Magnus Carlsen

The Norwegian team is ranked 19th out of 154 participating countries in the Open group and is probably the best possible team Norway could put together for this event.
Apart from Magnus, the team consists of GM S.Agdestein, GM K.A.Lie GM L.E.Johannessen and 18 year old school-mate-of-Magnus IM J.L.Hammer.
(Hammer does have above 2500 and 3 GM norms, but only 25 games so he needs another norm). 

The Norwegian women team is also the best we can muster and is ranked as no 39.

Magnus would consider a top-20 result in the Open group a success despite the pre tournament 19th rank as there are many strong teams with only a slightly lower average rate (for instance Netherlands, Poland, Serbia and Belarus to mention those above 2600).  
Russia is top ranked with an amazing 2756 average rating, USA is no 10 with 2673 while Germany on 11th has 2647 and is only 36 points ahead of Norway.

In the two previous Olympiads, USA has beaten Norway in the last round 3.5-0.5 to capture bronze medals and simultaneously pushed Norway far down the list. The effect of the last round result will be less significant this year with ranking based on match points (and not individual points) but maybe we can hope for a revenge match this year!

After the Bilbao tournament the Dagbladet newspaper had a long article discussing the status of chess, is it a sport or not?  
Lately the main Norwegian newspaper (judging from the combined criteria of number of readers, quality and profile) Aftenposten, has had several articles about chess and Magnus in the sport section. 
Norwegian media chess coverage has been good this autumn, probably as a result of Tromso's bid to host the 2014 chess Olympiad as well as Magnus' September visit at the top of the live rating list.
I think we can expect very good coverage also from the Olympiad in Dresden. 

I was planning to provide more info about the games Magnus played against Bu and Ivanchuk in Cap d'Agde, but frankly I haven't got enough comments from Magnus to make in worth while this time.
I'm still hoping to catch up on this later as these games were both highly exciting and probably high quality. It would be interesting to have a detailed look at for instance the Ng4+ line in Bu-Carlsen. Magnus did miss the (probably) winning line with the decisive Re8+ when suddenly white is losing despite the extra piece.

With Anand's impressive win against Kramnik in Bonn, I think everyone agrees that the chess world has been united with one undisputed champion. Most people would also agree that the path ahead looks fairly reasonable with the winner of Kamsky - Topalov playing Anand next year and the winner of the match 'World Cup 2009 winner' against 'Grand Prix 2008-2009 winner" plays the reigning champion next. 
Unfortunately the preparation for the Kamsky - Topalov match has been everything but smooth. Maybe we can hope for a somewhat humble approach from both of them from now on considering how the manager of one of them has deceived the chess world for half a year and the other got a slightly questionable wild card from FIDE.

Anyhow, Magnus and the other Grand Prix participants should continue to pursue their excellent opportunity to play high level chess tournaments in a predictable World Championship cycle. We do look forward to the next GP in Doha after Dresden! 

The Norwegian teams travelled Oslo - Praha early this afternoon and proceeded to Dresden by bus. In round 1 tomorrow Norway will probably play a team with about 2250 average rating in the Open group. 

Henrik Carlsen
Engerdal, 12.11.2008