Magnus Carlsen

Awfully late reporting from round 7 and 8.
I'll just comment briefly giving some of Magnus own thoughts about his games.

Having scored 50% after 6 rounds, Magnus was eager to play for three rather than two results against Radjabov as black in round 7.
His surprise weapon this time was the Sicilian Dragen and Radjabov obviously was caught off guard and spent quite some time early on.
When Radjabov played 15.g4 Magnus had to start spending time as well, as this is an unusual move order that supposedly does not give white an advantage. At the press conference Radjabov admitted that he had mixed up the move order in the opening, but still thought his attack would work.
The complexity of these lines can be illustrated by the fact that it takes the computers a long time to understand that white has compensation for the pawn and the exchange by playing 18.Qh2.

Having had a clear advantage on the clock Magnus spent more than 30 minutes checking 19....Qa5 but Radjabov went on to spend most of his remaining time calculating the slightly faulty 22.Nf5?! which he thought worked.
(Unknowingly they had followed a database game until move 19!)
When Radjabov chose the ambitious 24.Qh4 instead of entering a worse but maybe drawn ending with Bxe6, Magnus thought he was winning. But still the position was amazingly complex and instead of the dubious 25.Rf1, the alternative Nd5 would have been more challenging for black.

With about a minute left for 12-13 moves, Radjabov had to blitz until the time control and when Magnus played the natural looking 32....e2?, Radjabov could have drawn with Qd7! which none of the players spotted.
After 33.Qf3+ the black king escapes and the e-pawn decided the game at the time control. 0-1.

In conclusion both players put up a great fight but Magnus made the least mistakes this time.

Gashimov impressively beat Kamsky with a nice pawn storm to join the leaders Grishuk and Yue at +2, while Karjakin outplayed Inarkiev from an even position to get back to 50% and Cheparinov continued his uncompromising style to score his second win in a row against Mamedyarov.

Magnus of course was eager to continue his success when white against Cheparinov in round 8. Against 1.c4 Cheparinov somewhat surprisingly e5 and they played a reversed Sicilian. Black blitzed out moves until 13.e3 Nb5, and the opening did not give Magnus much of an advantage. However, his manoeuvring over the next few moves improved his position and he had a slight but comfortable advantage when Cheparinov blundered with 22.....Ne6 quickly realizing that Magnus could take on b7 due to the follow-up Qc4!
Magnus was afterwards still very annoyed about having missed Nb7 until seconds after having responded 23.h4. Too late... 
He played 27.Qe4 as he thought the ending with queens off would be somewhat unpleasant for black due to the pawn structure, but Cheparinov defended accurately and Magnus never got any real winning chances.

Mamedyarov continued his up's and down's winning against Karjakin, while Inarkiev beat Navara after the latter blundered in time trouble. The rest of the games ended draw leaving the standing at the top unchanged with Grishuk, Yue and Gashimov at 5/8, Magnus and Kamsky half a point behind in shared 4th.

Yesterday night Magnus relaxed with Champion League football enjoying the great battle between Man U and Barcelona.

Today Magnus has black against Karjakin, a tough challenge although Karjakin has not shown his best form in this tournament. Lets hope for a great fight!

Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, April 30th, 2008