Magnus Carlsen

Yesterday, the main newspaper in the region had substantial coverage of round 1 (both on front page and two full pages inside).
And lots of Bilbao citizens have taken to the Gram Slam Finals. Despite some light rain yesterday the Plaza Nueva was crowded with participants taking part in the daily blitz tournament and spectators following the games and enjoying the commentaries.
All the main chess sites obviously cover the event, and I must say that I'm impressed by how Susan Polgar manage to combine her commentary role with great frequent updates from the tournament.

Magnus played black against Ivanchuk and internet spectators and commentaries alike were amazed when Ivanchuk spent 40 minutes in response to Magnus' 12....a6 in the Sicilian Dragen. Magnus played this variation against Dominguez in Biel and against Anand in Mainz and later Radjabov won in style in the last round in Socchi against Karjakin.
In the interview after the game, Ivanchuk honestly admitted that he was "out of book" after 12.a6!
Magnus found a reasonable explanation in the fact that Ivanchuk has been playing continuously for more than a month (Socchi, Tal, Tal Blitz) and may not have had time to look through all recent top level games.
Anyhow, Ivanchuk in the end played 13.Rhe1 and Magnus quickly decided to play b5 and Rxc3 in line with the spirit of the opening.
After 18.Qh4 a4 Magnus agrees with the commentators that white has the choice between h3 and Bxf7.
Ivanchuk played the latter and followed up with the amazing 20.e5 creating threats against all blacks light pieces plus the rook!
Magnus went for the active Nd5 and when he checked on c3 Ivanchuk again had an important choice.
Kc1 lead to a fairly forced draw while Ka1 would have maintained a highly complex game. White is possibly a little bit better after Bxe6 Nxe6 Qc8 Rd4! but Magnus felt the position offered black reasonably good prospects.
In the game continuation Magnus played 23...Qa5 giving up the knight on g4 and afterwards Nxa2 Kb2 Qc3+ Kxa2 with a perpetual.
Despite the 3-1-0 scoring system Magnus was happy with the result.
A win and a draw in his two black games is of course an excellent start. 

Anand seemingly played a harmless variation against Radjabovs Sveshnikov and after exchanges of rooks in the b-file the opposite coloured bishop ending was soon drawn by repetition. 

Topalov-Aronian was a fairly interesting game. Aronian kept his king in the centre and activated his kingside rook with the manoeuvre Rh8-h5-d5-d7 and after the rook doubling in the d-file he was at least equal. The game ended in perpetual checks by white. 

With all games draws, Magnus kept his lead and is facing 4 games with the white pieces in the next 5 rounds!Today he is white against Topalov, let's hope it'll be an interesting game! 

Henrik Carlsen
Bilbao, September 4, 2008