 then just blundered a piece with 22...Bxd4 and also had to resign immediately. Arjun Erigaisi beat defending champion Praggnanandhaa in 32 moves.

Javokhir Sindarov hung on to draw a lost position against World Champion Gukesh. Jorden Van Foreest drew a 27 move Petroff against Thai Dai Van Nguyen but it might have been a very different matter if Nguyen had played 21...f5!. Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus drew against Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Chithambaram Aravindh drew against Matthias Bluebaum. My thanks to Michiel Abeln for photos and notes to a couple of the games.

There were wins for Assaubayeva, Miaoyi Lu, Aydin Suleymanli and Vedant Panesar in the Challengers.

Masters Round 1 Standings: 1st= Niemann, Keymer, Erigaisi 1pt, 4th= Erdogmus, Aravindh, Sindarov, Van Foreest, Nguyen, Gukesh, Bluebaum, Abdusattorov 0.5pts. 12th= Praggnanandhaa, Giri, Fedoseev 0pts.

Round 2 Pairings Sunday 18th Jan 1pm GMT: Abdusattorov-Praggnanandhaa, Nguyen-Erigaisi, Gukesh-Van Foreest, Giri-Sindarov, Fedoseev-Keymer, Bluebaum-Niemann, Erdogmus-Aravindh.