Magnus Carlsen

The draws all came in battles between young players (Karjakin, Volokitin and Alekseev) having the white pieces against the more experienced Ivanchuk, Svidler and Shirov respectively.

Eljanov, with the black pieces put pressure on Onischuk along the long white diagonal and white decided to sacrifice an exchange on d5. Later Eljanov gave back the exchange in a beautiful combination to win a pawn and gain a dominant position that was quickly won.

Jakovenko beat Van Wely with the white pieces in an interesting game.

Magnus was black against Nisipeanu and encouraged by his excellent results so far was determined to play for a win. In the end he chose the Sicilian Dragen against 1.e4 and when Nisipeanu avoided the most principled variations, played Be2, castled short etc, black has already equalised.

White spent about 20 minutes deciding on the novelty 12.a4 after which Magnus felt he had the better position. White?s plan sacrificing a pawn with 15.c3?! was judged unsound by most commentators while Magnus thought it was a reasonable idea. White may enjoy excellent compensation exploiting his extra space and coordination on the king side. However, Magnus decided against taking the c3 pawn right away (and in fact never did).
Instead he responded 16...Rc8 and 18....Nc4! reducing white counterplay while getting ready to take advantage of the many white pawn weaknesses.

Magnus felt he played a good game yesterday and that he was in control in the rest of the game.

After sacrificing an exchange on d4 he had two pawns, the bishop pair and a clearly favourable position.

The computers' evaluation was that black had to find some only-moves to maintain an advantage (for instance 26.Bh6, which he did play), while Magnus felt comfortable and played rather quickly in most of Nisipeanu's time trouble.

After the exchange of a rook, the black a-pawn started to march to a2 and although white can prevent queening with Qc3, he is totally tied up and will lose the f-pawn. Soon the black pawn avalanche will decide and he resigned instead. 0-1 !

Although his opponent was not in his best shape yesterday, Magnus was very satisfied with his own play and the victory. Having had a slight trace of a cold on the free day and the evening before the free day, he felt fit for fight yesterday and thoroughly appreciate the two points lead going into the last four rounds.

At 6/7 he is followed by the Ukrainian trio Karjakin, Volokitin and Eljanov at 4 points. Last year's winner Ivanchuk has 3.5 points together with Shirov, Svidler and Jakovenko.

Magnus finished relatively early yesterday as he had plenty of time left on the clock in Nisipeanu's time trouble. And with the Euro 2008 starting later than usual, Magnus went to the internet café, while I preferred a swim in the Black Sea.

The sea temperature has improved during our stay, but it is still quite refreshing and has not yet reached the 23oC normally enjoyed during the summer.

The Black Sea has had dozens of names and the current one supposedly has several possible explanations.

Many Greek sailors and traders were surprised by the turbulent weather of the Black Sea resulting in a significant number of ship wrecks and deaths. The wife's of dead sailors wearing black headdresses of sorrow gave the sea a repute for danger and death and hence the reference to the 'black' (headdress) sea.

The sea is more than 2000 meters deep. Maritime life is limited to the top 200 meter layer below which the bottom is mainly dark mud.

Seen from the Crimean mountains nearby, the dark bottom is quite distinctive and could well be the bases for the current name.

Today Magnus is white against current tail-ender A.Onichuk, USA.

We try to focus on tournaments as excellent training for Magnus, on him doing his best and having fun while playing chess, but I guess he is aware of the fact that a win today would bring him to the #1 spot on the unofficial live rating list.

It is not important to reach that target today, but being in the position of having this possibility in itself is quite a mind-boggling achievement!

Let's hope it will be many interesting games today.

H.Carlsen,
Foros, June 16th, 2008