Magnus Carlsen

Magnus returned to Norway yesterday after Amber 2008 was finalised on Friday with round 11 and prize giving.

In round 10 Magnus played two draws with Peter Leko and in round 11 two more draws against Morozevich. 

Against Leko Magnus was white in the blindfold game and got a nice positional advantage in the Ruy Lopez.
When Peter played 23...Qe6 Magnus exchanged queens as he had forgot about the rook on e8. After for instance 24.Qc2 he felt white would have been slighty but comfortably better, but after 24.Qxe6 Rxe6 black got counterplay against Magnus' weak b2-pawn and after some dubious moves Magnus had to accept a rook plus knight ending a pawn down.
Again Magnus defended well and a draw was agreed.

In the rapid game Magnus played the Sicilian Kan again and Leko seemingly got a fierce kingside attack. Magnus chose to give up a pawn with 13.....Nf4 after which he was probably somewhat worse, but had reasonable compensation for the pawn.
Magnus got some pressure against the white weaknesses and when Leko avoided the most principled continuation 27.f6 (and instead went for the safe but drawish Nc4-Nxb2) Magnus was not worse any longer and even avoided a repetition of moves to try to win.
Leko later played a little inaccurate, and at one point Magnus could have gone for 39....Tb8 after Qe5 Kh1.
He thought that this wouldn't give anything either because of Qe7, but after Qd5! white, even if still not lost, would have been in real danger of losing.  

Morozevich played the Scotch in the blindfold game and although the computer says black had equalised Magnus thought that white would get an unpleasant bind, and that the position would be difficult. He chose the typical active continuation sacking a pawn with 13...d5 and later 17...b5 and 19....Qb6.
Morozevich played 20.Qb3 and after Qa7 Qa3 Magnus took on a3. He was pawn down in the endgame but when Morozevich chose 37.Ke1 instead of Kf3 Magnus played Rxh2 and has an equal endgame.
Magnus made some dubious moves and after he removed his knight from a6 and Morozevich walked with his king Magnus thought he was technically lost.
Again Morozevich went wrong somewhere and after sacrificing an exchange Magnus could give his rook for the a-pawn and force a drawn ending on the kingside.

In the rapid game Magnus had a comfortable position but allowed Morozevich to develop some counterplay. After his break through on the queenside black was better but had to enter a drawish queen endgame.
A draw was agreed in a position that black well could have continued but Kd2 b4! should lead to a draw anyway.  

In the last few rounds Magnus lacked energy and his calculation of lines was slow and inaccurate. This may partly explain why he got some worse endgames and had to mobilize a lot of fighting spirit to avoid any losses. 

I'd like to make a few general remarks about explanations like the above. It is not at all meant as an excuse in the sense that Magnus could have performed better if this or that. Magnus did, and always does his best at the board. Like all other players he has his ups and downs and due to his youthful energy, good health, fairly good physical condition and good nerves, I think his prerequisites for performing consistently at or close to his capacity is generally as good or better than for most of his older competitors.

The purpose of mentioning some possible reasons for the ups and downs is that it's one out of several angles from which we may throw some light on the complex turmoil of opening choice, positional preferences, calculations, fighting spirit and psychological efforts affecting the outcome of individual chess games at top level.    

Aronian was the clear Amber 2008 winner with 14.5/22 after a tremendous performance. Congratulations!

Magnus ended at  12 points out of 22 and shared 2nd overall (but 5th on tie-break after Kramnik, Leko, Topalov). He is very satisfied with the result and especially having reached another plus score in an absolute top event.
He felt he reached +2 without an obvious abundance of luck in that his miracle escape against Topalov and many saved worse endgames was outweighed by blunders against Aronian, Karjakin and the loss on time against Kramnik.  

On April 8th another Gausdal tournament is staged by organiser, arbiter and author Hans O. Lahlum and Magnus will join the rest of the family and spend some days at Gausdal but not as a player this time.  

In the Grand-Prix series, starting with Baku April 20th - May 7th, Magnus will be top rated as neither Anand, Kramnik, Morozevich nor Topalov are taking part.
The missing top 4 is of course diminishing the quality of the GP events significantly (although one of them, or Kamsky, will be the reigning World Champion in 2010, and all the four mentioned players may participate in the 2009 World Cup).
On the other hand, FIDE and Global Chess have invested so much prestige in the GP that we expect it to be a long term success. 

In May Magnus will also play 8 rapid games match (in 5 days) against Peter Leko in Miscolc in Hungary. 

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, March 29th 2008.