Magnus Carlsen

More powder snow in the air both Monday and yesterday and the skiing conditions here in Lommedalen are simply excellent this week.
It's a pity Magnus can't take advantage of this, but the video reports from Nice does indicate that he finds the free day activities of laser games and visiting a casino, a reasonable alternative. 

Yesterday Magnus played V.Kramnik (2799).
In the blindfold game Magnus felt he had an acceptable position after the opening and when Kramnik chose to sack a piece for the b- and c-pawns Magnus felt optimistic.
He managed to castle and to stop the advancing queenside pawns for a while.
Allowing the a-pawn to go to a7 while activating his remaining pieces he was clearly better at one point but with little left the outcome was still very much uncertain.  
43...Ng5 would more or less have decided the game but Magnus had another plan and played d6?.

He was still better and after 44.Rb1 he looked at Ne5 Rb7+Nd7 a8D Ra1+ and discovered that it's not working. With time running low he tried Kf6 instead but unfortunately was to late and lost on time. 

In the rapid game Magnus was very eager to take revenge, but by accepting the double pawn in the c-file and later sacking one of them he was worse in the middle game due to the strength of the black bishops.
Kramnik made progress but when he allowed 29.Nd5, Magnus felt that he had fended off his problems.
After Re2 he saw that 31.Ne3 would lead to a drawish ending and optimistically chose c3 instead as he had no intention of losing the mini-match :-) But soon he covered that his position was difficult despite the mobile knight.

After imaginative play Magnus found sufficient resources to exchange the free pawns and in the end also capture the g-pawn.
Kramnik thought he had missed a winning continuation somewhere but the end position was clearly a draw. 

It is hard not to be impressed by the optimism and fighting spirit shown by Magnus yesterday.
Last year he lost the blindfold game partly due to a great novelty played by Kramnik, but this year he eagerly tried to win both with black and with white without being intimidated by the presence of former World Champion and current World ranked #1 V.Kramnik across the table.  

Aronian beat Morozevich 2-0 to take a clear 2,5 points lead with 4 games to go.
Magnus is now in shared 2^nd with Leko and Kramnik, and Ivanchuk trailing by half a point. 

Today Magnus faces Peter Leko and has the white pieces in the blindfold.
Lets hope for two more exciting games! 

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, March 26rd 2008.