Magnus Carlsen

On his way back from Baku, Magnus stopped for a few days in Denmark and also for a simul in Stavanger on the Norwegian southwest coast.

Having spent 5 days at home he travelled to Holland yesterday choosing to celebrate the Norwegian National Day (or Constitution Day) May 17^th playing round 9 in the Dutch league.

He was supposed to be a surprise weapon in the potentially decisive final round, but his team Hilversum had already secured the top spot with one round to go. 
All 10 teams played the final round at the same venue taking place in the town-hall of Hilversum.
Magnus played black on board one for the home team against GM Jan Werle (2581) from Hotels.nl.
The opening choice came as a bit of a surprise for Magnus, but he soon was better as white's 13.d5 is a mistake loosing a pawn.
(Magnus made the same mistake as white against Aronian in the Elista Candidates blitz)
Magnus thought he made some inaccurate moves later in the game but far ahead on the clock he felt quite comfortable.
Werle actively tried to take advantage of his advanced d-pawn but the attempt failed and he resigned after 39 moves a piece and a pawn down.    

Here in Lommedalen, having had nearly to weeks of beautiful summer lately, we were reminded that the May weather at 60 degrees north is volatile.
This morning offered sleet, 2 oC and a white blanket covered the surrounding forest above 250 meters.
The weather improved slightly during the day and May 17^th could be celebrated the traditional way with marching band and children parade, songs and games for the children at Lommedalen school.     

With reference to the excellent top live-list maintained by Hans A. Runde at http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~ha/toplist.php, Magnus at 2775 recaptured the 5^th spot (from Morozevich) that he lost to Ivanchuk last week.
Due to their excellent Mtel performances, Topalov and Ivanchuk are 2 and 1 points respectively, ahead of Magnus. For the first time I can remember (and probably ever) the top 6 players are now within a mere 25 rating points (between 2798 and 2775)!
There is more than 30 points from Magnus and Morozevich down to Radjabov in 7^th place.  

Next week Magnus will play a exhibition simul in Spain and travel onwards to Miscolc in Hungary for the 8-game rapid match Leko-Carlsen starting Wednesday May 28^th.   

Henrik Carlsen,

Lommedalen, May 17th 2008