Magnus Carlsen

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 1^st 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 27^th.

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 16^th 2008