Magnus Carlsen

Some may have noticed a tendency of more frequent updates of this blog when Magnus does well.
Well,... you are right! (And there are some fairly obvious psycholocical arguments supporting this approach.)

I should add that I had planned to update the blog after round 9, but yesterday (and today) the internet broadband connection at the (otherwise excellent Sheraton) hotel was not functioning (after having served us well for nearly 14 days).

Today we drove to Madrid and enjoyed Real Madrid - Numancia live (in the honorary section with an excellent view). It was a fire-work of a game and after 6 goals in the first half the home team won 4-3 in the end.

Back to Bilbao, Magnus went astray early in round 7 against Ivanchuk. He played 13.Be2 as he thought b5! wouldn't work. When he discovered that he could not capture on b5, he realized he was in trouble but did not manage to save the position. Ivanchuk played an excellent game and won in style. 
As we know Topalov lost as well so that Magnus kept the lead despite the loss.

Wanting to hit back after the round 7 loss, Magnus chose the Dragen 12...a6 against Topalov, but despite being quite well prepared, he succumbed to the continuous white threats in the end. The first decisive mistake was probably Rc6? when Rc8 was required.
Ivanchuk won again, and so did Aronian when Anand blundered in the rook ending after the time control, and both where suddenly in contention for the top spot!



Before the round Magnus' sisters (and I) visited the Guggenheimer museum. The architecture of the museum is breathtaking (and so is the flower dog in front of the entrance), but the modern art inside is beyond me I must admit.  

Late Wednesday night we were informed that the players were expected to appear in the town hall at 11 the next day. It may not sound like a serious problem to get up at 10, but when you are used to sleep until 2 PM and look forward to the rest day it is obviously bad news. At 4 AM Magnus finally decided to accept the organiser's request and (and after a short night sleep) he did show up in the town hall on the free day. 

According to Rybka Magnus had equalised against Radjabov in the early middle game in round 9.
With batteries still very low Magnus again found it hard to calculate accurately. He thought white had serious mating threats after Bg5 and consequently went for a slightly worse ending instead of the sharp c5.
Later Radjabov was better, but probably not winning.
Magnus looked somewhat unhappy and some spectators thought this might indicate that he was losing. That was not the case, he looked somewhat miserable simply because he could not see how he could hope to win the endgame!
After precise defence by Magnus and some white inaccuracies black was probably at least equal despite being a pawn down. Radjabov wisely chose to trade off kingside pawns and the rook to enter a clearly drawn opposite color bishop ending.
Ivanchuk looked set to win his third in a row after having outplayed Aronian in the middle game and early endgame only to fall into a nice trap in time trouble. Draw.

Before the last round 4 players were still potential winners, although Topalov seemed a clear favourite having a one point lead as well as white in the last round.
As it went Magnus did not get much out the opening against Anand and with settled for an early repetition of moves in an equal position.  
Later the outcome of the two remaining games turned out favourable to Magnus. 
Topalov won an interesting opposite color bishop (plus rooks) ending against Ivanchuk with the d7-pawn deciding the game.
After this is was clear that Aronian would be second both with a win and a draw. But with a clear advantage on the board against Radjabov, (and maybe partly because of the the tense relationship between Armenia and Azerbaijan), he played for a win.
Suddenly he discovered that black's king could escape the white attack while the white king was very vulnerable. Probably missing the best defence white was soon lost and resigned in face of imminent mate. 0-1 and Magnus captured 2nd place (on better tie-break than Aronian).

Congratulations to Topalov for an impressive win in the strong Bilbao tournament!



In addition to the money prize Magnus was awarded the brilliancy prize for his win against Radjabov and all the players received the huge Athletico Bilbao mascot :-)

Aronian ended 3rd, Ivanchuk 4th and Radjabov took the 5th place following his last round victory.
V. Anand finished last with 8 draws and 2 losses. He did not seem very motivated and is of course focusing on the Kramnik match next month. Still, we're so used to see Vishy perform excellently under any conditions, with any time control and against any opposition that his 8 points (or -2) does come across as the big surprise of this tournament. 

The Bilbao football score has been much debated, but the final score table would have showed the same ranking with for instance traditional score and number of wins and direct encounter as first and second tie-break, or simply based on number of wins (!) and with direct encounter as 1st tie-break.
As mentioned before the tournament, the most important feature of the football scoring is probably the psychological effect. It is unlikely to make much difference to the final ranking.   

The Grand Slam Final in Bilbao was a great follow up of the Grand Slam tournaments in Corus, Linares and Sofia. Despite some issues related to late or missing information, the organisers deserve a lot of praise for having staged this extremely strong tournament with unprecedented money prizes and great fighting chess, and for bringing top level chess closer to the audience (in the class cube at the Plaza Nueva).
I would like to add that Bilbao is a beautiful city well worth a visit!

Henrik Carlsen,
Madrid, September 14th, 2008