Magnus Carlsen

Magnus and this blog have enjoyed 3 weeks vacation from chess and chess reporting respectively.
Magnus has had a well deserved (and required) rest from tournament activity and lately started his 3^rd year in high school (two and a half week ago), played some football for Lommedalen Boys-U19 and also recuperated from a persistent cold. 
For me the break has been somewhat of a necessity as I've been busy with our mountain hut project and have spent most of the time after Tromsoe up in Engerdal (with a very slow mobile internet connection). 

We all thoroughly enjoyed the Tromsoe Arctic Chess Challenge tournament. The organisational events as well as the scenery deserved the highest praise!
(Chessbase.com presented an illustrative report 10 days ago and more will follow.) 

Magnus (and I) arrived in Moscow today as he is playing the Tal Blitz (34 rounds) 29^th-30^th of August. He got one of the two wild cards (and Karpov the other one) this year.
With the tight programme and Bilbao coming up, Magnus did not play the 3rd Tal Memorial that finished today. Ivanchuk's had a remarkable year so far and won this year's category XX (nearly XXI) event with +3 ahead of early leader Morozevich and Kramnik, Ponomariov and Gelfand at +1. 

I must admit that Aeroflot's past reputation has not historically made it our preferred means of transportation, but the new plane, comfortable seats and good breakfast experienced today sure made the journey both relaxed and a pleasant experience!  

Magnus has visited Russia 7 times during the past 5 years but this is the first visit to Moscow in the summer time. Compared to the winter time view with neon lights and commercial signs dominating the facades, the buildings look different in full daylight.

This year we're staying at the 5* Golden Ring hotel close to Arbat street, a 40 minutes stroll from the Gum shopping centre and Tal Blitz final playing venue.
A visit to our regular 24/7 supermarket across the street confirmed the pressence of a relatively high Russian inflation compared to the Euro-zone. The Euro-Rubel exchange rate is much the same as 2006 and 2007 and consequently the Russian price level is getting closer to western Europe in general and Moscow in particular is getting very expensive. 

Following his 3 weeks break, Magnus is highly motivated to get started again and face consecutive tournaments here and in Bilbao 1-14 September.
Two days of high level blitz Friday and Saturday, travelling onwards on Sunday, followed by round 1 in Bilbao Tuesday sound like an exciting and reasonable start of this 3 week trip abroad.   

The Tal Blitz qualifier again attracted a remarkable field (Karjakin, Grichuk etc) and tomorrow Magnus is planning to visit the second leg taking place at the regular venue (Central Chess Club). 

The final starts Friday at 1 PM local time (11 AM Western European time) and I hope the internet coverage will secure general access to this great event for the chess audience at large.
I'm certainly looking forward to watch on-site!

Henrik Carlsen,
Moscow, August 27th, 2008