Baku Final standing and closing ceremony.
The last round is old news, we have already received lots of congrat's on the previous posting. Thank you!
As might be expected Magnus was very very pleased with his last round victory against Bacrot.
What do you do when you are faced with the challenge of choosing strategy in the final round as black against a player who have lost his last two games when you don't want to lose because a draw will give you a very decent result while going for a win and a superb result is tempting?
Personally I would chicken out and play safe, but fortunately Magnus did not!
His opening choice and early manoeuvres was directed at creating an unbalanced position providing winning chances, of course preferable without taking too much risks.
After 13....Nd7 14.Nb3 f5, he knew he was slightly worse, but never felt in any real danger of losing.
24.Qa4 was probably a mistake, and Bacrot admitted after the game that he had missed the Re3-d3 plan.
26....Nf6 deserves an exclamation mark, making it very easy for white to go wrong.
Instead of 27.R7h6, the alternative Rg6 would have been strong in Magnus' opinion.
After 28.....Rxd3 black is probably already slightly better, and Magnus chose the continuation 29....Nxd5 instead of Qa4 to not allow the complications after 30.Qxf5.
After the mistake 37.Rg6, Magnus played a5 following his long term plan but missing the tactical shot Re8! winning a piece.
However, he was quite convinced that he had a winning position and it is difficult to find a clear save for white.
In the continuation Magnus played consistent while Bacrot probably made a few more accuracies, and after the white king and bishop was trapped on the 2nd row, it was just a matter of technique. 0-1.
Both Svidler and Navara enjoyed a winning streak in the last two rounds to improve their position considerably while the other top boards ended in draw.
During the tournament the tournament home page gave me the impression that the tie-break would favour his opponents Gashimov and Yue, but this was an illusion.
The regulations are very clear, there are no tie-break in each individual tournament. (The SB and Rp in the final standing of the Baku GP has no bearing what so ever.)
Consequently Carlsen, Gashimov and Yue, in alphabetical order :-), shared 1st place in Baku.
With regard to the Grand-Prix combined standing, the winners bring along 153 and a third GP point each, and for potential tie-break the 8 points may be significant (tie-break 2) and also in theory number of wins (tie-break 5) of which Magnus had 4 and the others 3 each.
We would like to thank the organiser and Global Chess for a well organised event, and the playing venue and hotel was excellent! Thank you!
Prior to the Leko 8-game rapid match in Miscolc May 28th-June1st, Magnus will attend some promotional events, starting with two simuls in Stavanger May 10th.
H.Carlsen
Lommedalen, May 7th 2008
Baku Round 12
Lots of fighting chess and decisive games today.
Magnus played 1.d4 and Adams went for the Nimzo-Indian line with 10.e3 Qa5+.
Magnus thought for a long time and decided to give the exchange with b4 for a long term positional advantage rather than Bd2 with a slightly better endgame.
The problem for black is that he would like to create counterplay to utilize his material advantage but it is very difficult to find an active plan.
Magnus played quickly and energetically while Adams tried to find the right moment to return the exchange.
The opening of the h-file did not really help black, and after allowing the tactical blow 29.b5!, white is better.
Adams was hesitant to return the exchange at this point as the endgame is slightly better for white. However, the alternative was an uncomfortable position difficult to defend.
In time trouble he was getting under pressure and by the blunder 40...Bxe4 the position goes from worse to lost for black.
Fortunately Magnus felt more clearheaded today and quickly found the winning line with 41. Rh8+ and 42. Rb8! (a line he thought he easily could have missed on a worse day.)
The endgame require some technique and when Adams tried to activate his king instead of moving it to the 8th rank, the nice shot 56.Ra6! decided the game as black cannot avoid losing his last pawn after the discovered check.
1-0, and shared 3rd place prior to the last round for Magnus, half a point behind leaders Yue and Gashimov.
Gashimove again looked very impressive with the white pieces and got Grishuk into trouble in the opening. After spending most of his time in a worse position, it soon turned ugly for black and Gashimov finished the game with a nice queen sack. His g-pawn cannot be stopped despite the black extra piece.
Inarkiev got a winning advantage from the opening against Wang Yue, but while the latter defended energetically, Inarkiev played some inaccurate moves and had to conceed a draw in the end.
Kamsky continued his downward trend. After a really impressive start of the tournament, he lost his 3rd game, this time against a well-playing Svidler.
Karjakin was a pawn up in the rook ending against Cheparinov and they played it all out for 92 moves to reach king versus king.
Mamedyarov played very agressively but did not get much from the opening as white against Bacrot. True to his style Mamedyarov sacrificed an exchange for a pawn and some initiative but the position looked fairly equal. After some inaccuracies by Bacrot before the first time control, white was slightly better but as late as around move 66 the ensuing endgame was possible to hold for black. Somewhere he went wrong in the end and Mamedyarov won to reach +2 together with Magnus and Grishuk.
Radjabov seemed to have an overwhelming attack against Navara but the latter defended well and after the time control black has the move active rooks. He rounded up two of Radjabov's pawns and the black resigned. -1 at his home turf clearly is a big disappointment for Radjabov while the Azeri's can be happy with their team performance with Gashimov in the lead and Mamedyarov on shared 3rd.
Yesterday I finally convinced Magnus to join me for a step machine workout in the hotel gym, and it did seem to work wonders!
In the last round Magnus has black against Bacrot while leaders Yue and Gashimov are white against Mameyarov and black against Adams respectively.
H.Carlsen
Baku, May 4th 2008
Magnus played 1.d4 and Adams went for the Nimzo-Indian line with 10.e3 Qa5+.
Magnus thought for a long time and decided to give the exchange with b4 for a long term positional advantage rather than Bd2 with a slightly better endgame.
The problem for black is that he would like to create counterplay to utilize his material advantage but it is very difficult to find an active plan.
Magnus played quickly and energetically while Adams tried to find the right moment to return the exchange.
The opening of the h-file did not really help black, and after allowing the tactical blow 29.b5!, white is better.
Adams was hesitant to return the exchange at this point as the endgame is slightly better for white. However, the alternative was an uncomfortable position difficult to defend.
In time trouble he was getting under pressure and by the blunder 40...Bxe4 the position goes from worse to lost for black.
Fortunately Magnus felt more clearheaded today and quickly found the winning line with 41. Rh8+ and 42. Rb8! (a line he thought he easily could have missed on a worse day.)
The endgame require some technique and when Adams tried to activate his king instead of moving it to the 8th rank, the nice shot 56.Ra6! decided the game as black cannot avoid losing his last pawn after the discovered check.
1-0, and shared 3rd place prior to the last round for Magnus, half a point behind leaders Yue and Gashimov.
Gashimove again looked very impressive with the white pieces and got Grishuk into trouble in the opening. After spending most of his time in a worse position, it soon turned ugly for black and Gashimov finished the game with a nice queen sack. His g-pawn cannot be stopped despite the black extra piece.
Inarkiev got a winning advantage from the opening against Wang Yue, but while the latter defended energetically, Inarkiev played some inaccurate moves and had to conceed a draw in the end.
Kamsky continued his downward trend. After a really impressive start of the tournament, he lost his 3rd game, this time against a well-playing Svidler.
Karjakin was a pawn up in the rook ending against Cheparinov and they played it all out for 92 moves to reach king versus king.
Mamedyarov played very agressively but did not get much from the opening as white against Bacrot. True to his style Mamedyarov sacrificed an exchange for a pawn and some initiative but the position looked fairly equal. After some inaccuracies by Bacrot before the first time control, white was slightly better but as late as around move 66 the ensuing endgame was possible to hold for black. Somewhere he went wrong in the end and Mamedyarov won to reach +2 together with Magnus and Grishuk.
Radjabov seemed to have an overwhelming attack against Navara but the latter defended well and after the time control black has the move active rooks. He rounded up two of Radjabov's pawns and the black resigned. -1 at his home turf clearly is a big disappointment for Radjabov while the Azeri's can be happy with their team performance with Gashimov in the lead and Mamedyarov on shared 3rd.
Yesterday I finally convinced Magnus to join me for a step machine workout in the hotel gym, and it did seem to work wonders!
In the last round Magnus has black against Bacrot while leaders Yue and Gashimov are white against Mameyarov and black against Adams respectively.
H.Carlsen
Baku, May 4th 2008
Baku Round 10 & 11
Mainly travelling to countries speaking Indo-European languages, we are normally not surprised to find many known words, both due to the common root of historic nouns and verbs and common loan words describing modern concepts.
But despite the fact that the Indo-European languages now spoken by half the globe had a common ancestor that probably spread out some 5000 years ago from the Russian steppes not far northwest of Azerbaijan, the Azeri language is similar to Turkish, originating on the steppes much further east.
The more surprising it has been to recognize many words also over here.
Most words are of course completely different, but many undertandable words obviously has migrated via Turkish, Russian or directly via media in modern time (for instance concert, stadium, bulvarda, olimpic, futbol,ekskursiya, restoraninda, avtobus etc.)
Round 11 saw only one decisive game.
Home hero Radjabov did not seem to have taken much benefit from the free day and lost quite badly to come-back-kid Cheparinov scoring his third win.
Magnus had the white pieces against tail-ender Navara and was eager to revenge his Corus 2007 loss as well as improving his position.
Navara surprised him by repeating the same Zaitsev variation in Ruy Lopez that he had lost with a few months back. Coming up with a novelty 21...Bb7 the computers says it is equal while both players afterwards agreed that white has a much more pleasant position. After trading down to a rook and queen endgame, Magnus was planning to put pressure on the black weaknesses when he thought he spotted a winning combination starting with 35.a4. Fortunately for Navara who had not foreseen this possibility, and unfortunately for Magnus, it does not work. Magnus had missed that e4 would be hanging after 39.g3. Magnus had to play 39.Qa2 instead forcing an immediate draw.
Bacrot and Karjakin (as black against Svidler and Gashimov respectively) had very promising positions but failed to convert the advantage this time.
Yesterday Magnus was black against leader Grishuk and played the Slav defence for the first time in 15 months. A surprised Grishuk spent much time but came up with some nice "silent" moves like 12.Be2 and 13.Bh4. Afterwards Magnus thought his break 14....c5 was premature although the computers give their support. After 18.Nxd4 he thought he was in trouble, and although Qd6 may hold tactically, he chose to enter a worse ending with Bxd4. Grishuk envisaged a crushing ending after 22....Rxb2 23.Bxf6 gxf6 24.d5 but Magnus had seen the subtle 22.....Rfd8 after which there probably are several ways for black to reach a drawn ending.
Grichuk chose to keep his black squared bishop as well as the rook but with 4 pawns each he went for repetition of moves despite his free pawn in the b-file. Draw.
Of course Magnus had needed more than a draw to be in contention for 1st, but under the circumstances he was quite pleased to have avoided a worse result yesterday.
Wang Yue beat Svidler in style. The latter had probably missed 21.Bg4! after which he chose to give an exchange for a pawn.
Bacrot-Inarkiev was a short wild game and both players were low on time when Bacrot inexplicably blundered his queen with 23.Qe7+?? (There's a knight on g8....)
Before the last two rounds Grishuk and Yue is in the lead with 7/11, closely followed by Gashimov at 6,5 and Magnus, Adams and Mamedyarov at 6.
Today Magnus has white against Adams. Let's hope for an interesting fight!
Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, May 4th 2008
But despite the fact that the Indo-European languages now spoken by half the globe had a common ancestor that probably spread out some 5000 years ago from the Russian steppes not far northwest of Azerbaijan, the Azeri language is similar to Turkish, originating on the steppes much further east.
The more surprising it has been to recognize many words also over here.
Most words are of course completely different, but many undertandable words obviously has migrated via Turkish, Russian or directly via media in modern time (for instance concert, stadium, bulvarda, olimpic, futbol,ekskursiya, restoraninda, avtobus etc.)
Round 11 saw only one decisive game.
Home hero Radjabov did not seem to have taken much benefit from the free day and lost quite badly to come-back-kid Cheparinov scoring his third win.
Magnus had the white pieces against tail-ender Navara and was eager to revenge his Corus 2007 loss as well as improving his position.
Navara surprised him by repeating the same Zaitsev variation in Ruy Lopez that he had lost with a few months back. Coming up with a novelty 21...Bb7 the computers says it is equal while both players afterwards agreed that white has a much more pleasant position. After trading down to a rook and queen endgame, Magnus was planning to put pressure on the black weaknesses when he thought he spotted a winning combination starting with 35.a4. Fortunately for Navara who had not foreseen this possibility, and unfortunately for Magnus, it does not work. Magnus had missed that e4 would be hanging after 39.g3. Magnus had to play 39.Qa2 instead forcing an immediate draw.
Bacrot and Karjakin (as black against Svidler and Gashimov respectively) had very promising positions but failed to convert the advantage this time.
Yesterday Magnus was black against leader Grishuk and played the Slav defence for the first time in 15 months. A surprised Grishuk spent much time but came up with some nice "silent" moves like 12.Be2 and 13.Bh4. Afterwards Magnus thought his break 14....c5 was premature although the computers give their support. After 18.Nxd4 he thought he was in trouble, and although Qd6 may hold tactically, he chose to enter a worse ending with Bxd4. Grishuk envisaged a crushing ending after 22....Rxb2 23.Bxf6 gxf6 24.d5 but Magnus had seen the subtle 22.....Rfd8 after which there probably are several ways for black to reach a drawn ending.
Grichuk chose to keep his black squared bishop as well as the rook but with 4 pawns each he went for repetition of moves despite his free pawn in the b-file. Draw.
Of course Magnus had needed more than a draw to be in contention for 1st, but under the circumstances he was quite pleased to have avoided a worse result yesterday.
Wang Yue beat Svidler in style. The latter had probably missed 21.Bg4! after which he chose to give an exchange for a pawn.
Bacrot-Inarkiev was a short wild game and both players were low on time when Bacrot inexplicably blundered his queen with 23.Qe7+?? (There's a knight on g8....)
Before the last two rounds Grishuk and Yue is in the lead with 7/11, closely followed by Gashimov at 6,5 and Magnus, Adams and Mamedyarov at 6.
Today Magnus has white against Adams. Let's hope for an interesting fight!
Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, May 4th 2008
Baku Round 9
At the round 9 press conference we saw two really tired youngsters. Are they playing too much?
Karjakin claimed his three recent tournaments in a row (Amber, Russian Team and Baku) is taking its toll. Especially after the long game he lost against Mamedyarov the day before, he did not feel in form yesterday.
Magnus has felt slightly out of form throughout this tournament although it is difficult to point out a specific reason. Anyhow he was very tired yesterday after spending most of the night preparing for the round, and he really appreciated a day off today.
In their game, Magnus again chose the Sicilian Dragen and this seemed to take Karjakin somewhat by surprise, but of course not to the extent felt by Radjabov in round 7.
Karjakin spent a lot of time around move 14-16 but admitted in the press conference that as he did not manage to calculate well at all, he decided to exchange pieces and enter a fairly equal ending.
After exchanging queens white is probably not even better any longer despite the week black d-pawn.
Having blitzed out most of the first 20 moves, Magnus had to start concentrating and spent nearly an hour to the time control to make sure he did not make any mistakes in the double rook ending.
He thought that white's plan moving his king to b4 was slightly erroneous, but he discovered his advantage one move too late to have any practical winning chances.
When Karjakin played Ra2 Magnus could have played Rd1 directly with an unpleasant ending for white according to Karjakin.
After Kb6 Re2 Rd1 black is also better but has no real winning chances.
Black could force the exchange of pawns leading to a drawn ending with one extra pawn for white, and Magnus in the end chose a quick route to king versus king.
Draw, a result Magnus was reasonably happy with although I don't think he would have minded a fighting game either.
Grishuk patiently exploited his positional advantage against Inarkiev to take a clear lead with 6/9 with 4 rounds to go.
Yue and Gashimov drew their games as black to maintain +2 and shared 2nd place, while Adams (beating Svidler), Mamedyarov (countering and winning against Navara) and Radjabov (beating Kamsky) joined Magnus at +1 and share 4th place.
Despite his good rating performance of 2750+, Magnus is not really satisfied with his results so far and is eager to do well in the last four rounds.
Today's excursion featured a long program that was cut slightly short due to the unusually unaccommodating weather with wind and some rain.
After a visit to the "Alley of Honour" we drove to Qosha Qala, one of the 12 entrance point to the old city.
After an interesting visit to Shirvanshah's Palace from the 15th century, a walk through the old city revealed the expediency of local administration and the importance of chess in Baku.
Following his two wins in row, a street has already been named after Mamedyarov!
Lunch was enjoyed in the Sahil seaside restaurant.
Many thanks to the organiser for the varied and nice excursions!
Tonight there was another football match, this time between seven Grand-Prix players and a mixed team of seconds, organisers, journalists, and unfortunately for the rest of the team, yours truly (without glasses).
At half time the score was 1-1, but in the end the chess players enjoyed a well deserved and clear victory against a decimated mixed team.
Tomorrow Magnus has the white pieces (and pawns) against Navara in round 10.
Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, May 1st, 2008
Karjakin claimed his three recent tournaments in a row (Amber, Russian Team and Baku) is taking its toll. Especially after the long game he lost against Mamedyarov the day before, he did not feel in form yesterday.
Magnus has felt slightly out of form throughout this tournament although it is difficult to point out a specific reason. Anyhow he was very tired yesterday after spending most of the night preparing for the round, and he really appreciated a day off today.
In their game, Magnus again chose the Sicilian Dragen and this seemed to take Karjakin somewhat by surprise, but of course not to the extent felt by Radjabov in round 7.
Karjakin spent a lot of time around move 14-16 but admitted in the press conference that as he did not manage to calculate well at all, he decided to exchange pieces and enter a fairly equal ending.
After exchanging queens white is probably not even better any longer despite the week black d-pawn.
Having blitzed out most of the first 20 moves, Magnus had to start concentrating and spent nearly an hour to the time control to make sure he did not make any mistakes in the double rook ending.
He thought that white's plan moving his king to b4 was slightly erroneous, but he discovered his advantage one move too late to have any practical winning chances.
When Karjakin played Ra2 Magnus could have played Rd1 directly with an unpleasant ending for white according to Karjakin.
After Kb6 Re2 Rd1 black is also better but has no real winning chances.
Black could force the exchange of pawns leading to a drawn ending with one extra pawn for white, and Magnus in the end chose a quick route to king versus king.
Draw, a result Magnus was reasonably happy with although I don't think he would have minded a fighting game either.
Grishuk patiently exploited his positional advantage against Inarkiev to take a clear lead with 6/9 with 4 rounds to go.
Yue and Gashimov drew their games as black to maintain +2 and shared 2nd place, while Adams (beating Svidler), Mamedyarov (countering and winning against Navara) and Radjabov (beating Kamsky) joined Magnus at +1 and share 4th place.
Despite his good rating performance of 2750+, Magnus is not really satisfied with his results so far and is eager to do well in the last four rounds.
Today's excursion featured a long program that was cut slightly short due to the unusually unaccommodating weather with wind and some rain.
After a visit to the "Alley of Honour" we drove to Qosha Qala, one of the 12 entrance point to the old city.
After an interesting visit to Shirvanshah's Palace from the 15th century, a walk through the old city revealed the expediency of local administration and the importance of chess in Baku.
Following his two wins in row, a street has already been named after Mamedyarov!
Lunch was enjoyed in the Sahil seaside restaurant.
Many thanks to the organiser for the varied and nice excursions!
Tonight there was another football match, this time between seven Grand-Prix players and a mixed team of seconds, organisers, journalists, and unfortunately for the rest of the team, yours truly (without glasses).
At half time the score was 1-1, but in the end the chess players enjoyed a well deserved and clear victory against a decimated mixed team.
Tomorrow Magnus has the white pieces (and pawns) against Navara in round 10.
Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, May 1st, 2008
Baku Round 7 and 8.
Awfully late reporting from round 7 and 8.
I'll just comment briefly giving some of Magnus own thoughts about his games.
Having scored 50% after 6 rounds, Magnus was eager to play for three rather than two results against Radjabov as black in round 7.
His surprise weapon this time was the Sicilian Dragen and Radjabov obviously was caught off guard and spent quite some time early on.
When Radjabov played 15.g4 Magnus had to start spending time as well, as this is an unusual move order that supposedly does not give white an advantage. At the press conference Radjabov admitted that he had mixed up the move order in the opening, but still thought his attack would work.
The complexity of these lines can be illustrated by the fact that it takes the computers a long time to understand that white has compensation for the pawn and the exchange by playing 18.Qh2.
Having had a clear advantage on the clock Magnus spent more than 30 minutes checking 19....Qa5 but Radjabov went on to spend most of his remaining time calculating the slightly faulty 22.Nf5?! which he thought worked.
(Unknowingly they had followed a database game until move 19!)
When Radjabov chose the ambitious 24.Qh4 instead of entering a worse but maybe drawn ending with Bxe6, Magnus thought he was winning. But still the position was amazingly complex and instead of the dubious 25.Rf1, the alternative Nd5 would have been more challenging for black.
With about a minute left for 12-13 moves, Radjabov had to blitz until the time control and when Magnus played the natural looking 32....e2?, Radjabov could have drawn with Qd7! which none of the players spotted.
After 33.Qf3+ the black king escapes and the e-pawn decided the game at the time control. 0-1.
In conclusion both players put up a great fight but Magnus made the least mistakes this time.
Gashimov impressively beat Kamsky with a nice pawn storm to join the leaders Grishuk and Yue at +2, while Karjakin outplayed Inarkiev from an even position to get back to 50% and Cheparinov continued his uncompromising style to score his second win in a row against Mamedyarov.
Magnus of course was eager to continue his success when white against Cheparinov in round 8. Against 1.c4 Cheparinov somewhat surprisingly e5 and they played a reversed Sicilian. Black blitzed out moves until 13.e3 Nb5, and the opening did not give Magnus much of an advantage. However, his manoeuvring over the next few moves improved his position and he had a slight but comfortable advantage when Cheparinov blundered with 22.....Ne6 quickly realizing that Magnus could take on b7 due to the follow-up Qc4!
Magnus was afterwards still very annoyed about having missed Nb7 until seconds after having responded 23.h4. Too late...
He played 27.Qe4 as he thought the ending with queens off would be somewhat unpleasant for black due to the pawn structure, but Cheparinov defended accurately and Magnus never got any real winning chances.
Mamedyarov continued his up's and down's winning against Karjakin, while Inarkiev beat Navara after the latter blundered in time trouble. The rest of the games ended draw leaving the standing at the top unchanged with Grishuk, Yue and Gashimov at 5/8, Magnus and Kamsky half a point behind in shared 4th.
Yesterday night Magnus relaxed with Champion League football enjoying the great battle between Man U and Barcelona.
Today Magnus has black against Karjakin, a tough challenge although Karjakin has not shown his best form in this tournament. Lets hope for a great fight!
Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, April 30th, 2008
Baku Round 6
On the free day Saturday I joined the excursion offered by the organiser while Magnus chose to sleep long and rest.
The first stop was a traditional factory for handmade carpets. 
Despite having to start their career at a very early age, the relatively strenuous work and long hours, being a knitter is considered a prestigious job and the knowledge is often passed down from mother to daughter etc.
Doing some mathematics (30-60 threads per square centimetre multiplies to 10-20 million threads for a 5mx7m carpet), it suddenly made sense that it takes some 8 months to finish one large carpet despite the nimble trained hands at work.
The finished carpets are washed and stretched and sure are beautiful but also comes at a cost of 2-200 kusd a piece dependant on fabric and size. (The above is a 2500 usd silk carpet.)
The next stop for the sightseeing caravan was the war cemetery near the seaside with a breathtaking view of Baku and the harbour.
Afterwards we enjoyed a nice lunch with folklore music in the 14th century Caravansara restaurant (and hotel) within the old city close to the maiden tower.
Magnus preferred a game of table tennis, while most of the players continued from the sightseeing to join the football match between the Azeri and a mixed "All star team". After 7-7, the stars won the penalty shootout.
Round 6 brought 3 more decisive games. Cheparinov countered against Inarkiev to score his first win, Kamsky won a long, tense and probably very good game against Adams, while Svidler outplayed Karjakin.
Magnus played 1.Nf3 against Gashimov and after a quite set up he found a very promising continuation against blacks somewhat passive play. After 18.Nb5 Bxb5 19.cxb5 he was clearly better, but afterwards he claimed that his 23.Bd2 allowing the black bishop to go to d4 was a clear mistake.
Magnus continued to put some pressure on Gashimov but while Magnus made some more inaccuracies while Gashimov defended well, the position got closer to equal and after the exchange of queens, black played 35...d5 and Magnus found nothing better than forcing a draw.
Magnus was clearly not happy with the outcome of the game, but if he continues to create an advantage in the middle game the chance of scoring more wins are of course very much present.
Today Magnus is black against home favourite Radjabov. Let's hope for a great fight!
Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, April 28th 2008
Baku Round 4 & 5
On a positive note Magnus has felt in better form the last two days. Unfortunately it has not resulted in more than 0,5/2.
Yesterday as black against Mamedyarov Magnus chose a quiet set-up in the Queen Indian, but after 13.Nd3 Magnus correctly concluded that he had to play d5 and accept a slightly worse position with a potential white king-side attack. After some accurate moves Magnus was starting to feel more confident, and had probably equalised with 23.... Rc8.
They repeated moves a couple of times but in the spirit of no-draw Mamedyarov deviated with 28.Qf3.
At this point Magnus based his calculations on invading the 2nd rank with his rook and optimistically played Qb6. Too late he discovered that the rook would get trapped on c2 and consequently had to start fighting for survival. When his 30....a5 surprisingly was meet by the nice sacrifice Bxa5!, the position was probably lost.
Mamedyarov finished in style and Magnus resigned after 6 more moves.
Adams was allowed to demonstrate the strength of a white pawn on h6 in his game against Navara and won after a nice combination. Wang Yue played convincingly to beat hapless Cheparinov while the other games ended draw.
Anti-cheating is taken seriously during the Grand-Prix and all players has to enter the playing hall from the hotel patio and is checked thoroughly. Magnus' juice and water mix was accepted though :-)
Today Magnus faced World-Cup winner Gata Kamsky and the latter played the Caro-Kann and seemed very well prepared. He started the press conference by saying that the game was a long theoretical duel.
Magnus felt he played a good game and after long calculations he chose the thematically interesting sacrifice of his g-pawn to gain the initiative.
However, Kamsky defended very well and steered the game into a slightly worse ending that he held rather easily in the end. Draw.
As black Wang Yue continued to impress by outplaying an overpressing Karjakin in a rook and bishop ending to join Grishuk in the lead with 3,5/5.
The rest of the games ended draw and Adams, Gashimov, Kamsky and Radjabov has 3/5 sharing 3rd to 6th place while Magnus is shared 7th to 10th with 2,5.
Tomorrow is a free day with sightseeing and football.
On Sunday Magnus has white against Gashimov in round 6 out of 13.
Yesterday as black against Mamedyarov Magnus chose a quiet set-up in the Queen Indian, but after 13.Nd3 Magnus correctly concluded that he had to play d5 and accept a slightly worse position with a potential white king-side attack. After some accurate moves Magnus was starting to feel more confident, and had probably equalised with 23.... Rc8.
They repeated moves a couple of times but in the spirit of no-draw Mamedyarov deviated with 28.Qf3.
At this point Magnus based his calculations on invading the 2nd rank with his rook and optimistically played Qb6. Too late he discovered that the rook would get trapped on c2 and consequently had to start fighting for survival. When his 30....a5 surprisingly was meet by the nice sacrifice Bxa5!, the position was probably lost.
Mamedyarov finished in style and Magnus resigned after 6 more moves.
Adams was allowed to demonstrate the strength of a white pawn on h6 in his game against Navara and won after a nice combination. Wang Yue played convincingly to beat hapless Cheparinov while the other games ended draw.
Anti-cheating is taken seriously during the Grand-Prix and all players has to enter the playing hall from the hotel patio and is checked thoroughly. Magnus' juice and water mix was accepted though :-)
Today Magnus faced World-Cup winner Gata Kamsky and the latter played the Caro-Kann and seemed very well prepared. He started the press conference by saying that the game was a long theoretical duel.
Magnus felt he played a good game and after long calculations he chose the thematically interesting sacrifice of his g-pawn to gain the initiative.
However, Kamsky defended very well and steered the game into a slightly worse ending that he held rather easily in the end. Draw.
As black Wang Yue continued to impress by outplaying an overpressing Karjakin in a rook and bishop ending to join Grishuk in the lead with 3,5/5.
The rest of the games ended draw and Adams, Gashimov, Kamsky and Radjabov has 3/5 sharing 3rd to 6th place while Magnus is shared 7th to 10th with 2,5.
Tomorrow is a free day with sightseeing and football.
On Sunday Magnus has white against Gashimov in round 6 out of 13.
Henrik Carlsen
Baku, April 25th 2008
Baku Round 2 & 3
Round 2 yesterday featured two more decided games.
Adams won a pawn in the middle game against Cheparinov and with pawns on both king and queen side he managed to win the rook endgame. Mamedyarov sacrificed or blundered an exchange for a pawn against Inarkiev who wrapped up the game efficiently to move back to 50%.
Magnus defended the black pieces against Svidler in the Ruy Lopez and was hoping for an unbalanced situation. However, after 15.a4 he understood that he was worse and after a long thought he had to defend against the invasion of the white queen with Qe7 and effectively giving up his ambitions in the game.
White had some pressure on the queenside and Magnus chose to free himself with 19....c5.
My computer dislikes the sack but the players agreed in the press conference that it leads to a drawn ending. However, due to the pawn structure Magnus had to defend quite accurately in the 3 versus 2 pawn rook ending and was honestly relieved when Peter repeated the position for the third time.
He could well have tortured Magnus another hour or two.
Before round 3 Adams, Grichuk, Kamsky and Radjabov had +1 with Magnus in shared 5th at 50%.
As white against Inarkiev Magnus needed a win and he chose an opening he has played a couple of times before.
Magnus thought he was slightly better after 10.0-0 Nh5 and after 12.Rfe1 Na5 but after the mistake 13.Bb5 he suddenly discovered that he was clearly worse due to 15...e5!
Magnus kept on making some inaccurate moves and the situation looked pretty difficult when he finally spent lots of time trying to find a way out and found 19.Bd1.
He thought it would be difficult to defend against the black kingside attack but Inarkiev continued to spend too much time on the clock and played 24...Nd2 as a practical solution in the ensuing time trouble.
The position was pretty equal but Magnus tried to complicate with 26.e5! and after 27...f6 ?! black is still OK but has to defend accurately against the threats on the white squares.
Just before the time control Inarkiev played 34...c4 ? giving up the c-pawn after which the ending is very difficult for him.
After the time control Magnus finished in style with the combined threats of the a-pawn and white square domination around the black king.
Puuuh, why does he have to make us so nervous:-)
Four more games was decided today with Karjakin beating Adams in a seemingly even endgame, Grischuk securing another black win against Navara this time, Gashimov impressingly beat Svidler and Bacrot won a rook a endgame against Cheparinov in which the latter overpressed.
With 9 out of 21 games with decisive ending, spectators and organisers should be fairly satisfied despite a few games ending in repetition of moves.
Grishuk has taken a clear lead with 2,5 points ahead of Magnus, Gashimov, Kamsky, Karjakin and Radjabov at 2 while at the bottom Cheparinov is in real trouble at 0/3.
Peter from Chessvibes is working for the organiser and there are lots of videos from the press conferences at the tournament home page (http://baku2008.fide.com/).
Baku offers exiting sightseeing opportunities. We haven't been much around yet, but a visit to the "old town" by the harbour is classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and a visit is a must during our Baku stay.
After the game and dinner we played some table tennis today.
Magnus is hoping to get more energetic in the rounds to come as he hasn't felt really fit for fight during the first three rounds.
Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, April 23th 2008
Baku Grand-Prix Round 1
At 14:00 I went by the playing hall and observed lots of people making the preparations for round 1, but by 15:00 everything was ready.
Wang Yue had arrived late last night and all 14 participants were in their seats for the start of the game.
Magnus played 1.e4 and Yue immediately deviated from what he has played before entering the Berlin wall in the Ruy Lopez.
Magnus avoided mainlines but did not get much from the opening and after 20.Qh3 the position was equal.
Over the next moves Magnus thought Yue played some inaccuracies and after the exchange of knights (and one rook) the ending is better for white.
Afterwards Magnus says he missed some slightly more promising continuations but does not feel that he ever was close to a decisive advantage.
In the end Yue defended well and a repetition of moves ended the game around move 60 with one rook and one pawn left each.
Mamedyarov-Svidler ended in a perpetual check against the white king moving back and forth between a6 and b5 but according to Magnus they followed theory most of the way except for a change in move order at one point.
Karjakin was white against Navara and black was much better when he started to collapse.
Finally he tricked Karjakin and could save the draw by perpetual check.
Radjabov-Adams never looked really dangerous for any of the players and with queen + 7 pawns each it ended in a perpetual check by black.
Gashimov - Bacrot was an interesting fight and after black had equalised he got into trouble when low on time. Magnus says Gashimov could have obtained a decisive advantage quite early with Qxf7! (treathening Kxf7 Ne5+ Kg8 Nxc6 with a rook fork) something both players probably missed.
The knight versus bishop endgame looked much better for white but Bacrot managed to hold the draw somehow.
Inakiev had a clear advantage as white against Kamsky in the middle game and sacrificed a piece for 4 pawns. However, with little time left he allowed Kamsky to take control on the kingside and lost close to the second time control.
Cheparinov-Grishuk was a tense fight until white sacked an exchange for dubious compensation.
The white h-pawn looked dangerous but Grishuk had calculated it out till the end and got his rook to h8 in time.
Cheparinov duly resigned.
Quite a start in round 1 with 2 black wins and zero white wins.
After the game we found a nice Italian restaurant nearby!
Tomorrow Magnus is black against P.Svidler.
(Remarkably Magnus has have white against all 5 players below 2700 and consequently black against most of his strongest opponents in this tournament.
The weather over here is slightly clouded, some sun and close to 20 oC at noon.
Henrik Carlsen
Baku, April 21th 2008
Wang Yue had arrived late last night and all 14 participants were in their seats for the start of the game.
Magnus played 1.e4 and Yue immediately deviated from what he has played before entering the Berlin wall in the Ruy Lopez.
Magnus avoided mainlines but did not get much from the opening and after 20.Qh3 the position was equal.
Over the next moves Magnus thought Yue played some inaccuracies and after the exchange of knights (and one rook) the ending is better for white.
Afterwards Magnus says he missed some slightly more promising continuations but does not feel that he ever was close to a decisive advantage.
In the end Yue defended well and a repetition of moves ended the game around move 60 with one rook and one pawn left each.
Mamedyarov-Svidler ended in a perpetual check against the white king moving back and forth between a6 and b5 but according to Magnus they followed theory most of the way except for a change in move order at one point.
Karjakin was white against Navara and black was much better when he started to collapse.
Finally he tricked Karjakin and could save the draw by perpetual check.
Radjabov-Adams never looked really dangerous for any of the players and with queen + 7 pawns each it ended in a perpetual check by black.
Gashimov - Bacrot was an interesting fight and after black had equalised he got into trouble when low on time. Magnus says Gashimov could have obtained a decisive advantage quite early with Qxf7! (treathening Kxf7 Ne5+ Kg8 Nxc6 with a rook fork) something both players probably missed.
The knight versus bishop endgame looked much better for white but Bacrot managed to hold the draw somehow.
Inakiev had a clear advantage as white against Kamsky in the middle game and sacrificed a piece for 4 pawns. However, with little time left he allowed Kamsky to take control on the kingside and lost close to the second time control.
Cheparinov-Grishuk was a tense fight until white sacked an exchange for dubious compensation.
The white h-pawn looked dangerous but Grishuk had calculated it out till the end and got his rook to h8 in time.
Cheparinov duly resigned.
Quite a start in round 1 with 2 black wins and zero white wins.
After the game we found a nice Italian restaurant nearby!
Tomorrow Magnus is black against P.Svidler.
(Remarkably Magnus has have white against all 5 players below 2700 and consequently black against most of his strongest opponents in this tournament.
The weather over here is slightly clouded, some sun and close to 20 oC at noon.
Henrik Carlsen
Baku, April 21th 2008
Baku Grand-Prix opening cermony.
Magnus (and I) arrived in Baku early this morning. The Austrian Airlines flight due at 03:25 was ahead of schedule and following efficient Visa and luggage handling and a pick up by the organisor we arrived at the accommodation and playing venue hotel Hyatt Regency before 4 AM!
The hotel is situated about 2 kilometres from the sea and is very good.
The rooms are good, the internet connection fast and the complimentary Oasis sports club is just excellent.
The technical meeting at 15:00 was conducted in a very light and positive atmosphere with 10 players present.
Each round will be played at 15:00 except for the last round starting one hour earlier.
The time control is 2h/40 + 1h/20 + 15min & 30s increment after move 60.
There was some discussions around the introduction of "Sofia" rules concluding that the players are not allowed to speak to their opponent nor to any other player during the games, period.
A draw request following a repetition of moves, lack of material to mate or a dead drawn position has to be directed to the arbiter Faik Gasanov and he may also draw upon the advice of technical advisor Zurab Azmaiparashvili.
The opening ceremony was held in the philharmoni hall in the city centre close to the sea, and 12 players attended. Navara and Yue has not arrived yet.
The speeches focused on the importance for Azerbaijan to host this first tournament in the 2008-9 Grand Prix series. It is dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the birth of the former head of state H.Aliyev (which I'm not going to forget for some time as it was mentioned more than 10 times in each language during the opening ceremony....)
The drawing of lots was based on numbers concealed within a beautiful wooden box presented to each player. Surprisingly the players drew in alphabetical order (it is the first time we experience this in a high level round robin tournament), but this turned out well for Magnus who picked no. 3 and an extra white for the first time in a long while.
In round 1 he is up against Chinese Yue Wang who is scheduled to arrive late this evening.
In round 2 Magnus is black against Svidler and so on.
The artistic part following the drawing of lots included songs, a beautiful piano performance as well as a small high quality band playing traditional instruments.
Ready to go!
Henrik Carlsen
Baku, April 20th 2008.
The hotel is situated about 2 kilometres from the sea and is very good.
The rooms are good, the internet connection fast and the complimentary Oasis sports club is just excellent.
The technical meeting at 15:00 was conducted in a very light and positive atmosphere with 10 players present.
Each round will be played at 15:00 except for the last round starting one hour earlier.
The time control is 2h/40 + 1h/20 + 15min & 30s increment after move 60.
There was some discussions around the introduction of "Sofia" rules concluding that the players are not allowed to speak to their opponent nor to any other player during the games, period.
A draw request following a repetition of moves, lack of material to mate or a dead drawn position has to be directed to the arbiter Faik Gasanov and he may also draw upon the advice of technical advisor Zurab Azmaiparashvili.
The opening ceremony was held in the philharmoni hall in the city centre close to the sea, and 12 players attended. Navara and Yue has not arrived yet.
The speeches focused on the importance for Azerbaijan to host this first tournament in the 2008-9 Grand Prix series. It is dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the birth of the former head of state H.Aliyev (which I'm not going to forget for some time as it was mentioned more than 10 times in each language during the opening ceremony....)
The drawing of lots was based on numbers concealed within a beautiful wooden box presented to each player. Surprisingly the players drew in alphabetical order (it is the first time we experience this in a high level round robin tournament), but this turned out well for Magnus who picked no. 3 and an extra white for the first time in a long while.
In round 1 he is up against Chinese Yue Wang who is scheduled to arrive late this evening.
In round 2 Magnus is black against Svidler and so on.
The artistic part following the drawing of lots included songs, a beautiful piano performance as well as a small high quality band playing traditional instruments.
Ready to go!
Henrik Carlsen
Baku, April 20th 2008.
Grand-Prix series 2008-9 starting in Baku April 21st
Following his return from Nice, Magnus has stayed at home for 3 weeks going to school etc.
As opposed to last year he did not participate in the recently finished Gausdal Classics (A-group won in style by Kaidanov), while the rest of the family spent at least some days up at Gausdal and his sisters Ellen and Ingrid (as well as your truly) participated in the Elo-group.
While the top 4 players in the world have decided against playing the Grand-Prix series 2008-2009 for various reasons, most of the remaining top 20 are in. The Baku 14-man field constitute a strong category 19 tournament, and with 2 rest days only and "Sofia" rules, it's going to be a tough and demanding tournament.
Participants for this first Grand Prix tournament are Magnus Carlsen (2765), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2752), Teimour Radjabov (2751), Peter Svidler (2746), Sergey Karjakin (2732), Michael Adams (2729), Gata Kamsky (2726), Alexander Grischuk (2716), Etienne Bacrot (2705), Ivan Cheparinov (2695), Wang Yue (2689), Ernesto Inarkiev (2684), Vugar Gashimov (2679) and David Navara (2672).
As World ranked 5 on April 1st 2008, Magnus is top ranked in Baku, and without Aronian present, there is a small step down to 2nd and 3rd rated Mamedyarov and Radjabov.
The whole field is tight and bearing in mind the effect of typical performance variability, all participants are possible winners not only in theory.
It would be surprising though if one of the below 2700 emerge victorious.
Magnus is quite pleased to be top ranked as it represents a factual recognition of his Corus and Linares successes this year, although the ranking among the top 7-8 players cannot be taken as a significant indication of a difference in odds of winning in Baku.
With his tight program of playing and travelling, Magnus chooses to travel to Baku on the 19th (arriving 20th in the early morning local time), although this might be a bit risky taking into account the 15 hours travel and 3 hours time difference and I've noticed that for instance Kamsky arrived in Baku several days ago.
It'll be the first time for Magnus (and myself) in Azerbaijan but based on our pleasant experience with Azeri players, coaches and arbiters it'll surely be a great experience!
Henrik Carlsen
Vienna, April 19th 2008.
As opposed to last year he did not participate in the recently finished Gausdal Classics (A-group won in style by Kaidanov), while the rest of the family spent at least some days up at Gausdal and his sisters Ellen and Ingrid (as well as your truly) participated in the Elo-group.
While the top 4 players in the world have decided against playing the Grand-Prix series 2008-2009 for various reasons, most of the remaining top 20 are in. The Baku 14-man field constitute a strong category 19 tournament, and with 2 rest days only and "Sofia" rules, it's going to be a tough and demanding tournament.
Participants for this first Grand Prix tournament are Magnus Carlsen (2765), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2752), Teimour Radjabov (2751), Peter Svidler (2746), Sergey Karjakin (2732), Michael Adams (2729), Gata Kamsky (2726), Alexander Grischuk (2716), Etienne Bacrot (2705), Ivan Cheparinov (2695), Wang Yue (2689), Ernesto Inarkiev (2684), Vugar Gashimov (2679) and David Navara (2672).
As World ranked 5 on April 1st 2008, Magnus is top ranked in Baku, and without Aronian present, there is a small step down to 2nd and 3rd rated Mamedyarov and Radjabov.
The whole field is tight and bearing in mind the effect of typical performance variability, all participants are possible winners not only in theory.
It would be surprising though if one of the below 2700 emerge victorious.
Magnus is quite pleased to be top ranked as it represents a factual recognition of his Corus and Linares successes this year, although the ranking among the top 7-8 players cannot be taken as a significant indication of a difference in odds of winning in Baku.
With his tight program of playing and travelling, Magnus chooses to travel to Baku on the 19th (arriving 20th in the early morning local time), although this might be a bit risky taking into account the 15 hours travel and 3 hours time difference and I've noticed that for instance Kamsky arrived in Baku several days ago.
It'll be the first time for Magnus (and myself) in Azerbaijan but based on our pleasant experience with Azeri players, coaches and arbiters it'll surely be a great experience!
Henrik Carlsen
Vienna, April 19th 2008.
Amber 2008 Final Rounds
Magnus returned to Norway yesterday after Amber 2008 was finalised on Friday with round 11 and prize giving.
In round 10 Magnus played two draws with Peter Leko and in round 11 two more draws against Morozevich.
Against Leko Magnus was white in the blindfold game and got a nice positional advantage in the Ruy Lopez.
When Peter played 23...Qe6 Magnus exchanged queens as he had forgot about the rook on e8. After for instance 24.Qc2 he felt white would have been slighty but comfortably better, but after 24.Qxe6 Rxe6 black got counterplay against Magnus' weak b2-pawn and after some dubious moves Magnus had to accept a rook plus knight ending a pawn down.
Again Magnus defended well and a draw was agreed.
In the rapid game Magnus played the Sicilian Kan again and Leko seemingly got a fierce kingside attack. Magnus chose to give up a pawn with 13.....Nf4 after which he was probably somewhat worse, but had reasonable compensation for the pawn.
Magnus got some pressure against the white weaknesses and when Leko avoided the most principled continuation 27.f6 (and instead went for the safe but drawish Nc4-Nxb2) Magnus was not worse any longer and even avoided a repetition of moves to try to win.
Leko later played a little inaccurate, and at one point Magnus could have gone for 39....Tb8 after Qe5 Kh1.
He thought that this wouldn't give anything either because of Qe7, but after Qd5! white, even if still not lost, would have been in real danger of losing.
Morozevich played the Scotch in the blindfold game and although the computer says black had equalised Magnus thought that white would get an unpleasant bind, and that the position would be difficult. He chose the typical active continuation sacking a pawn with 13...d5 and later 17...b5 and 19....Qb6.
Morozevich played 20.Qb3 and after Qa7 Qa3 Magnus took on a3. He was pawn down in the endgame but when Morozevich chose 37.Ke1 instead of Kf3 Magnus played Rxh2 and has an equal endgame.
Magnus made some dubious moves and after he removed his knight from a6 and Morozevich walked with his king Magnus thought he was technically lost.
Again Morozevich went wrong somewhere and after sacrificing an exchange Magnus could give his rook for the a-pawn and force a drawn ending on the kingside.
In the rapid game Magnus had a comfortable position but allowed Morozevich to develop some counterplay. After his break through on the queenside black was better but had to enter a drawish queen endgame.
A draw was agreed in a position that black well could have continued but Kd2 b4! should lead to a draw anyway.
In the last few rounds Magnus lacked energy and his calculation of lines was slow and inaccurate. This may partly explain why he got some worse endgames and had to mobilize a lot of fighting spirit to avoid any losses.
I'd like to make a few general remarks about explanations like the above. It is not at all meant as an excuse in the sense that Magnus could have performed better if this or that. Magnus did, and always does his best at the board. Like all other players he has his ups and downs and due to his youthful energy, good health, fairly good physical condition and good nerves, I think his prerequisites for performing consistently at or close to his capacity is generally as good or better than for most of his older competitors.
The purpose of mentioning some possible reasons for the ups and downs is that it's one out of several angles from which we may throw some light on the complex turmoil of opening choice, positional preferences, calculations, fighting spirit and psychological efforts affecting the outcome of individual chess games at top level.
Aronian was the clear Amber 2008 winner with 14.5/22 after a tremendous performance. Congratulations!
Magnus ended at 12 points out of 22 and shared 2nd overall (but 5th on tie-break after Kramnik, Leko, Topalov). He is very satisfied with the result and especially having reached another plus score in an absolute top event.
He felt he reached +2 without an obvious abundance of luck in that his miracle escape against Topalov and many saved worse endgames was outweighed by blunders against Aronian, Karjakin and the loss on time against Kramnik.
On April 8th another Gausdal tournament is staged by organiser, arbiter and author Hans O. Lahlum and Magnus will join the rest of the family and spend some days at Gausdal but not as a player this time.
In the Grand-Prix series, starting with Baku April 20th - May 7th, Magnus will be top rated as neither Anand, Kramnik, Morozevich nor Topalov are taking part.
The missing top 4 is of course diminishing the quality of the GP events significantly (although one of them, or Kamsky, will be the reigning World Champion in 2010, and all the four mentioned players may participate in the 2009 World Cup).
On the other hand, FIDE and Global Chess have invested so much prestige in the GP that we expect it to be a long term success.
In May Magnus will also play 8 rapid games match (in 5 days) against Peter Leko in Miscolc in Hungary.
Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, March 29th 2008.
In round 10 Magnus played two draws with Peter Leko and in round 11 two more draws against Morozevich.
Against Leko Magnus was white in the blindfold game and got a nice positional advantage in the Ruy Lopez.
When Peter played 23...Qe6 Magnus exchanged queens as he had forgot about the rook on e8. After for instance 24.Qc2 he felt white would have been slighty but comfortably better, but after 24.Qxe6 Rxe6 black got counterplay against Magnus' weak b2-pawn and after some dubious moves Magnus had to accept a rook plus knight ending a pawn down.
Again Magnus defended well and a draw was agreed.
In the rapid game Magnus played the Sicilian Kan again and Leko seemingly got a fierce kingside attack. Magnus chose to give up a pawn with 13.....Nf4 after which he was probably somewhat worse, but had reasonable compensation for the pawn.
Magnus got some pressure against the white weaknesses and when Leko avoided the most principled continuation 27.f6 (and instead went for the safe but drawish Nc4-Nxb2) Magnus was not worse any longer and even avoided a repetition of moves to try to win.
Leko later played a little inaccurate, and at one point Magnus could have gone for 39....Tb8 after Qe5 Kh1.
He thought that this wouldn't give anything either because of Qe7, but after Qd5! white, even if still not lost, would have been in real danger of losing.
Morozevich played the Scotch in the blindfold game and although the computer says black had equalised Magnus thought that white would get an unpleasant bind, and that the position would be difficult. He chose the typical active continuation sacking a pawn with 13...d5 and later 17...b5 and 19....Qb6.
Morozevich played 20.Qb3 and after Qa7 Qa3 Magnus took on a3. He was pawn down in the endgame but when Morozevich chose 37.Ke1 instead of Kf3 Magnus played Rxh2 and has an equal endgame.
Magnus made some dubious moves and after he removed his knight from a6 and Morozevich walked with his king Magnus thought he was technically lost.
Again Morozevich went wrong somewhere and after sacrificing an exchange Magnus could give his rook for the a-pawn and force a drawn ending on the kingside.
In the rapid game Magnus had a comfortable position but allowed Morozevich to develop some counterplay. After his break through on the queenside black was better but had to enter a drawish queen endgame.
A draw was agreed in a position that black well could have continued but Kd2 b4! should lead to a draw anyway.
In the last few rounds Magnus lacked energy and his calculation of lines was slow and inaccurate. This may partly explain why he got some worse endgames and had to mobilize a lot of fighting spirit to avoid any losses.
I'd like to make a few general remarks about explanations like the above. It is not at all meant as an excuse in the sense that Magnus could have performed better if this or that. Magnus did, and always does his best at the board. Like all other players he has his ups and downs and due to his youthful energy, good health, fairly good physical condition and good nerves, I think his prerequisites for performing consistently at or close to his capacity is generally as good or better than for most of his older competitors.
The purpose of mentioning some possible reasons for the ups and downs is that it's one out of several angles from which we may throw some light on the complex turmoil of opening choice, positional preferences, calculations, fighting spirit and psychological efforts affecting the outcome of individual chess games at top level.
Aronian was the clear Amber 2008 winner with 14.5/22 after a tremendous performance. Congratulations!
Magnus ended at 12 points out of 22 and shared 2nd overall (but 5th on tie-break after Kramnik, Leko, Topalov). He is very satisfied with the result and especially having reached another plus score in an absolute top event.
He felt he reached +2 without an obvious abundance of luck in that his miracle escape against Topalov and many saved worse endgames was outweighed by blunders against Aronian, Karjakin and the loss on time against Kramnik.
On April 8th another Gausdal tournament is staged by organiser, arbiter and author Hans O. Lahlum and Magnus will join the rest of the family and spend some days at Gausdal but not as a player this time.
In the Grand-Prix series, starting with Baku April 20th - May 7th, Magnus will be top rated as neither Anand, Kramnik, Morozevich nor Topalov are taking part.
The missing top 4 is of course diminishing the quality of the GP events significantly (although one of them, or Kamsky, will be the reigning World Champion in 2010, and all the four mentioned players may participate in the 2009 World Cup).
On the other hand, FIDE and Global Chess have invested so much prestige in the GP that we expect it to be a long term success.
In May Magnus will also play 8 rapid games match (in 5 days) against Peter Leko in Miscolc in Hungary.
Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, March 29th 2008.
Amber 2008 Round 9
More powder snow in the air both Monday and yesterday and the skiing conditions here in Lommedalen are simply excellent this week.
It's a pity Magnus can't take advantage of this, but the video reports from Nice does indicate that he finds the free day activities of laser games and visiting a casino, a reasonable alternative.
Yesterday Magnus played V.Kramnik (2799).
In the blindfold game Magnus felt he had an acceptable position after the opening and when Kramnik chose to sack a piece for the b- and c-pawns Magnus felt optimistic.
He managed to castle and to stop the advancing queenside pawns for a while.
Allowing the a-pawn to go to a7 while activating his remaining pieces he was clearly better at one point but with little left the outcome was still very much uncertain.
43...Ng5 would more or less have decided the game but Magnus had another plan and played d6?.
He was still better and after 44.Rb1 he looked at Ne5 Rb7+Nd7 a8D Ra1+ and discovered that it's not working. With time running low he tried Kf6 instead but unfortunately was to late and lost on time.
In the rapid game Magnus was very eager to take revenge, but by accepting the double pawn in the c-file and later sacking one of them he was worse in the middle game due to the strength of the black bishops.
Kramnik made progress but when he allowed 29.Nd5, Magnus felt that he had fended off his problems.
After Re2 he saw that 31.Ne3 would lead to a drawish ending and optimistically chose c3 instead as he had no intention of losing the mini-match :-) But soon he covered that his position was difficult despite the mobile knight.
After imaginative play Magnus found sufficient resources to exchange the free pawns and in the end also capture the g-pawn.
Kramnik thought he had missed a winning continuation somewhere but the end position was clearly a draw.
It is hard not to be impressed by the optimism and fighting spirit shown by Magnus yesterday.
Last year he lost the blindfold game partly due to a great novelty played by Kramnik, but this year he eagerly tried to win both with black and with white without being intimidated by the presence of former World Champion and current World ranked #1 V.Kramnik across the table.
Aronian beat Morozevich 2-0 to take a clear 2,5 points lead with 4 games to go.
Magnus is now in shared 2nd with Leko and Kramnik, and Ivanchuk trailing by half a point.
Today Magnus faces Peter Leko and has the white pieces in the blindfold.
Lets hope for two more exciting games!
It's a pity Magnus can't take advantage of this, but the video reports from Nice does indicate that he finds the free day activities of laser games and visiting a casino, a reasonable alternative.
Yesterday Magnus played V.Kramnik (2799).
In the blindfold game Magnus felt he had an acceptable position after the opening and when Kramnik chose to sack a piece for the b- and c-pawns Magnus felt optimistic.
He managed to castle and to stop the advancing queenside pawns for a while.
Allowing the a-pawn to go to a7 while activating his remaining pieces he was clearly better at one point but with little left the outcome was still very much uncertain.
43...Ng5 would more or less have decided the game but Magnus had another plan and played d6?.
He was still better and after 44.Rb1 he looked at Ne5 Rb7+Nd7 a8D Ra1+ and discovered that it's not working. With time running low he tried Kf6 instead but unfortunately was to late and lost on time.
In the rapid game Magnus was very eager to take revenge, but by accepting the double pawn in the c-file and later sacking one of them he was worse in the middle game due to the strength of the black bishops.
Kramnik made progress but when he allowed 29.Nd5, Magnus felt that he had fended off his problems.
After Re2 he saw that 31.Ne3 would lead to a drawish ending and optimistically chose c3 instead as he had no intention of losing the mini-match :-) But soon he covered that his position was difficult despite the mobile knight.
After imaginative play Magnus found sufficient resources to exchange the free pawns and in the end also capture the g-pawn.
Kramnik thought he had missed a winning continuation somewhere but the end position was clearly a draw.
It is hard not to be impressed by the optimism and fighting spirit shown by Magnus yesterday.
Last year he lost the blindfold game partly due to a great novelty played by Kramnik, but this year he eagerly tried to win both with black and with white without being intimidated by the presence of former World Champion and current World ranked #1 V.Kramnik across the table.
Aronian beat Morozevich 2-0 to take a clear 2,5 points lead with 4 games to go.
Magnus is now in shared 2nd with Leko and Kramnik, and Ivanchuk trailing by half a point.
Today Magnus faces Peter Leko and has the white pieces in the blindfold.
Lets hope for two more exciting games!
Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, March 26rd 2008.
Amber 2008 Round 7 & 8
Returning from family vacation 140 km northeast of Oslo we were meet by 10 cm fresh snow on the ground in Lommedalen. Right now the temperature is below minus 10 degrees Celsius (but no polar bears outside though...)
Yesterday Magnus was up against World Champion V.Anand. Despite Anand's very pleasant conduct whenever he is away from the chess board it seemed as if he had planned to spend another afternoon intimidating Magnus over the board.
Magnus played the Alekhine and Anand got both space and threats in the centre. Fritz told me that Magnus was gradually improving his position with 17...e5 and his next 5 moves but when Magnus deviated from the machine preference Ncd7 with 23....Nb7 he is simply losing due to the nice queen side pawn advance (c5 bxc5 b5 cxb5 Nxb5) found by Anand.
Anand finished in style picking up the loose black pawns after Magnus had to sack his knight for two pawns (including the c7 pawn).
Fortunately the rapid game turned out differently.
After 1.c4 e5 2.g3 c6 3.d4 e4 4.d5 black equalised fairly early but they reached a position with a lot of dynamics. Anand chose to allow Magnus to capture the e-pawn but probably has sufficient counterplay.
Anand plays very quickly and normally this is good for him and problematic for the opponent.
However, his 17....a5 giving up another pawn probably deserves a question mark.
Magnus thought for about 10 minutes and took on h7 after which 20.Qb1+ wins back the piece. He had calculated well and knew he could avoid mate.
After some more inaccuracies from black Magnus was clearly better when Anand dropped a whole rook with 27.Rxe3 because 28.Rxf7 wins either the queen after Kxf7 fxe3 or both rooks after Qxf7 fxe3.
Magnus would normally not miss such tactics but partly due to his time trouble and partly because he did not expect such a mistake from Anand he looked for a simple winning line and was happy to play 28.Qxc8 etc keeping his king protected and having two extra pawns.
After exchanging queens Magnus did not have any problems securing an easily won rook endgame and Anand resigned.
Magnus won 2 blitz games against Anand at Iceland in 2006 but this is the first rapid victory (and his first classical game victory is still to come :-) ).
Aronian beat Topalov 1,5-0,5 to take a one point lead ahead of Anand with Magnus in shared 3rd.
Morozevich won another blindfold game to take a clear sole lead with 5/7.
On day 8 today, Magnus felt comfortable playing Mamedyarov as he has a fairly good score against him recently.
The blindfold game was a thriller that would have been reasonably exciting even for a normal rapid game.
They played the same Sicilian Paulsen line with 6.Nxc6 as Magnus defended against Anand in Monaco last year.
Mamedyarov decided to take the pawn on b2 after which he has to defend quite accurately. Magnus was happy to find 15.Be5 and 18.g4 after which the black rooks in the h-file are more of a problem than an asset due to the inactivity of the black queen and bishop. He felt he was clearly better after 18....Rxh2 19.Be5. After exchanging one rook black tried to activate his queenside with c5 but white maintained a clear edge with 22.Qd3.
22....f5 23.Rb1! simply wins a piece.
Mamedyarov spent most of his remaining time without finding a good continuation and ended up with a queen + 5 pawns against the white queen + rook + 2 pawns.
After a few checks he resigned. 1-0.
In the rapid game Magnus went for the Queen Indian and white was slightly better after the opening. Magnus decided to play c5 accepting a weak pawn on c5 after the knight exchanges and spent many minute before playing 17....g5 18.Bg3 g4! 19.Nd2 Qg5.
Magnus was quite happy with his position due to the kingside activity and the weak white bishops.
Obviously his opponent also took the kingside threats very seriously and after a long thought Mamedyarov went for 24.Ne5 Bxe5 25.Bxa6 after which Magnus thought he was better.
Mamedyarov played a few more inaccuracies probably in the belief that black had to exchange queens after 29.Qe3, but Magnus found Qh2! and black is simply a pawn up in the ending. And with queens on the board the knight is better than the bishop.
Mamedyarov played as if he had mentally resigned and after black had started to advance his kingside pawns he resigned in face of material losses. 0-1 and another 2-0 victory for Magnus today!
Having won 3 games in a row Magnus is of course extremely pleased with the current standing although he is still a full point behind Aronian. Magnus is also 2nd in the blindfold (behind Moro) and shared 2nd in the rapid).
He faces a very tough programme (Kramnik, Leko and Morozevich) after the free day Monday but in fact Aronian faces exactly the same opponents!
Magnus has had few peaceful games so far resulting in a +7-4=5 score.
The 7 wins bring him up to a total of 17 wins against 2680+ opponents in 43 games this year!
(Maybe he has had some luck but there obviously must be some good games among the 17 as well :-)
Yesterday Magnus was up against World Champion V.Anand. Despite Anand's very pleasant conduct whenever he is away from the chess board it seemed as if he had planned to spend another afternoon intimidating Magnus over the board.
Magnus played the Alekhine and Anand got both space and threats in the centre. Fritz told me that Magnus was gradually improving his position with 17...e5 and his next 5 moves but when Magnus deviated from the machine preference Ncd7 with 23....Nb7 he is simply losing due to the nice queen side pawn advance (c5 bxc5 b5 cxb5 Nxb5) found by Anand.
Anand finished in style picking up the loose black pawns after Magnus had to sack his knight for two pawns (including the c7 pawn).
Fortunately the rapid game turned out differently.
After 1.c4 e5 2.g3 c6 3.d4 e4 4.d5 black equalised fairly early but they reached a position with a lot of dynamics. Anand chose to allow Magnus to capture the e-pawn but probably has sufficient counterplay.
Anand plays very quickly and normally this is good for him and problematic for the opponent.
However, his 17....a5 giving up another pawn probably deserves a question mark.
Magnus thought for about 10 minutes and took on h7 after which 20.Qb1+ wins back the piece. He had calculated well and knew he could avoid mate.
After some more inaccuracies from black Magnus was clearly better when Anand dropped a whole rook with 27.Rxe3 because 28.Rxf7 wins either the queen after Kxf7 fxe3 or both rooks after Qxf7 fxe3.
Magnus would normally not miss such tactics but partly due to his time trouble and partly because he did not expect such a mistake from Anand he looked for a simple winning line and was happy to play 28.Qxc8 etc keeping his king protected and having two extra pawns.
After exchanging queens Magnus did not have any problems securing an easily won rook endgame and Anand resigned.
Magnus won 2 blitz games against Anand at Iceland in 2006 but this is the first rapid victory (and his first classical game victory is still to come :-) ).
Aronian beat Topalov 1,5-0,5 to take a one point lead ahead of Anand with Magnus in shared 3rd.
Morozevich won another blindfold game to take a clear sole lead with 5/7.
On day 8 today, Magnus felt comfortable playing Mamedyarov as he has a fairly good score against him recently.
The blindfold game was a thriller that would have been reasonably exciting even for a normal rapid game.
They played the same Sicilian Paulsen line with 6.Nxc6 as Magnus defended against Anand in Monaco last year.
Mamedyarov decided to take the pawn on b2 after which he has to defend quite accurately. Magnus was happy to find 15.Be5 and 18.g4 after which the black rooks in the h-file are more of a problem than an asset due to the inactivity of the black queen and bishop. He felt he was clearly better after 18....Rxh2 19.Be5. After exchanging one rook black tried to activate his queenside with c5 but white maintained a clear edge with 22.Qd3.
22....f5 23.Rb1! simply wins a piece.
Mamedyarov spent most of his remaining time without finding a good continuation and ended up with a queen + 5 pawns against the white queen + rook + 2 pawns.
After a few checks he resigned. 1-0.
In the rapid game Magnus went for the Queen Indian and white was slightly better after the opening. Magnus decided to play c5 accepting a weak pawn on c5 after the knight exchanges and spent many minute before playing 17....g5 18.Bg3 g4! 19.Nd2 Qg5.
Magnus was quite happy with his position due to the kingside activity and the weak white bishops.
Obviously his opponent also took the kingside threats very seriously and after a long thought Mamedyarov went for 24.Ne5 Bxe5 25.Bxa6 after which Magnus thought he was better.
Mamedyarov played a few more inaccuracies probably in the belief that black had to exchange queens after 29.Qe3, but Magnus found Qh2! and black is simply a pawn up in the ending. And with queens on the board the knight is better than the bishop.
Mamedyarov played as if he had mentally resigned and after black had started to advance his kingside pawns he resigned in face of material losses. 0-1 and another 2-0 victory for Magnus today!
Having won 3 games in a row Magnus is of course extremely pleased with the current standing although he is still a full point behind Aronian. Magnus is also 2nd in the blindfold (behind Moro) and shared 2nd in the rapid).
He faces a very tough programme (Kramnik, Leko and Morozevich) after the free day Monday but in fact Aronian faces exactly the same opponents!
Magnus has had few peaceful games so far resulting in a +7-4=5 score.
The 7 wins bring him up to a total of 17 wins against 2680+ opponents in 43 games this year!
(Maybe he has had some luck but there obviously must be some good games among the 17 as well :-)
Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, March 23rd 2008.
Amber 2008 Round 6
As white against Gelfand in the blindfold on day 5, Magnus played a good game in the 6.h3 Najdorf variation.
He attacked the black position from both sides and finished in style.
In the rapid game Magnus sacrificed a pawn for active play and after too ambitious play by Gelfand Magnus had a small advantage.
Later in the game Gelfand defended very accurately and in the rook ending Magnus could not escape the perpetual checks. Draw.
In round 6 Magnus faced Topalov and had the white pieces in the blindfold game.
In retrospect it is not difficult to explain why the game took such a disastrous turn.
He could not sleep until very late the day before and in addition he chose a variation inspired by one of my blitz games on ICC he happened to steal a glance at a year back (and this is definitely not due to family affection as he is rightfully very critical to my chess in general :-).
He was quite happy about the opening though and after 15.Qa4 Qb6 he thought he would be better after Qc2.
As happens sometimes when you are not in top shape he probably got too impatient when playing the dubious 16.Bd2 and 18.Re3.
Afterwards Magnus says that it was simply ridiculous to allow 16.Bf5!
Topalov made many good moves and after 21.Qh7 he was simply winning.
Fortunately Magnus did not give up and as Topalov missed several very promising continuations the position was a bit unclear after 30 moves.
But, after exchanging queens on a6 black is much better due to the pawn on g4 despite the fairly equal material.
A piece up in the ending Topalov again played quite well for a while and could have decided the game with 49...d3 but somehow failed to find the win.
After a long fight Magnus managed to reach a drawn ending with 3 pawns against the black knight.
Puh, several narrow escapes by Magnus, but this can easily happen in a blindfold game.
With the draw Magnus keeps his sole lead in the blindfold section and has already captured as many points in 6 games as in all 11 last year!
In the second game Magnus got a lot of activity after his pawn sack 14.e4 and he thought he could at least reach an equal ending.
Topalov gave up an exchange for another pawn and was slightly better.
Magnus underestimated his problems in the ending. He felt he should have chosen a more active continuation tan in the game where he allowed 26.Bxf7 (which he had missed), after which he has to keep finding a lot of only moves to avoid disaster in the endgame.
Topalov tried for a long time but after nearly 70 moves he repeated a position for the third time and a draw was agreed.
Lots of draws in round 6 (for a change) although Anand went into sole 2nd place after beating Karjakin in the blindfold.
Aronian is still sole leader (7,5/12) and Magnus is in shared 3rd (6,5/12) with 4 more players.
Personally I?m impressed with Magnus performance so far. Despite some serious blunders he has a plus score and has already won 4 games.
Today Magnus plays world champion Anand and is hoping to improve his poor score against him.
He attacked the black position from both sides and finished in style.
In the rapid game Magnus sacrificed a pawn for active play and after too ambitious play by Gelfand Magnus had a small advantage.
Later in the game Gelfand defended very accurately and in the rook ending Magnus could not escape the perpetual checks. Draw.
In round 6 Magnus faced Topalov and had the white pieces in the blindfold game.
In retrospect it is not difficult to explain why the game took such a disastrous turn.
He could not sleep until very late the day before and in addition he chose a variation inspired by one of my blitz games on ICC he happened to steal a glance at a year back (and this is definitely not due to family affection as he is rightfully very critical to my chess in general :-).
He was quite happy about the opening though and after 15.Qa4 Qb6 he thought he would be better after Qc2.
As happens sometimes when you are not in top shape he probably got too impatient when playing the dubious 16.Bd2 and 18.Re3.
Afterwards Magnus says that it was simply ridiculous to allow 16.Bf5!
Topalov made many good moves and after 21.Qh7 he was simply winning.
Fortunately Magnus did not give up and as Topalov missed several very promising continuations the position was a bit unclear after 30 moves.
But, after exchanging queens on a6 black is much better due to the pawn on g4 despite the fairly equal material.
A piece up in the ending Topalov again played quite well for a while and could have decided the game with 49...d3 but somehow failed to find the win.
After a long fight Magnus managed to reach a drawn ending with 3 pawns against the black knight.
Puh, several narrow escapes by Magnus, but this can easily happen in a blindfold game.
With the draw Magnus keeps his sole lead in the blindfold section and has already captured as many points in 6 games as in all 11 last year!
In the second game Magnus got a lot of activity after his pawn sack 14.e4 and he thought he could at least reach an equal ending.
Topalov gave up an exchange for another pawn and was slightly better.
Magnus underestimated his problems in the ending. He felt he should have chosen a more active continuation tan in the game where he allowed 26.Bxf7 (which he had missed), after which he has to keep finding a lot of only moves to avoid disaster in the endgame.
Topalov tried for a long time but after nearly 70 moves he repeated a position for the third time and a draw was agreed.
Lots of draws in round 6 (for a change) although Anand went into sole 2nd place after beating Karjakin in the blindfold.
Aronian is still sole leader (7,5/12) and Magnus is in shared 3rd (6,5/12) with 4 more players.
Personally I?m impressed with Magnus performance so far. Despite some serious blunders he has a plus score and has already won 4 games.
Today Magnus plays world champion Anand and is hoping to improve his poor score against him.
Henrik Carlsen
Solør family estate, March 22nd 2008.
Amber 2008 Round 4
Magnus played Aronian in round 4. (I'm referring to the two games per day as one round so round 4 featured game 7 and 8 for Magnus in the tournament.)
Unfortunately both games were somewhat special but for different reasons.
Magnus felt he had a comfortable position as black in the blindfold game despite the double b-pawn and when Aronian became too optimistic he snatched the pawn on a3 (24....Bxa3!) after which the position is complex but slightly better for black.
Both players seem to have missed that 26.Nd2 probably was much better for white than Be3.
In the opposite bishop and rook endgame Magnus was up a pawn (3 versus 2).
It is probably a theoretical draw but difficult to defend for white.
Advancing his f and e-pawns Magnus made considerable progress but in the end Aronian managed too defend and draw after 105 (!) moves.
Magnus thought he must have had a won position at some point but he is not sure where he went wrong.
(I think Fritz gave 73.... Rf4!, instead of Bd5 a decisive advantage although I haven't analysed it any further.)
The game lasted about 2 hours and delayed the games for the rest of the day considerably.
In the second game Magnus got a small but comfortable advantage as white and was trying to make progress in the rook and bishop endgame when the unfortunate incident took place.
Magnus moved his rook to a3 and discovered immediately the blunder (due to Rg3+). His mind was so occupied with registering the blunder and instinctively correcting it that he did not really notice whether he had released his rook at a3 or not.
Aronian immediately took exception to the corrected move and the arbiter was involved.
Magnus was somewhat surprised when the arbiter said that the video footage clearly showed that Magnus had released the rook on a3 before moving it to c1. He has not seen the video but of course he accepted the ruling of the arbiter, and duly resigned. 0-1.
After the game Magnus has emphasised that he did not intentionally try to cheat and he has apologised to Aronian for any disagreement he may have felt during the episode.
Sole leader before round 4, Anand, lost against Leko while Aronian, Ivanchuk and Topalov won their mini-matches 1,5-0,5 to take a shared lead with 5/8. (Ivanchuk played a brilliant queen sacrifice againt Karjakin. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look !)
At 50% Magnus is sharing 5.-7. place with Kramnik and Leko going into the first free day.
Tomorrow Magnus has white against Gelfand in the blindfold game.
Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, March 19th 2008.
Unfortunately both games were somewhat special but for different reasons.
Magnus felt he had a comfortable position as black in the blindfold game despite the double b-pawn and when Aronian became too optimistic he snatched the pawn on a3 (24....Bxa3!) after which the position is complex but slightly better for black.
Both players seem to have missed that 26.Nd2 probably was much better for white than Be3.
In the opposite bishop and rook endgame Magnus was up a pawn (3 versus 2).
It is probably a theoretical draw but difficult to defend for white.
Advancing his f and e-pawns Magnus made considerable progress but in the end Aronian managed too defend and draw after 105 (!) moves.
Magnus thought he must have had a won position at some point but he is not sure where he went wrong.
(I think Fritz gave 73.... Rf4!, instead of Bd5 a decisive advantage although I haven't analysed it any further.)
The game lasted about 2 hours and delayed the games for the rest of the day considerably.
In the second game Magnus got a small but comfortable advantage as white and was trying to make progress in the rook and bishop endgame when the unfortunate incident took place.
Magnus moved his rook to a3 and discovered immediately the blunder (due to Rg3+). His mind was so occupied with registering the blunder and instinctively correcting it that he did not really notice whether he had released his rook at a3 or not.
Aronian immediately took exception to the corrected move and the arbiter was involved.
Magnus was somewhat surprised when the arbiter said that the video footage clearly showed that Magnus had released the rook on a3 before moving it to c1. He has not seen the video but of course he accepted the ruling of the arbiter, and duly resigned. 0-1.
After the game Magnus has emphasised that he did not intentionally try to cheat and he has apologised to Aronian for any disagreement he may have felt during the episode.
Sole leader before round 4, Anand, lost against Leko while Aronian, Ivanchuk and Topalov won their mini-matches 1,5-0,5 to take a shared lead with 5/8. (Ivanchuk played a brilliant queen sacrifice againt Karjakin. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look !)
At 50% Magnus is sharing 5.-7. place with Kramnik and Leko going into the first free day.
Tomorrow Magnus has white against Gelfand in the blindfold game.
Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, March 19th 2008.
Amber Round 2 & 3.
The Amber Blindfold is played by making moves on a blank computer screen board with the mouse. The last move of the opponent appears on the screen in notation form and is visible put until the player makes his next move.
Sunday Magnus played against van Wely, the lowest seeded opponent and needed a plus score after his meagre 0,5 points against Ivanchuk.
In the blindfold game Magnus chose to follow the same line as he had played with white against Naiditsch in the World Cup and after van Wely played the ambitious 16.Rb1 Magnus could start to put pressure on c4 and e4. Van Wely quickly went wrong with 19.Ke2 and after 21..... Bb7 he is losing the e-pawn. In the ensuing tactics black has the advantage and after 25.Bxe4? Bxe4 white is losing.
This was Magnus first blindfold win in Amber as he didn't score any last year.
In the rapid game Magnus chose a popular Slav set-up sacrificing a pawn for space and black weaknesses.
His 12.b3 is quite new and van Wely had to find the right continuation to avoid trouble. When van Wely missed 22.Nf7! he is clearly worse and quickly went down in the white kingside attack. 1-0.
Anand, Aronian and Ivanchuk again won their matches and was leading with 3/4 ahead of Magnus and others at 2.5.
On day 3 Magnus was up against his youth rival S.Karjakin. As white in the blindfold game Magnus went for the same line Najdorf as Radjabov played against Shirov in Linares. In Linares Shirov blundered badly in a position considered only slightly better for white. However Magnus felt he had a comfortable edge and he started manouvring to exploit black's weaknesses. After 28.g5 Karjakin quickly played f5 and h5 closing the kingside but had maybe underestimated the weekness on the queenside. Magnus played 32.b5 and after Karjakin activated his rook in the e-file and captured the h-pawn, Magnus could take the e-file with devastating effect. After some tactics Karjakin resigned as he cannot stop the a-pawn.
Magnus considers Karjakin a real elite player and was a bit surprised by the apparent ease with which he won this game.
As black in the rapid Magnus chose the Alekhine defence and white got an advantage due to the bishop pair and more space. Magnus felt that he never had serious problems in the middle game and was starting to be very optimistic in the unbalanced game after 29.....h4 30.gxh4. Karjakin had little time left and Magnus considered the position easier to play for black than for white.
However, soon after Magnus blundered a full piece as he has simply missed Rg2! in the end. 1-0 and 1-1 in the mini-match just as in Bilbao blindfold in October.
Well, the equilibrium maintains the tension ahead of their next encounter!
Anand drew his match while Ivanchuk and Aronian both lost their mini-matches to leave Anand in the sole lead with 4/6. Magnus is shared 2nd with 3.5.
Today Magnus has black in the blindfold game against Aronian at 14:30.
Henrik Carlsen,
Lommedalen, March 18th 2008
Sunday Magnus played against van Wely, the lowest seeded opponent and needed a plus score after his meagre 0,5 points against Ivanchuk.
In the blindfold game Magnus chose to follow the same line as he had played with white against Naiditsch in the World Cup and after van Wely played the ambitious 16.Rb1 Magnus could start to put pressure on c4 and e4. Van Wely quickly went wrong with 19.Ke2 and after 21..... Bb7 he is losing the e-pawn. In the ensuing tactics black has the advantage and after 25.Bxe4? Bxe4 white is losing.
This was Magnus first blindfold win in Amber as he didn't score any last year.
In the rapid game Magnus chose a popular Slav set-up sacrificing a pawn for space and black weaknesses.
His 12.b3 is quite new and van Wely had to find the right continuation to avoid trouble. When van Wely missed 22.Nf7! he is clearly worse and quickly went down in the white kingside attack. 1-0.
Anand, Aronian and Ivanchuk again won their matches and was leading with 3/4 ahead of Magnus and others at 2.5.
On day 3 Magnus was up against his youth rival S.Karjakin. As white in the blindfold game Magnus went for the same line Najdorf as Radjabov played against Shirov in Linares. In Linares Shirov blundered badly in a position considered only slightly better for white. However Magnus felt he had a comfortable edge and he started manouvring to exploit black's weaknesses. After 28.g5 Karjakin quickly played f5 and h5 closing the kingside but had maybe underestimated the weekness on the queenside. Magnus played 32.b5 and after Karjakin activated his rook in the e-file and captured the h-pawn, Magnus could take the e-file with devastating effect. After some tactics Karjakin resigned as he cannot stop the a-pawn.
Magnus considers Karjakin a real elite player and was a bit surprised by the apparent ease with which he won this game.
As black in the rapid Magnus chose the Alekhine defence and white got an advantage due to the bishop pair and more space. Magnus felt that he never had serious problems in the middle game and was starting to be very optimistic in the unbalanced game after 29.....h4 30.gxh4. Karjakin had little time left and Magnus considered the position easier to play for black than for white.
However, soon after Magnus blundered a full piece as he has simply missed Rg2! in the end. 1-0 and 1-1 in the mini-match just as in Bilbao blindfold in October.
Well, the equilibrium maintains the tension ahead of their next encounter!
Anand drew his match while Ivanchuk and Aronian both lost their mini-matches to leave Anand in the sole lead with 4/6. Magnus is shared 2nd with 3.5.
Today Magnus has black in the blindfold game against Aronian at 14:30.
Henrik Carlsen,
Lommedalen, March 18th 2008
Amber Blindfold & Rapid Round 1 2008
The first quarter elite schedule has been extremely tight for the last three years, partly due to prolongation of the Linares tournament resulting from the split with Morelia. Last year Magnus was travelling for 70 out of 90 days during 1st quarter and it won't be much less this year.
Together with Anand, Topalov, Aronian, Ivanchuk and Leko, he plays Corus, Morelia-Linares and Amber Blindfold & Rapid.
Fortunately the Amber tournament is at the back end, and although highly prestigious, the rapid/blindfold format makes the atmosphere more relaxed, the players follow the other games together and of course there isn't the usual fear of losing rating points.
This year the Amber tournament is held not in Monaco but in nearby Nice, in the fashionable Palais de la Mediterranee.
All play all twice, the tournament started yesterday and lasts until the 27th.
Magnus is accompanied by a chess school mate, Johannes Kvisla, so I'm reporting from Lommedalen after enjoying a sunny cross country skiing trip this morning :-)
Last year Magnus scored 6,5/11 in the rapid, while only 4/11 in the blindfold and he is hoping to improve the score this time. It didn't start that well though.
As white against Ivanchuk in the blindfold he felt he got a promising position but was uncertain about how to proceed. He spent too much time contemplating f4 and as time was running low he started to make mistakes.
Missing Ba3 he was worse and although he managed to create some counterplay Ivanchuk continued accurately and the b-pawn decided in the end after a very good game by Ivanchuk. 0-1.
In the rapid game Magnus committed a serious oversight in the early tactics having missed that Ivanchuk could capture on b7 in stead of on b4. Black is simply a pawn down.
The rook + knight ending is difficult to defend but neither that simple to win for white.
After having to exchange rooks Magnus was in trouble in the knight ending, and it is probably objectively lost.
He of course tried to force the exchange of the two queen side pawns with a3, but anyhow it would be very difficult to avoid a loss after bxa3.
However, Ivanchuk (is Ivanchuk and he) surprised everybody by playing Nxa3?! bxa3 bxa3 in stead relying on the combination of his kingside pawn majority and the a2/a3 free pawns.
According to kibitzers this is better for black but Magnus did not see how he could have won. (Maybe e4 in stead of exf4 could have been an interesting try.)
Ivanchuk kept trying to win, but in the end Magnus chose to go for a long forced line ending with white taking the black knight on a8 followed by stalemate. Draw.
The first round included a show down between top ranked favourites Anand and Kramnik. After the latter had equalised with black in the blindfold and obtained an early draw, he had a positional favourable position as white when Anand came up with a clever plot doubling his rooks in the h-file.
Kramnik failed to anticipate the concluding beautiful queen sack Qf3! and there was no way to avoid a mate! 0-1.
Anand is in shared lead with 1,5/2 together with Ivanchuk, Topalov (winning as white against Leko), Aronian and Karjakin (winning as black against van Wely and Gelfand respectively).
Morozevich and Mamedyarov has 1 point each after two draws.
Today Magnus plays black against van Wely in the blindfold game starting at 14:30.
Together with Anand, Topalov, Aronian, Ivanchuk and Leko, he plays Corus, Morelia-Linares and Amber Blindfold & Rapid.
Fortunately the Amber tournament is at the back end, and although highly prestigious, the rapid/blindfold format makes the atmosphere more relaxed, the players follow the other games together and of course there isn't the usual fear of losing rating points.
This year the Amber tournament is held not in Monaco but in nearby Nice, in the fashionable Palais de la Mediterranee.
All play all twice, the tournament started yesterday and lasts until the 27th.
Magnus is accompanied by a chess school mate, Johannes Kvisla, so I'm reporting from Lommedalen after enjoying a sunny cross country skiing trip this morning :-)
Last year Magnus scored 6,5/11 in the rapid, while only 4/11 in the blindfold and he is hoping to improve the score this time. It didn't start that well though.
As white against Ivanchuk in the blindfold he felt he got a promising position but was uncertain about how to proceed. He spent too much time contemplating f4 and as time was running low he started to make mistakes.
Missing Ba3 he was worse and although he managed to create some counterplay Ivanchuk continued accurately and the b-pawn decided in the end after a very good game by Ivanchuk. 0-1.
In the rapid game Magnus committed a serious oversight in the early tactics having missed that Ivanchuk could capture on b7 in stead of on b4. Black is simply a pawn down.
The rook + knight ending is difficult to defend but neither that simple to win for white.
After having to exchange rooks Magnus was in trouble in the knight ending, and it is probably objectively lost.
He of course tried to force the exchange of the two queen side pawns with a3, but anyhow it would be very difficult to avoid a loss after bxa3.
However, Ivanchuk (is Ivanchuk and he) surprised everybody by playing Nxa3?! bxa3 bxa3 in stead relying on the combination of his kingside pawn majority and the a2/a3 free pawns.
According to kibitzers this is better for black but Magnus did not see how he could have won. (Maybe e4 in stead of exf4 could have been an interesting try.)
Ivanchuk kept trying to win, but in the end Magnus chose to go for a long forced line ending with white taking the black knight on a8 followed by stalemate. Draw.
The first round included a show down between top ranked favourites Anand and Kramnik. After the latter had equalised with black in the blindfold and obtained an early draw, he had a positional favourable position as white when Anand came up with a clever plot doubling his rooks in the h-file.
Kramnik failed to anticipate the concluding beautiful queen sack Qf3! and there was no way to avoid a mate! 0-1.
Anand is in shared lead with 1,5/2 together with Ivanchuk, Topalov (winning as white against Leko), Aronian and Karjakin (winning as black against van Wely and Gelfand respectively).
Morozevich and Mamedyarov has 1 point each after two draws.
Today Magnus plays black against van Wely in the blindfold game starting at 14:30.
Henrik Carlsen,
Lommedalen, March 16th 2008
Linares Round 14 & Closing ceremony
Thursday Magnus played black against Aronian. In the Queen Indian line he played 9....Bxd5 and later Nd4 sacking the exchange to put his knight on c2. The important question is if white can coordinate his defences and attack / remove the knight or not.
The computers give white an advantage but Aronians plan moving his queen to f3 does not give any real counterplay and Magnus managed to keep the up the pressure.
Aronian obviously did not find any way to utilize his material advantage and offered a draw after move 28 with Bc1 forcing Rc3 and the exchange of queens. Magnus did not consider his position advantageous and was reasonably happy to draw with black.
Leko seemed to equalise as black against Topalov after the opening, but Topalov managed to regain the initiative after active play and before the time control Leko went astray. Topalov kept improving his position reaching a winning rook endgame.
Before the last round, three players could in theory catch up with Anand. As white against Topalov, Anand was clearly the tournament favourite. With his mini-match victory against Magnus he only needed a draw to secure the Linares trophy for the second year in a row.
(If he had lost, Magnus would win the trophy with a draw or a victory against Radjabov while Topalov would win if he managed to beat Anand and Magnus lost as well. Aronian could in theory have reached shared first but was not in contention for the trophy due to poor tiebreak.)
Radjabov surprised Magnus in the opening by following the same line as he had played against Topalov, a game in which he was worse or slightly worse throughout the game but managed a draw in the end.
On the other hand Magnus was reasonably satisfied to be in a position to put pressure on his opponent without any real danger of losing.
After Magnus played h4 Radjabov probably realised that his position was becoming difficult and thought for a long time. Fortunately for him, he found g5! sacking a pawn to activate his queen. After that Magnus was still somewhat better, but facing good defence from Radjabov, he couldn't really come close to winning.
Meanwhile, Anand and Topalov had drawn so that Anand was already the winner of Linares 2008. Congratulations!
With all games drawn yesterday, the standings are unchanged from round 13. Despite not being happy with a draw as white in the last round, Magnus is very satisfied with his overall performance and the clear 2nd half a point ahead of Topalov and Aronian, with Radjabov in 5th place.
Magnus' rating performance was again above 2800 and we expect him to get 2765 and rank 5 on the April 2008 Fide rating list. Furthermore he will be the highest ranked GP participants in Baku.
(Whatever ambitions Magnus may have had for 2008 they must be fulfilled already :-) )
The closing ceremony was held at 12:30 in the Cervantes Theatre.
The Linares choir performed some very nice songs, and I'm told that the Linares mayor Juan Fernandez emphasised the importance of the tournament for Linares city and confirmed that the tournament will go on for years to come.
The deserved winner V. Anand receives the Linares thropy.
A satisified Magnus receives his plaket.
Seven Linares tournament participants and Iberoamerican championship winner Julio Granda Zuniga.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank the Linares and Morelia organisers for this great tournament, and for all the practical efforts, including arranging tennis, swimming, fotball etc undertaken to make the stay pleasant and memorable for all participants!
After the closing ceremony we headed directly for Madrid and has just returned from Santiago Bernabeau stadium watching Real Madrid beat Espanyol 2-1 !
Magnus' next tournament is starting a week from now, the Amber Rapid & Blindfold in Nice.
Henrik Carlsen,
Madrid, March 8th 2008
The computers give white an advantage but Aronians plan moving his queen to f3 does not give any real counterplay and Magnus managed to keep the up the pressure.
Aronian obviously did not find any way to utilize his material advantage and offered a draw after move 28 with Bc1 forcing Rc3 and the exchange of queens. Magnus did not consider his position advantageous and was reasonably happy to draw with black.
Leko seemed to equalise as black against Topalov after the opening, but Topalov managed to regain the initiative after active play and before the time control Leko went astray. Topalov kept improving his position reaching a winning rook endgame.
Before the last round, three players could in theory catch up with Anand. As white against Topalov, Anand was clearly the tournament favourite. With his mini-match victory against Magnus he only needed a draw to secure the Linares trophy for the second year in a row.
(If he had lost, Magnus would win the trophy with a draw or a victory against Radjabov while Topalov would win if he managed to beat Anand and Magnus lost as well. Aronian could in theory have reached shared first but was not in contention for the trophy due to poor tiebreak.)
Radjabov surprised Magnus in the opening by following the same line as he had played against Topalov, a game in which he was worse or slightly worse throughout the game but managed a draw in the end.
On the other hand Magnus was reasonably satisfied to be in a position to put pressure on his opponent without any real danger of losing.
After Magnus played h4 Radjabov probably realised that his position was becoming difficult and thought for a long time. Fortunately for him, he found g5! sacking a pawn to activate his queen. After that Magnus was still somewhat better, but facing good defence from Radjabov, he couldn't really come close to winning.
Meanwhile, Anand and Topalov had drawn so that Anand was already the winner of Linares 2008. Congratulations!
With all games drawn yesterday, the standings are unchanged from round 13. Despite not being happy with a draw as white in the last round, Magnus is very satisfied with his overall performance and the clear 2nd half a point ahead of Topalov and Aronian, with Radjabov in 5th place.
Magnus' rating performance was again above 2800 and we expect him to get 2765 and rank 5 on the April 2008 Fide rating list. Furthermore he will be the highest ranked GP participants in Baku.
(Whatever ambitions Magnus may have had for 2008 they must be fulfilled already :-) )
The closing ceremony was held at 12:30 in the Cervantes Theatre.
The Linares choir performed some very nice songs, and I'm told that the Linares mayor Juan Fernandez emphasised the importance of the tournament for Linares city and confirmed that the tournament will go on for years to come.
The deserved winner V. Anand receives the Linares thropy.
A satisified Magnus receives his plaket.
Seven Linares tournament participants and Iberoamerican championship winner Julio Granda Zuniga.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank the Linares and Morelia organisers for this great tournament, and for all the practical efforts, including arranging tennis, swimming, fotball etc undertaken to make the stay pleasant and memorable for all participants!
After the closing ceremony we headed directly for Madrid and has just returned from Santiago Bernabeau stadium watching Real Madrid beat Espanyol 2-1 !
Magnus' next tournament is starting a week from now, the Amber Rapid & Blindfold in Nice.
Henrik Carlsen,
Madrid, March 8th 2008
Linares Round 12
Sorry about the silence last few days.
(I've been travelling, Magnus sisters have arrived, and the internet in the hotel has been failing....)
In round 10 Magnus surprised Anand with the 12.... Ne7 variation in the Sveshnikov, and after a long thought Anand decided not to enter the most principled variation with h4 etc.
Allowing the black bishop to remain on g5, black had sufficient activity to more or less equalise, and Vishy offered a draw on move 20.
I was proud to read that some people think Magnus should have declined the offer and played on, what a great confidence you have in him!
However, accepting a draw offer from the world champion and world ranked number one as black when you think that white has more reason to play on than black has, sounds like a very reasonable decision to me.
In round 11 Magnus tried the same variation against Peter Leko. Peter went for 13.h4 and after 10 more theory moves Magnus played the novelty Kh8. Interestingly he totally missed the somewhat interesting line Bd2 Kxd2 Qxf2+ although there may not be a perpetual and black may end up being worse dispate the 3 pawns for the bishop and exposed white king.
Magnus understood he was in real trouble after Rb3 and despite his fairly tenacious defence he could not find a way to avoid the final resulting loss after a very good techical game by Leko.
Maybe there was a draw somewhere in the ending (maybe Be3) but he did not find it.
This moved Magnus back to shared 2nd (with Aronian and Topalov) after Topalov's nice victory against Shirov.
In round 12, Magnus played white against Topalov. He chose a relatively quiet set-up with 1.c4 transposing the English Four knight variation into the Sicilian Boleslavsky with reversed colors.
Magnus was fairly happy about his position after Qe5 and Qh6, but after 19.... Qc7 he realized that Bg5 had been a blunder and he moved the bishop back to e3.
Black can grab the pawn on a5 although white has some compensation and attacking chances after f4.
When Magnus played Rd4 offering an exchange he did not expect Topalov to accept it.
Black may have a theoretical line keeping an advantage but it is immensely uncomfortable for a human to have to find maybe 10 only-move defences in a row and especially so for an aggressive player like Topalov.
Black instead responded Rd8 which is a good move, and after the forced continuation white still has some compensation for the pawn but maybe not enough.
In stead of entering a worse ending with drawing chances Magnus obviously preferred to continue his attack and after f5 it is unpleasant for black.
Black took the pawn on e5 and after Bg5 by white, black played Qb6 threatening c4+ and taking the knight on b5.
Magnus continued with the sharp 30.f6 and he thought Topalov should have played Bh8 instead of c4+.
After fxg7 Rxf1 Bxf1 white is two pawns down but has sufficient compensation, and black may easily make a mistake in this dangerous position.
Not surprisingly Topalov chose to take the 3rd pawn with Kxg7 and after this white has a couple of drawing lines.
At this point Magnus had some 36 minutes and Topalov 17 for the 7 moves remaining before the time control.
Magnus spent nearly 30 minutes investigating the alternatives Bh6, Bd8 and Qf2 and decided to play Bd8 with the combined threats of mate and attack against the knight on a5, thinking this would provide significant chances for a mistake by black.
Interestingly Magnus got the impression that Topalov already considered his position lost at this moment and he fairly quickly responded Nc6?? This loses immediately to Qf6+ Kg8 Qe5 Kf8 Bg5! due to Kg7 Qf6+ Kg8 Bh6. 1-0.
The incident at the end of the game was intriguingly similar to their game in Morelia last year!
Last year Topalov resigned in a drawn position, this time he seemingly mentally resigned in a drawn position and blundered. Of course psychology may play a part but from a statistical point of view two such incidents between the same players in the same tournament two years in a row is an amazing coincidence.
All of the players have complained about fatigue in the Linares part of the tournament. In combination with the great fighting spirit of most of the players throughout the tournament, this may explain the relatively high number of blunders and many decisive games.
Magnus has 8 decided games so far, and 5 (five!) wins reaching a total of 10 wins this year in Corus and Morelia-Linares. Caissa may have smiled at him but still one cannot fail to be astonished by this feat!
The other round 12 games ended in draw although Shirov's winning advantage against Aronian looked very promising for some time.
Anand at 7.5 points, Magnus 7, Aronian 6,5 and Topalov 6 have 50% score or more so far.
After the free day Magnus will face Aronian with the black pieces in a game decisive to the top 3 final outcome of course. We better make good use the free day:-)
Thanks again for all the supportive comments!
Henrik Carlsen,
Linares, March 5th 2008
(I've been travelling, Magnus sisters have arrived, and the internet in the hotel has been failing....)
In round 10 Magnus surprised Anand with the 12.... Ne7 variation in the Sveshnikov, and after a long thought Anand decided not to enter the most principled variation with h4 etc.
Allowing the black bishop to remain on g5, black had sufficient activity to more or less equalise, and Vishy offered a draw on move 20.
I was proud to read that some people think Magnus should have declined the offer and played on, what a great confidence you have in him!
However, accepting a draw offer from the world champion and world ranked number one as black when you think that white has more reason to play on than black has, sounds like a very reasonable decision to me.
In round 11 Magnus tried the same variation against Peter Leko. Peter went for 13.h4 and after 10 more theory moves Magnus played the novelty Kh8. Interestingly he totally missed the somewhat interesting line Bd2 Kxd2 Qxf2+ although there may not be a perpetual and black may end up being worse dispate the 3 pawns for the bishop and exposed white king.
Magnus understood he was in real trouble after Rb3 and despite his fairly tenacious defence he could not find a way to avoid the final resulting loss after a very good techical game by Leko.
Maybe there was a draw somewhere in the ending (maybe Be3) but he did not find it.
This moved Magnus back to shared 2nd (with Aronian and Topalov) after Topalov's nice victory against Shirov.
In round 12, Magnus played white against Topalov. He chose a relatively quiet set-up with 1.c4 transposing the English Four knight variation into the Sicilian Boleslavsky with reversed colors.
Magnus was fairly happy about his position after Qe5 and Qh6, but after 19.... Qc7 he realized that Bg5 had been a blunder and he moved the bishop back to e3.
Black can grab the pawn on a5 although white has some compensation and attacking chances after f4.
When Magnus played Rd4 offering an exchange he did not expect Topalov to accept it.
Black may have a theoretical line keeping an advantage but it is immensely uncomfortable for a human to have to find maybe 10 only-move defences in a row and especially so for an aggressive player like Topalov.
Black instead responded Rd8 which is a good move, and after the forced continuation white still has some compensation for the pawn but maybe not enough.
In stead of entering a worse ending with drawing chances Magnus obviously preferred to continue his attack and after f5 it is unpleasant for black.
Black took the pawn on e5 and after Bg5 by white, black played Qb6 threatening c4+ and taking the knight on b5.
Magnus continued with the sharp 30.f6 and he thought Topalov should have played Bh8 instead of c4+.
After fxg7 Rxf1 Bxf1 white is two pawns down but has sufficient compensation, and black may easily make a mistake in this dangerous position.
Not surprisingly Topalov chose to take the 3rd pawn with Kxg7 and after this white has a couple of drawing lines.
At this point Magnus had some 36 minutes and Topalov 17 for the 7 moves remaining before the time control.
Magnus spent nearly 30 minutes investigating the alternatives Bh6, Bd8 and Qf2 and decided to play Bd8 with the combined threats of mate and attack against the knight on a5, thinking this would provide significant chances for a mistake by black.
Interestingly Magnus got the impression that Topalov already considered his position lost at this moment and he fairly quickly responded Nc6?? This loses immediately to Qf6+ Kg8 Qe5 Kf8 Bg5! due to Kg7 Qf6+ Kg8 Bh6. 1-0.
The incident at the end of the game was intriguingly similar to their game in Morelia last year!
Last year Topalov resigned in a drawn position, this time he seemingly mentally resigned in a drawn position and blundered. Of course psychology may play a part but from a statistical point of view two such incidents between the same players in the same tournament two years in a row is an amazing coincidence.
All of the players have complained about fatigue in the Linares part of the tournament. In combination with the great fighting spirit of most of the players throughout the tournament, this may explain the relatively high number of blunders and many decisive games.
Magnus has 8 decided games so far, and 5 (five!) wins reaching a total of 10 wins this year in Corus and Morelia-Linares. Caissa may have smiled at him but still one cannot fail to be astonished by this feat!
The other round 12 games ended in draw although Shirov's winning advantage against Aronian looked very promising for some time.
Anand at 7.5 points, Magnus 7, Aronian 6,5 and Topalov 6 have 50% score or more so far.
After the free day Magnus will face Aronian with the black pieces in a game decisive to the top 3 final outcome of course. We better make good use the free day:-)
Thanks again for all the supportive comments!
Henrik Carlsen,
Linares, March 5th 2008
Linares Round 9.
After two wins in a row, I've got the feeling that the spectators expected another win for Magnus today.
Well, it's not that easy.
Shirov has been a top 10 player for some 15 years and among other things he has absolutely excellent tactical skills and is generally very good in endgames.
Magnus was again a bit uncertain about the opening choice.
He went for 1.e4 and Shirov responded e5 as expected.
However, Magnus did not expect Shirov to go for the same variation as the one in which he lost against Leko in Tal Memorial.
Magnus had not really prepared this line as he considered that after 15....Nxf4 white should in principle be somewhat better. Magnus liked the idea 18. Ra6 to take advantage of the inactivity of the black bishop and he thought Shirov would be prepared for the earlier seen b4.
The computers gives white an advantage and suggests Ra8 by black, but both players seemed to think that black's main concern is to activate his bishop on b6.
Thinking for some 70 minutes after 19.Na3, Shirov responded c6 and after 22.e5 felt he was comfortably better.
Most of blacks subsequent moves are forced and whites position looks overwhelming.
However, the tactics seemed to work for black as he can take back on d5 with his rook.
Magnus (and the computer programs from what I'm told) says that black has a draw after 30.Rxc7, and after Qg4 black may take on e5 with his bishop, although the ending is better for white.
In the time trouble Shirov made some inaccurate moves and after exchanging queens the ending should now be winning for white due to the past pawns in the b- and c-file. Magnus was uncertain about how to continue and chose giving up the c-pawn to attack f7 and h7. But after excellent defence by Shirov the ending with rook+knight+pawn against rook+bishop is probably a theoretical draw despite the sidelined black king.
Magnus continued to create difficulties for Shirov and in a position where in fact most king moves lose (but Ke7 supposedly keeps the balance) Shirov blundered badly with Ke5 allowing b8Q! 1-0.
Magnus was of course immensely satisfied to win in the end after a seven hours fight especially since he probably had a winning position already after some 25 moves.
On the other hand it is difficult not to feel a bit sorry for Shirov after his excellent defence and fighting spirit.
Aronian - Anand featured another chapter in a popular Queens Indian Variation, and after accurate defence Anand equalised and a draw was agreed after about 2 hours play.
Radjabov blitzed out some 25 moves as black against Topalov to reach a slightly worse queen and rook ending but after (the usual) energetic play by Topalov, the rook endgame looked very promising for white.
It is difficult to say if and when he went wrong but after a very accurate defence black forced a draw after nearly 6 hours play.
Ivanchuk seemed to have equalised as black against Leko after the opening. When Leko captured on e4 with the rook and took the pawn on a4 with his queen, black was allowed to invade the first rank after which his many threats soon decided.
Certainly a very good game by Ivanchuk but frankly this is not the cliff of a defender we are used to see in Peter.
Before playing Anand as black tomorrow in round 10, Magnus is now in a clear 2nd place (5,5 / 9) half a point behind Anand, and with Aronian trailing half a point behind him.
Topalov at 50% is still in contention, especially taking into account his often formidable finish in top events.
Tomorrow night I'm leaving for Madrid to meet Magnus' three sisters (so no blogging after the Anand-Carlsen game.)
We'll return to Linares on Monday morning, and I hope that the family support will do Magnus some good :-)
Supposedly Magnus is unofficially ranked among the World top 5 (and even top 4 if Bundesliga is counted) after the win today!
It may not last, but anyhow it is of course a great achievement and inspiration for a 17 year old Norwegian!
Henrik Carlsen, Linares,
February 29th 2008
Well, it's not that easy.
Shirov has been a top 10 player for some 15 years and among other things he has absolutely excellent tactical skills and is generally very good in endgames.
Magnus was again a bit uncertain about the opening choice.
He went for 1.e4 and Shirov responded e5 as expected.
However, Magnus did not expect Shirov to go for the same variation as the one in which he lost against Leko in Tal Memorial.
Magnus had not really prepared this line as he considered that after 15....Nxf4 white should in principle be somewhat better. Magnus liked the idea 18. Ra6 to take advantage of the inactivity of the black bishop and he thought Shirov would be prepared for the earlier seen b4.
The computers gives white an advantage and suggests Ra8 by black, but both players seemed to think that black's main concern is to activate his bishop on b6.
Thinking for some 70 minutes after 19.Na3, Shirov responded c6 and after 22.e5 felt he was comfortably better.
Most of blacks subsequent moves are forced and whites position looks overwhelming.
However, the tactics seemed to work for black as he can take back on d5 with his rook.
Magnus (and the computer programs from what I'm told) says that black has a draw after 30.Rxc7, and after Qg4 black may take on e5 with his bishop, although the ending is better for white.
In the time trouble Shirov made some inaccurate moves and after exchanging queens the ending should now be winning for white due to the past pawns in the b- and c-file. Magnus was uncertain about how to continue and chose giving up the c-pawn to attack f7 and h7. But after excellent defence by Shirov the ending with rook+knight+pawn against rook+bishop is probably a theoretical draw despite the sidelined black king.
Magnus continued to create difficulties for Shirov and in a position where in fact most king moves lose (but Ke7 supposedly keeps the balance) Shirov blundered badly with Ke5 allowing b8Q! 1-0.
Magnus was of course immensely satisfied to win in the end after a seven hours fight especially since he probably had a winning position already after some 25 moves.
On the other hand it is difficult not to feel a bit sorry for Shirov after his excellent defence and fighting spirit.
Aronian - Anand featured another chapter in a popular Queens Indian Variation, and after accurate defence Anand equalised and a draw was agreed after about 2 hours play.
Radjabov blitzed out some 25 moves as black against Topalov to reach a slightly worse queen and rook ending but after (the usual) energetic play by Topalov, the rook endgame looked very promising for white.
It is difficult to say if and when he went wrong but after a very accurate defence black forced a draw after nearly 6 hours play.
Ivanchuk seemed to have equalised as black against Leko after the opening. When Leko captured on e4 with the rook and took the pawn on a4 with his queen, black was allowed to invade the first rank after which his many threats soon decided.
Certainly a very good game by Ivanchuk but frankly this is not the cliff of a defender we are used to see in Peter.
Before playing Anand as black tomorrow in round 10, Magnus is now in a clear 2nd place (5,5 / 9) half a point behind Anand, and with Aronian trailing half a point behind him.
Topalov at 50% is still in contention, especially taking into account his often formidable finish in top events.
Tomorrow night I'm leaving for Madrid to meet Magnus' three sisters (so no blogging after the Anand-Carlsen game.)
We'll return to Linares on Monday morning, and I hope that the family support will do Magnus some good :-)
Supposedly Magnus is unofficially ranked among the World top 5 (and even top 4 if Bundesliga is counted) after the win today!
It may not last, but anyhow it is of course a great achievement and inspiration for a 17 year old Norwegian!
Henrik Carlsen, Linares,
February 29th 2008
Linares 2008 Round 8
Four days rest including the 24 hour travel sounds OK, but it's really hard adjusting 7 hours backwards, especially if you got up late Mexican time over there. Magnus has been out walking a little every day but we haven't had any real exercise like on the free days in Morelia yet. (Plans are made for Sunday though.)
The players seemed to have migrated from the jetlagged zombie-like appearance yesterday and the day before and showed good fighting spirit today.
The playing venue Theatro Cervantes is situated in the centre of Linares in the Cervantes street. (Amusingly I'm reading Don Quixote during the round!)
Anand had an edge on the white side of a Sveshnikov against Shirov, but Shirov kept finding counterplay and reached a somewhat worse but probably drawn ending. Somewhere Shirov probably went wrong and Anand used his trademark efficiency to reign in the whole point and a one point overall lead in the tournament.
Radjabov played an interesting (but necessary) piece sack against Leko. After a tense attack from Radjabov and active defence by Leko a draw was agreed just before the time control in an unbalanced but fairly equal position.
Topalov looked very comfortable as black against Aronian. Topalov played for win and allowed an exchange acrifice by Aronian. Topalov made a seemingly incomprehensible error with Qxg2, and the ending is difficult for black. Aronian advanced the d-pawn to the 6th rank and marched his king to secure the full point.
Magnus went for e5 and the Ruy Lopez against Ivanchuk and according to conventional theory black is OK after 6.Bxc6 dxc6.
However, Magnus could not remember the theory and somewhere he obviously went wrong.
After 10.Qc2 Ivanchuk had spent more than an hour on the clock but was clearly better.
To avoid simplifications and a worse ending Magnus chose complications with Qd7 and 12...0-0-0 a piece down but with the Bf5 pinning the rook on e4.
At this point the computer gives Ivanchuk a clear advantage but for humans it is not easy to find the best continuation for white.
15.b3 was probably a little inaccurate and after 17.Nd4 black may again enter a worse but maybe drawn ending with Bxe4. Magnus chose complications and after 18.c5 white has to find Qd1 to maintain a significant advantage.
Short on time Ivanchuk played Qc4 and after the exchanges the endgame is fairly equal but unbalanced and difficult to play for white with little time left.
Ivanchuk had 54 seconds left for 12 moves and managed to play reasonably well but due to small inaccuracies his position went continuously downhill until the time control.
After 40.Nd3 the arbiter stopped the game as Ivanchuk had lost on time but fortunately the position was winning for black anyway.
After making some serious mistakes in the opening, Magnus efficiently complicated the position and played accurately.
Ivanchuk did miss some promising continuations but the loss cannot be ascribed to a single blunder in any way.
Still Magnus was obviously more relieved than satisfied with the full point today, and is now in shared 2nd place with Aronian at +1.
Magnus has had 3 blacks and 1 white in rounds 5-8 and has scored an impressive +2 in these games.
During lunch today I enjoyed looking over the decoration wall pictures from the 1999-2005 tournaments. Surprisingly to me the format changed two times also in this period.
In 1999 there were 8 players, the next two years 6 and from 2002 onwards 7 players. After Kasparov's retirement in 2005 the format was changed again with 8 players double round robin partly in Morelia and partly in Linares.
Kasparov was the only player to participate in all the 7 tournaments 1999-2005, explaining why the organisers looked for a change of format again following his retirement.
Leko, Anand, Shirov and Vallejo Pons were other frequent participants in this period. One female only (J.Polgar) participated in one of these tournaments.
Tomorrow Magnus has white against Shirov and we can expect a tough fight.
Henrik Carlsen,
Linares, February 28th 2008.
The players seemed to have migrated from the jetlagged zombie-like appearance yesterday and the day before and showed good fighting spirit today.
The playing venue Theatro Cervantes is situated in the centre of Linares in the Cervantes street. (Amusingly I'm reading Don Quixote during the round!)
Anand had an edge on the white side of a Sveshnikov against Shirov, but Shirov kept finding counterplay and reached a somewhat worse but probably drawn ending. Somewhere Shirov probably went wrong and Anand used his trademark efficiency to reign in the whole point and a one point overall lead in the tournament.
Radjabov played an interesting (but necessary) piece sack against Leko. After a tense attack from Radjabov and active defence by Leko a draw was agreed just before the time control in an unbalanced but fairly equal position.
Topalov looked very comfortable as black against Aronian. Topalov played for win and allowed an exchange acrifice by Aronian. Topalov made a seemingly incomprehensible error with Qxg2, and the ending is difficult for black. Aronian advanced the d-pawn to the 6th rank and marched his king to secure the full point.
Magnus went for e5 and the Ruy Lopez against Ivanchuk and according to conventional theory black is OK after 6.Bxc6 dxc6.
However, Magnus could not remember the theory and somewhere he obviously went wrong.
After 10.Qc2 Ivanchuk had spent more than an hour on the clock but was clearly better.
To avoid simplifications and a worse ending Magnus chose complications with Qd7 and 12...0-0-0 a piece down but with the Bf5 pinning the rook on e4.
At this point the computer gives Ivanchuk a clear advantage but for humans it is not easy to find the best continuation for white.
15.b3 was probably a little inaccurate and after 17.Nd4 black may again enter a worse but maybe drawn ending with Bxe4. Magnus chose complications and after 18.c5 white has to find Qd1 to maintain a significant advantage.
Short on time Ivanchuk played Qc4 and after the exchanges the endgame is fairly equal but unbalanced and difficult to play for white with little time left.
Ivanchuk had 54 seconds left for 12 moves and managed to play reasonably well but due to small inaccuracies his position went continuously downhill until the time control.
After 40.Nd3 the arbiter stopped the game as Ivanchuk had lost on time but fortunately the position was winning for black anyway.
After making some serious mistakes in the opening, Magnus efficiently complicated the position and played accurately.
Ivanchuk did miss some promising continuations but the loss cannot be ascribed to a single blunder in any way.
Still Magnus was obviously more relieved than satisfied with the full point today, and is now in shared 2nd place with Aronian at +1.
Magnus has had 3 blacks and 1 white in rounds 5-8 and has scored an impressive +2 in these games.
During lunch today I enjoyed looking over the decoration wall pictures from the 1999-2005 tournaments. Surprisingly to me the format changed two times also in this period.
In 1999 there were 8 players, the next two years 6 and from 2002 onwards 7 players. After Kasparov's retirement in 2005 the format was changed again with 8 players double round robin partly in Morelia and partly in Linares.
Kasparov was the only player to participate in all the 7 tournaments 1999-2005, explaining why the organisers looked for a change of format again following his retirement.
Leko, Anand, Shirov and Vallejo Pons were other frequent participants in this period. One female only (J.Polgar) participated in one of these tournaments.
Tomorrow Magnus has white against Shirov and we can expect a tough fight.
Henrik Carlsen,
Linares, February 28th 2008.
Morelia Round 7
Three more decisive games in the last round in Morelia Saturday!
(Internet was down most of the last night and morning in Morelia and we've just arrived in Linares after 24 hours on the road.)
As white against Aronian Magnus chose an unusual line with 8.a3 in the Ruy Lopez.
Aronian thought for some 10 minutes and chose Bc5 and d6 which probably equalise.
Magnus thought that Aronian's response (Re8) to 11.h3 was somewhat dubious.
He wasn't sure that the pawn sack after 12.Bg5 etc was entirely correct but went for the position reached after 17.Bh4 Nxd4 18.Nc3.
In this highly tactical position with vulnerable kings on both sides, Aronian thought for 35 minutes and exchanged on f3 with his bishop and afterwards played Kh8.
(During the closing ceremony later at night he mentioned that maybe Kh7 instead would be winning. Seemingly none of the players considered c6 a serious alternative for black neither on move 18 nor 19 during the game.)
Magnus played Nd5 and Aronian quite quickly responded Rg8+, and after Kf1 offered his queen with Ng4?! threatening mate.
However, Magnus could sacrifice back with Qxd4+ Bxd4 and take on d8 afterwards. Despite being a pawn down Magnus is simply winning after 25.Rad1 due to the trapped knight on h2. Aronian got two more pawns for the knight but due to his many weaknesses Magnus could wrap up the game and grab the whole point around the time control, having spent just above one hour on the clock. One heck of a game!
Radjabov has enjoyed a string of successes with the Kings Indian defence over the last year and a half, but Saturday he was beaten by Shirov.
Anand did not get a significant advantage against Ivanchuk after the opening and a draw was agreed well into the middle game in a fairly balanced position.
Topalov equalised after the opening against Leko and probably had a slight advantage in the middle game. In time trouble Leko chose to give up his queen for two rooks but with a knight left on each side Topalov quickly decided the game with threats against h2 and the rook on d1. 0-1.
At the conclusion of the first half in Morelia, the scorecard is symmetrical with Anand in the lead at +2, Shirov and Topalov at +1, Magnus and Aronian at 50%, Ivanchuk and Radjabov at -1 and Leko at -2.
Bearing in mind Morozevich' comeback in Linares to share 2nd (with Magnus) last year after his miserable 2/7 in Morelia, the tournament is still fairly open although the pre-tournament favourite Anand obviously has strengthened his candidacy further.
Magnus is generally very satisfied with having won two games thus far, and he hopes to reduce the numbers of blunders significantly in the Linares part.
Last year we travelled by bus to Mexico City while most of the players this year flew from the local airport in Morelia before the overnight transatlantic flight to Madrid and bus trip to Linares.
Round 8 starts at 16:00 on Thursday 28th. Magnus has black against Ivanchuk.
Henrik Carlsen,
Linares, February 25th 2008
(Internet was down most of the last night and morning in Morelia and we've just arrived in Linares after 24 hours on the road.)
As white against Aronian Magnus chose an unusual line with 8.a3 in the Ruy Lopez.
Aronian thought for some 10 minutes and chose Bc5 and d6 which probably equalise.
Magnus thought that Aronian's response (Re8) to 11.h3 was somewhat dubious.
He wasn't sure that the pawn sack after 12.Bg5 etc was entirely correct but went for the position reached after 17.Bh4 Nxd4 18.Nc3.
In this highly tactical position with vulnerable kings on both sides, Aronian thought for 35 minutes and exchanged on f3 with his bishop and afterwards played Kh8.
(During the closing ceremony later at night he mentioned that maybe Kh7 instead would be winning. Seemingly none of the players considered c6 a serious alternative for black neither on move 18 nor 19 during the game.)
Magnus played Nd5 and Aronian quite quickly responded Rg8+, and after Kf1 offered his queen with Ng4?! threatening mate.
However, Magnus could sacrifice back with Qxd4+ Bxd4 and take on d8 afterwards. Despite being a pawn down Magnus is simply winning after 25.Rad1 due to the trapped knight on h2. Aronian got two more pawns for the knight but due to his many weaknesses Magnus could wrap up the game and grab the whole point around the time control, having spent just above one hour on the clock. One heck of a game!
Radjabov has enjoyed a string of successes with the Kings Indian defence over the last year and a half, but Saturday he was beaten by Shirov.
Anand did not get a significant advantage against Ivanchuk after the opening and a draw was agreed well into the middle game in a fairly balanced position.
Topalov equalised after the opening against Leko and probably had a slight advantage in the middle game. In time trouble Leko chose to give up his queen for two rooks but with a knight left on each side Topalov quickly decided the game with threats against h2 and the rook on d1. 0-1.
At the conclusion of the first half in Morelia, the scorecard is symmetrical with Anand in the lead at +2, Shirov and Topalov at +1, Magnus and Aronian at 50%, Ivanchuk and Radjabov at -1 and Leko at -2.
Bearing in mind Morozevich' comeback in Linares to share 2nd (with Magnus) last year after his miserable 2/7 in Morelia, the tournament is still fairly open although the pre-tournament favourite Anand obviously has strengthened his candidacy further.
Magnus is generally very satisfied with having won two games thus far, and he hopes to reduce the numbers of blunders significantly in the Linares part.
Last year we travelled by bus to Mexico City while most of the players this year flew from the local airport in Morelia before the overnight transatlantic flight to Madrid and bus trip to Linares.
Round 8 starts at 16:00 on Thursday 28th. Magnus has black against Ivanchuk.
Henrik Carlsen,
Linares, February 25th 2008
Morelia Round 6
The entrance to the playing venue Ocampo theatre.
Magnus faced Radjabov with the black pieces in round 6.
In the anti-Berlin with 4.d3 Magnus felt he had equalised already after 11....Bxf3.
The position looked quite drawish but Magnus decided to play for a win with Rad8, Rxd1 and Rxe4.
White got sufficient counterplay for the pawn but Magnus still thought black, if any, was better when he blundered badly with Bb6 (instead of b6) allowing the decisive shot 27.Ba6!
With the clear and probably decisive advantage, Radjabov found many good moves in the continuation.
Magnus could not find a way to stop the queenside pawns and shortly after the time control he resigned (quite disgusted with himself due to the bad blunder).
Leko was surprised by Aronian with the interesting novelty Qa4 and spent nearly 90 minutes on the next move! Blacks position looked difficult but Leko managed to find counterplay and saved the game. It was drawn just before the second time control. An amazing game!
Topalov-Anand and Ivanchuk-Shirov was hardfought draws, so that Anand maintain his lead ahead of Aronian.
Magnus is now shared 6th-8th with 2.5/6.
Saturday Magnus has white against Aronian before moving to Linares on Sunday.
Henrik Carlsen,
Morelia, February 22th 2008
Morelia 2008 Round 5.
A day off Monday, two more rounds and another free day coming up tomorrow, may seem a bit luxurious for the Morelia-Linares participants, but judging from the number of mistakes and decisive games, they need it.
Magnus faced Topalov with the black pieces and chose the Alekhine defence as a surprise. It worked and Topalov spent nearly 30 minutes on the first 10 moves.
After choosing the not very critical 7.Nxd7, white is maybe marginally better until allowing the nice shot 13...c5!
14. dxc5 Nxc3! is complicated and if any, black is better.
Topalov chose Be4 and after recapturing on d4 with the c-pawn, white is simply a pawn down and close to loosing after 20 moves!
Feeling clear-headed and fresh today, Magnus easily found good moves to improve his position and utilize the clear advantage, while Topalov did not find the best defence.
Magnus invaded the 2nd rank and forced the white king away from d3. The white rooks were passive and Magnus advanced his king and kingside pawns to finish the game just after the time control.
0-1 and back to 50% score to tie for 3rd-5th after 5 rounds.
All the players are of similar strength this year, but on a positive note Magnus has already played the 5 highest rated opponents (avg 2768).
Magnus faced Topalov with the black pieces and chose the Alekhine defence as a surprise. It worked and Topalov spent nearly 30 minutes on the first 10 moves.
After choosing the not very critical 7.Nxd7, white is maybe marginally better until allowing the nice shot 13...c5!
14. dxc5 Nxc3! is complicated and if any, black is better.
Topalov chose Be4 and after recapturing on d4 with the c-pawn, white is simply a pawn down and close to loosing after 20 moves!
Feeling clear-headed and fresh today, Magnus easily found good moves to improve his position and utilize the clear advantage, while Topalov did not find the best defence.
Magnus invaded the 2nd rank and forced the white king away from d3. The white rooks were passive and Magnus advanced his king and kingside pawns to finish the game just after the time control.
0-1 and back to 50% score to tie for 3rd-5th after 5 rounds.
All the players are of similar strength this year, but on a positive note Magnus has already played the 5 highest rated opponents (avg 2768).