Magnus Carlsen

Yesterday's round 11 is old news.
Despite the loss against Anand, Magnus got a lot of praise for his fighting spirit and will to win.
Frankly he had lots of doubts about what to play yesterday and probably spent too much time preparing various openings. He was a bit tired (both after a short night and a long tournament), but choosing 1.e4 he was prepared to fight for a win.
After Vishy played the somewhat dubious 14...Bd7 allowing 15.g5 at the right moment, Magnus felt he was better and had to go for it.
When Anand offered to exchange queens with 22.Qc5 both players thought white's attack would be overwhelming and Magnus went for the pawn sacks with Qh4 instead.
However, Anand defended well and after 28.Bf3 white is probably worse.
Commentators have pointed out that 28.Nf3 may have been better or even decisive for white but the lines are complicated.
After 32.g6+ Kg8 Magnus could probably draw with Rxf5 but missed Rhf3 after Qxd5+. (Kg1 is losing.)
Short on time and not calculating at his best, he quickly played Qh7+? and the black king escapes to d6. 0-1.
Anand deserves praise for a good defence and taking the opportunity when it arose. 

Aronian and Radjabov also won pushing Magnus down to shared 2.-4. with 6,5/11. 

Today the roles was reversed in that Magnus was well rested and ready for a good fight after a quiet evening yesterday and a long sleep, while Kramnik had a cold and didn't show his best play.
Magnus played the Hedgehog against Kramnik's 1.c4 and looked a bit cramped after 12.Qf4 0-0.
White had lots of space and active pieces.
Magnus spent much time and came up with the nice sequence Ne8, Ra8-a7-d7, Nc7, f5, g5, g4 after which black has regained space and despite apparent weaknesses on the queen side, the position is fairly equal.
Magnus got his knights to e4 and e5 and was maybe somewhat better when Kramnik played 29.Qxa6.
After Ra7 white has go to b5 as Qxb6 loses the queen after Rfb7 Qd4 Bf6! 
Magnus had expected to have to fight for a draw and for the first 25+ moves he would happily have accepted a draw offer. But, when it came after 30.Qb5, he decided he was already better due to his more flexible and active pieces and played on.
Both players was low on time but in this game Magnus continued to find very good moves and at the time control black is winning!
Kramnik fought on until move 57 but with two extra pawns and continues mating threats on the first rank Magnus had no real problems realizing the win. 0-1 as black against the World ranked no.1! 
A remarkable comeback by Magnus. He is again co-leader as Aronian drew with Ivanchuk.    

His rating performance is well above 2800, he has won five (5!) games already in Corus and is unofficially at 2750 in rating right now! 

Tomorrow he has white against Radjabov while Aronian is black against Polgar (who won with black against Adams today). 

Movsesian and Caruana both won today and look like likely winners of B and C. 

Thank you for all the supportive comments to the blog!

Henrik Carlsen
Wijk aan Zee, January 26th, 2008