Magnus Carlsen

Another four white victories today and an impressive 56% decided games so far!

Jakovenko won the slightly better rook endgame against Volokitin. 
Alekseev won a pawn after the opening against Svidler in a nice long tactical sequence, and subsequently the game. Eljanov somewhat surprisingly won from a fairly equal position against Shirov, while Magnus did the same against Loek Van Wely.

Magnus did not get much from the opening against Van Wely, although black faced some potential problems related to his bad white-squared bishop which Magnus consistently tried to keep out of play thoughout the game.

Magnus admits he had slightly overestimated his possibilities when playing 17.Nc5. Loek took the pawn and after 23....Rc7 Magnus thought for a long time. He obviously looked at Nxh6 but found the continuation too risky relative to the potential upside. He chose Ne5 after which he did not have much of an advantage, if any, but also very little risk.

When Loek exchanged bishop for knight with 33....Bxc5, the position is evaluated as completely equal by the computers.
However, it is more tricky to play black than white, and when Loek offered draw with 35....g5, Magnus felt he could and should play on, as there was no risk at all for him.

At this point I was a bit worried as I knew Magnus did not eat enough before the game to enter a long tiring endgame in top shape. Fortunately most of the difficult choices lay on black, and Loek, relatively short on time, soon went astray with 38....g4?  
Later, having a winning position Magnus also made a significant mistake with 43.Kc3.   
(In the post mortem analysis he was a bit disgusted to discover that he had missed the "obvious" Ke4.)

When Loek continued to make some inaccuracies, Magnus did not miss the chance to finish him off and take the sole lead in the tournament with 2,5/3!
He is half a point ahead of Shirov, Karjakin and Eljanov.

During the game commentators said that the endgame would be easy to draw for black, probably due to the computer evaluations. And maybe it was relatively easy, I don't know.
The interesting point is that the computer analysis available obviously distorts the realism of spectators and commentators with regard to what is easy or not so easy to find over the board under time pressure in the 4th or 5th hour of the game.
As we have seen many many times, in practical play even top players go astray in seemingly "easy" endgames and this is one of the aspects making competitive chess interesting.
The margins are often very small. 
Maybe Caissa has smiled at Magnus so far in this tournament, as opposed to what I think was the case during most of the Baku Grand-Prix.

Today Magnus plays black against pursuer Eljanov (and I'll make sure he eats properly before the game:-). )

Thursday and Friday Magnus will have the white pieces twice in a row before going into the free day.

Henrik C.,
Foros, June 11th 2008.