Magnus Carlsen

With 14 games out of 21 decided yesterday (3 in A, 4 in B and all 7 in C!), the organisers were all smiles today.
And today we had another interesting day. 

As white Magnus opted out of the main line theory in the Grunfeld against Eljanov (2692) and grabbed a pawn on e7. Eljanov chose to take back the pawn on c3, but with the centralized white rooks, more active king and well placed pieces, Eljanov had to prepare himself for a difficult endgame. Magnus avoided exchanging the black-squared bishops and allowed Eljanov to activate his rooks in the e-file.
Later Magnus got his rooks to the 6^th rank and could have won a pawn with Rxc5 at one stage. He was not sure the endgame would be won (- it is good to hear he still has something to learn!) and decided to exchange one rook and keep the pressure on black.
The position was probably theoretically drawn, but difficult to defend for black, when Eljanov blundered with 38....g5? in severe time trouble. After the time control was reached Eljanov did not make the same mistake as Mamedyarov yesterday and kept on fighting despite the much worse ending.
Magnus activated his king and could probably have won easier placing his rook on c7, but he liked the plan with Rh8. Later he saw that the tactics may not work and went over to a8.
 Black could not both defend his pawns and avoid mate. Magnus won both the a and b-pawn, and 2 pawns down and without any counterplay Eljanov resigned in the beginning time trouble well before move 60.
1-0! 

Aronian blitzed out the moves against Gelfand who was soon nearly an hour behind on the clock. His centralized king looked vulnerable and even after exchanging queens he could not stop the threats of the black bishops and the pawn on d4.
0-1 and shared lead for Aronian (and Magnus)! 

Leko pressed for hours in the queen ending against Adams, and Kramnik pressed against Radjabov but both had to accept draws in the end. Of course anything may happen in a 13 round tournament but from my perspective Magnus has already done his job in Corus A by securing 2 wins!
(Last year he needed 6 rounds to get 2 points...) 

The 3 rating favourites Kramnik, Anand and Topalov all drew today and has a meagre 1, 0,5 and 0,5 points, but we do expect them to come back forcefully soon. 

 As Norwegians, let us just enjoy (shared) leadership as long as it lasts!   

Henrik Carlsen
Wijk aan Zee, January 13^th, 2008