Magnus Carlsen

Another exciting day in Bilbao yesterday! Leader Bu faced Topalov and Magnus played his youngster "rival" S.Karjakin, Ukraine.
The players seemed to have got used to the technical part of way of entering moves, but also this round featured some spectacular blunders. 



Organisor Andoni Madariaga started by welcoming Grand Slam partner Corus' organisor Theo Hoogland who started the game between Harikrisna and Polgar.



 Magnus is sometimes a bit hesitant to enter the sharpest variations because he generally rather wants to play it out at the board and not let preparations decide. But in these blindfold games he felt more inclined to accept the risk of walking into a prepared line. The result was that both games against S.Karjakin followed preparations quite far, with black having the advantage of the better preparation in both games! 

In the first game Magnus played a line he beat Grischuk with in blitz in Tal Memorial last year and he decided to continue along the same path despite his fears that Sergey had found a better continuation for white. Although the position looks aghast for black a pawn down and with a white rook on f7, knight on g5 and queen on f3, the tactics seems to work in favour of black. And it did! Sergey had to give up a piece for 3 pawns and the resulting endgame could not be saved due. The additional black bishop effectively stopped white counterplay. 0-1 and Magnus? first tournament win against Karjakin! 

In game two Magnus wanted to win again. He started with d4 and allowed a sharp variation where black sacks an exchange on c4. Too late Magnus remembered that he had seen an analysis concluding that black had sufficient compensation after Bg7. Interestingly both players later thought black was lost after Magnus returned the exchange on e5 followed by Qe2, but Sergey found the probably only defence Nc7. In the analysis room the GM?s suggested Bxe6 Nxe6 Nc5 but Magnus thought he would end up a pawn down after all the exchanges.
After Nc7 white probably does not have sufficient compensation for the two pawns and Sergey finished the game with impressive accuracy. Especially his Qf5 was a precise move that prevented white from exploiting the centralized black king because of counterplay against h2 and g2. 0-1. 

Leader X.Bu continued to win! Topalov seemed to choose a suspicious line as black and soon found himself in trouble. Despite opposite coloured bishops the additional pawn and the strong bishop on e6 soon decided the end game for Bu. Magnus thought Topalov was winning as white in the next game but somehow Bu escaped and managed to draw. He now has a clear lead with 12 points. Polgar won 4-1 against Harikrisna to join Magnus and Karjakin in shared 2nd with 8 points. Harikrisna has 6 and Topalov 5. 

On a different note I'd like to praise the excellent hotel cuisine. It's varied, tasty and well prepared!
Unfortunately Magnus has not yet learned to appreciate international cuisine and prefers sandwiches, omelette, pizzas etc. He don't know what he is missing!

Tonight features Magnus against Polgar, Topalov-Karjakin and Bu-Harikrisna where Bu in practice could decide the tournament.

Henrik Carlsen
Bilbao, October 19th