Magnus Carlsen

Looking at the CCAS Rapid playing schedule back in 2006 we thought it was a bit slow and relaxed, but was surprised by how intense even the qualifier was.
With the rounds spread over many hours every day the players are in practice occupied with the tournament as much as or more than in a classical tournament.
This time it did not come as a surprise, and I also suspect that Magnus has been trying to preserve some energy until his prestigious encounter with co-leader Radjabov today. 

Yesterday in round 3 Magnus played black against Nakamura. In the opening Nakamura had the chance to repeat moves but bravely played on despite being equal or worse after the opening. In the ensuing endgame Magnus got his knight to c3 and was fairly optimistic.
Having calculated variations with Kf8 followed by Nd5 he then suddenly decided that Nd5 right away was even better, and played it quickly having missed the simple continuation Bxd5 followed by Nb5 taking control over the c-file.
White was clearly better and Magnus had to pulled himself together to try to create counterplay.
Nakamura may have missed a win with Rxg5 instead of Rxa5 after which Magnus had sufficient compensation. In the mutual time scramble Magnus repeated moves while both players had missed a fairly easy win by black with Rf5! threatening both mate and Rg5! after which white has to give up his rook for the pawn on g3.
So it ended in a draw after a good fight. 

Two years ago Magnus conceded a draw with the white pieces against Skripchenko and was eager to improve the result this year. He sacrificed a pawn in the opening and avoided the mainline to reach an interesting position several tempi up, but without a clear way to exploit the lead in development.
After a long thought he went for a queen sack getting 3 light pieces and some initiative for the queen plus two pawns. Later he must have gone wrong somewhere as Rybka finds the black position clearly advantageous due to the threat f4 and Bh3!
In the actual game continuation black slowly was outplayed and resigned without much time left, two more pieces down facing imminent mate.

The rating favourites took the lead after 4 rounds in group B with Magnus and Radjabov at 3.5/4 and Nakamura and Karpov at 2.5.
In group B young Fabiano Caruana continued his winning streak to take a sole lead with 4.5/5. 



Today Magnus played black against Karpov in the early round (11AM). Watching the two sit down for the game reminded me of their first encounter in the Reykjavik rapid tournament blitz qualifier back in March 2004. Mentally that tournament represented an important break through for Magnus. His time scramble blitz win against Karpov and subsequent rapid draw against Kasparov demonstrated that they were not invincible despite their iconoc status.
It cannot have been pleasant for Karpov to lose to the 13 year old boy (who looked even younger) but his behaviour afterwards certainly was commendable. He was most accommodating with a Norwegian film crew giving a long interview praising Magnus. He has also talked favourably about Magnus on several subsequent occasions.

This morning, Magnus played the Nimzo-Indian and they continued along a drawish line. Magnus blitzed out the whole game while Karpov spent some 20 minutes maybe trying to look for alternatives to the game continuation. Magnus was happy to return to his room early to relax and prepare for Radjabov at 4 PM. 

In round 6 Radjabov played the Philidor against Magnus' 1.e4 and equalised according to the computers. Still it is probably easier to play white due to the bishop pair and better pawn structure. Radjabov posed enough tactical problems to Magnus in the middle game but after 26...d5 27.exd5 cxd5 white is clearly better.
Magnus missed the continuation 36.Nxd5 Nxd5 37.f4! but also his choice 36.Nb5 gives white an edge. He activated his king and despite missing a tactic shot (and losing his knight) his queen side pawns decided the game. 1-0.      

After dinner (and desert) in an Italian restaurant in Cap Magnus faced 17 year old GM S.Feller from France in the last round of the qualifier (at 9PM). In a complex position Magnus played the flashy 15.... Nf4. He did not really consider it good for black but it was both complex and very tempting.
Feller found a good continuation and got active play and two light pieces for a rook and two pawns.
He was still better when he short on time went for repetition checks. Draw. 

Nakamura beat Karpov with black to tie Magnus at 5.5/7 but Magnus has the better Sonnenborg-Berger.

Hou Yifan beat Skripschenko to tie for 4^th but lost the second round of blitz playoff to Karpov. 

In the B-group leaders Ivanchuk and Caruana drew the last round and the latter won the group with 5.5 points, ahead of Ivanchuk (5), Vachier-Lagrave and Bu (4.5).
Early leader Cheparinov ended at 4/7 but it was not enough to qualify. 

Overall the female participants obtained many promising positions also against the top ranked players, but was quite consistently outplayed in time trouble. Hou Yifan was of course closest to qualify but also Kosteniuk and Koneru would well have qualified with the margins on their side. 

Magnus is fairly happy about his performance in the qualifier. As in the ECC he has made some blunders but generally been in control and avoided time trouble.

We have the following Quarter finals: 
Caruana - Karpov (at 2:30 PM) and Ivanchuk - Radjabov (at 6 PM) tomorrow.
Vachier-Lagrave - Nakamura (at 2:30 PM) and Bu - Carlsen (at 6 PM) on Thursday. 

Each match consists of two rapid games and if 1-1, two plus two blitz games and if necessary sudden death. 

Tomorrow is consequently a rest day for Magnus and maybe we can play some more football if the weather allows :-) 

Henrik Carlsen,
Cap d'Agde, October 28th 2008