Magnus Carlsen

At the round 9 press conference we saw two really tired youngsters. Are they playing too much?
Karjakin claimed his three recent tournaments in a row (Amber, Russian Team and Baku) is taking its toll. Especially after the long game he lost against Mamedyarov the day before, he did not feel in form yesterday.
Magnus has felt slightly out of form throughout this tournament although it is difficult to point out a specific reason. Anyhow he was very tired yesterday after spending most of the night preparing for the round, and he really appreciated a day off today. 
In their game, Magnus again chose the Sicilian Dragen and this seemed to take Karjakin somewhat by surprise, but of course not to the extent felt by Radjabov in round 7.
Karjakin spent a lot of time around move 14-16 but admitted in the press conference that as he did not manage to calculate well at all, he decided to exchange pieces and enter a fairly equal ending.
After exchanging queens white is probably not even better any longer despite the week black d-pawn.
Having blitzed out most of the first 20 moves, Magnus had to start concentrating and spent nearly an hour to the time control to make sure he did not make any mistakes in the double rook ending.
He thought that white's plan moving his king to b4 was slightly erroneous, but he discovered his advantage one move too late to have any practical winning chances.
When Karjakin played Ra2 Magnus could have played Rd1 directly with an unpleasant ending for white according to Karjakin.
After Kb6 Re2 Rd1 black is also better but has no real winning chances.
Black could force the exchange of pawns leading to a drawn ending with one extra pawn for white, and Magnus in the end chose a quick route to king versus king.
Draw, a result Magnus was reasonably happy with although I don't think he would have minded a fighting game either. 

Grishuk patiently exploited his positional advantage against Inarkiev to take a clear lead with 6/9 with 4 rounds to go.
Yue and Gashimov drew their games as black to maintain +2 and shared 2^nd place, while Adams (beating Svidler), Mamedyarov (countering and winning against Navara) and Radjabov (beating Kamsky) joined Magnus at +1 and share 4^th place. 
Despite his good rating performance of 2750+, Magnus is not really satisfied with his results so far and is eager to do well in the last four rounds.

Today's excursion featured a long program that was cut slightly short due to the unusually unaccommodating weather with wind and some rain.
After a visit to the "Alley of Honour" we drove to Qosha Qala, one of the 12 entrance point to the old city.  



After an interesting visit to Shirvanshah's Palace from the 15^th century, a walk through the old city revealed the expediency of local administration and the importance of chess in Baku.  



Following his two wins in row, a street has already been named after Mamedyarov! 

Lunch was enjoyed in the Sahil seaside restaurant.

Many thanks to the organiser for the varied and nice excursions! 

Tonight there was another football match, this time between seven Grand-Prix players and a mixed team of seconds, organisers, journalists, and unfortunately for the rest of the team, yours truly (without glasses).
At half time the score was 1-1, but in the end the chess players enjoyed a well deserved and clear victory against a decimated mixed team. 

Tomorrow Magnus has the white pieces (and pawns) against Navara in round 10.

Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, May 1st, 2008