Magnus Carlsen

The draw ratio (19 out of 25) is high in Tal Memorial despite a lot of fighting games and few, if any, short draws. The total number of games is too low to draw bombastic conclusions, but there seems to be a number of contributing factors.The field is fairly even, there's no easy prey. Except for round 3 the margins seem to have been on the side of the defenders (for instance several players had trouble today but escaped). Finally there has been some middle game draws where one of the players could reasonably have continued and given it another try. 

In round 4 there were probably quite some expectations when Magnus faced co-leader Mamedyarov.
However, Magnus was surprised by Shak's choice of Pirc and could not recall white's best plans after Nbxd7. Magnus probably missed a more promising continuation and felt he had to accept an early simplification of the position.
When Shak offered draw after 22....b6 in a drawn endgame Magnus did not see any sense in declining as the higher ranked player had fully equalised. The slightly better queen side pawn structure was more than offset by the weak bishop on f2 and the pawn on f4.

Shirov-Ivanchuk fought it out till the end but black's advantage, if any, was not anywhere near sufficient to win.
As black against Kamsky, Kramnik got a promising position from the opening. He had a pawn extra but felt that white had compensation. Many players would have chosen to play on as black in the position he offered a draw though.
Leko as white seemed to have an initiative against Alekseev after the novelty 19.Rg4 but could not find any way to make progress and accepted a draw in the middle game.
Gelfand-Jakovenko concluded another drawn day. 

Fortunately for the audience, round 5 saw a lot of spectacular fighting.
Jakovenko had a promising attack against Leko but went wrong somewhere and had to defend a difficult ending instead. It is hard to say if there was a win somewhere. Leko tried hard but had to accept a drawn rook ending near the 2^nd the time control.     
Kramnik did not seem to get much out of his Catalan, but despite exchanging all the heavy pieces he managed to put pressure against the black queenside. Shirov defended the queen side but could not stop Kramnik getting a passer on the kingside. Shirov resigned when it became clear that Kramnik would win the race and the black knight could not stop the white king and h-pawn. Probably a real high-class ending by Kramnik who are the sole leader with 3,5/5.
Mamedyarov got an exchange for two pawns against Gelfand and when he could win the black b-pawn with axb4, some commentators regarded the position as very promising.
However, as part of giving up the pawn, Gelfand elegantly forced a repetition of moves Nd7-e5-d7 etc when threatening the rook on c5 and c4 or otherwise regaining the b4-pawn. Draw.
In Alekseev-Kamsky, Kamsky again spent lots of his time in the opening. It seemed to be worth while as he was slightly better and the ending with 3 against 1 pawn on the queen side and initiative, versus whites f2, g3 and g4 pawns against the black g6 pawn, looked better for black.
Alekseev defended well (as usual) nd activated his king and managed to create a balanced endgame. Draw. 



Magnus was black against the world no 2 Ivanchuk (2787) and was quite optimistic taking into account his 2,5/3 score in classical chess as well as 1/1 in rapid.
He has always liked the Sveshnikov sicilian variation as black. Having arrived about 7 minutes late he soon recouped the spent time by blitzing out 16 moves.
Ivanchuk seemed well prepared. He played Bc4, Magnus continued with Rb8, Kh8, f5 and Bxf5 after which Ivanchuk quickly played Qe2. Magnus thought for a long time before he played Bg6 followed by e4 creating room on e5 for the knight.
Ivanchuk chose to play Nd4 forcing Magnus to take with his c6-knight to avoid the threat Ne6. Magnus doubled rooks in the f-file and pushed the h-pawn to create some space for his black bishop and his king.
Ivanchuk played Rd5 threatening the a-pawn with both rooks. At this point Magnus thought he was OK after Rxd5 Rxf2 etc because he had missed the ensuing Rxh5+ yielding white an extra pawn.
What Magnus expected to be a slightly worse ending was basically lost.
After a couple of quick moves Ivanchuk understood that it wasn't so easy after all and spent the remaining 40 minutes before the time control. Still he could not avoid letting Magnus back into the game with Bh5-e8-b5-c4 protecting his d5 pawn and the b5 square.
After the time control Ivanchuk used most of his time looking for ways to make progress while Magnus spent even more time making sure he put his queen on the right square both avoiding mate and queen exchange.
After the second time control Ivanchuk had finally manouvered his bishop from h3 via c8 and g4 to h5 and started his king march with Ke3. Magnus created some confusion with the break d4+, but Ivanchuk found the right continuation and after Qc5 he is soon two pawns up and winning.
However, with little time left and his king in the middle of the board Ivanchuk allowed Magnus to trade bishops and start checking with his queen. Ivanchuk had a b4 pawn, a g2-pawn and queen on f1 but had to keep moving his king around the b-pawn. If he wanted to try to win he would probably have to give up one of the pawns to stop the checks. Trembling from stress or fatigue Ivanchuk chose to take a draw after 93 moves and 7 hours of play.
Puh! A very narrow escape again for Magnus, but I don't think anyone can help being impressed by the patient and resilient defence he put up for more than 4 hours. 

With the free day coming up, we celebrated the draw and shared 2^nd place (with Mamedyarov) with the usual Italian food and also a dessert at McDonald, as we expect the blood sugar level to be back to normal well in time for round 6 :-)

Only the Russian arbiters were present today. Chief arbiter Geurt Gijssen was unfortunate enough yesterday to fall on the slippery ground and break a leg. He is hospitalized awaiting operation and will probably have to stay in Moscow for a couple of weeks. We wish him a quick and painless recovery. 

This morning I went over to the nearby SAS Raddisson to enquire about their sports facilities but was told it is for guests only. Tomorrow we will be looking for a possibility to go to a nearby sport centre to exercise and relax.
Any proposal of good alternatives here in central Moscow will be highly appreciated.  

Henrik Carlsen
Moscow, November 14th