Magnus Carlsen

The organiser really deserves praise judging from just three aspects of the Olympiad; the vast and high quality media coverage, hotel standard (at least for the Norwegian team) and the fighting chess seen so far. 

Before dwelling on the Norwegian team performance in general and Magnus' in particular, let me congratulate GM Kjetil Lie with his birthday November 18th! 
The same Kjetil is reporting from Dresden at the home page for the Tromsø 2014 bid for hosting the chess Olympiad. An English version is provided also; http://www.tromso2014.no/2008_11_12_diary_dresden.htm  

In the Open group Norway got off to an excellent start with 6/6 points after beating Austria and Germany2 3-1 and subsequently 3^rd seed China by 2,5-1,5 without a single lost game! 

The main contributor among our heroes was the above mentioned Kjetil Lie with 3/3 but all five did well. 

In round 1 Magnus got a comfortable advantage from the opening against Markus Ragger on board 1 but 'fell asleep' in the middle game and 'woke up' in a precarious position.
Fortunately for Magnus and for Norway Ragger missed the probably winning continuation (38.h3 instead of f3). The end game looked even but Magnus managed to make it difficult for Ragger and won two pawns in a nice combination. When the latter exchanged rooks instead of going for a rook versus rook and bishop end game he was suddenly lost. 1-0. 

In round 2 Magnus played G.Meier (who has performed close to 2800 so far) and managed to more or less equalise as black. But in the pursuit of activity he ended up slightly worse in the ending and willingly repeated moves when the opportunity arose. Draw.
Kjetil won another god game as black against young promising F.Bindrich and Jon L.Hammer was in control the whole game on board 4 to secure our 3-1 victory. 

Round 3 against China clearly demonstrated the psychological battle involved in team competitions.Magnus faced the Chinese star Yue Wang who has had a remarkable breakthrough at top level this year. Wang chose a very drawish opening as white probably because the Chinese were clear rating favourites at the three other boards. Early on Magnus discovered that at least two team mates had less than favourable positions and felt he should play quite hard for a win despite the drawish position and having the black pieces. He thought for a long time before moving his knight to f5 but gradually discovered that the white counterattack in the h-file was very strong. Wang found an exquisite exchange sacrifice and with f5! Instead of Rxg4+ white would probably have been winning.
Also the game continuation looked very difficult for black, but Magnus did what he does well, he went for active play and felt in good control in the rook endgame despite being two pawns down.
By the time they entered the endgame the situation had changed dramatically on the lower boards. K.Lie had continued to present challenges for much higher rated X.Bu and the latter went wrong in time trouble. Lie, who certainly is a great tactical player, was much better and did not miss the opportunity to enter a won knight endgame with the nice g6+! sacrifice followed by 42.Nf5! 1-0 !!
L.E.Johannessen created sufficient counterplay to neutralize the slightly advantageous position against Ni Hua and drew with the black pieces. Young J.L.Hammer was slightly better with the white pieces and steered the endgame into a draw without too much problems.
Beating 3^rd seed China was probably the greatest Norwegian team chess feat ever!!     

After this remarkable victory the slightly higher rated English team did look very manageable in round 4. Magnus played M.Adams against which he has a great score with white.
He went for the unusual 7.Bf4 and after the ensuing exchanges white has a small but comfortable advantage due to the isolani on d5. Magnus played a positional game trying to create new weaknesses in the black position and allowed black to gain space and control of the c-file.
Interestingly the computers even prefer black at this stage although the players would probably agree that it is much easier to play white. Just before the time control Adams seemingly became slightly impatient and exchanged the white bishops when Magnus allowed a discovered threat against his queen. The ensuing ending was difficult for black. Adams made another few inaccuracies while Magnus found the right moves and after 46...Rd7! black simply resigned.
Simen Agdestein has historically done well against the higher rated Nigel Short and seemingly drew without too much problems. He maybe even had the better chances in the endgame.
On board 3 Johannessen spent a lot of time in the opening against young (but experienced) GM Howell. His position looked promising but deteriorated quickly when he allowed black to capture the initiative. Howell never looked back and won quite convincingly.
The other Norwegian hero of the day was J.L. Hammer. Having walked into a nasty opening preparation as black against Gawain Jones, the ending looked quite miserable. Down a pawn and with little activity the prospects was meek. But Jon Ludvig did not give in, defended stubbornly, traded of pawns and when Jones exchanged bishops as well the rook ending it is probably a draw. Jon Ludvig defended accurately to secure another very good team result, 2-2 against England.

Before round 5 Norway was number five with just Germany, Russia, Armenia and Hungary ahead of us!   

Against Azerbaijan Norway were clearly underdogs again despite the Azeri's playing without top ranked Radjabov. Maybe they are alternating when playing lower ranked teams or maybe he did not feel like playing black against Magnus taking into account his losses in Baku and Bilbao this year.

Magnus instead faced Shakriar Mamedyarov on board 1 and played 1.c4 to reach a positional set-up. Mamedyarov refused to accept the exchange offered by Magnus and gradually expanded on the kingside and in the centre. Magnus did not have a good day at work and instead of closing the position with d4 he went for the slightly dubious piece sacrifice 20.Nb5?!
Fair enough the position is filled with tactics, but not very surprisingly Mamedyarov found a good continuation and was the only one who could play for a win after winning the piece for three pawns. Later maybe he could not find anything better than trading of pieces or maybe he looked at the promising positions of his team mates. Anyhow, the game ended in a draw well before the time control.
Kjetil Lie had another promising position at board 3 but after declining to take the pawn on b4 his advantage disappeared and he was probably happy to repeat moves shortly after. 
Both Simen and Jon Ludvig had interesting positions and could well have scored half points. Jon Ludvig if he had found a better continuation before the time control and Simen after the time control despite being an exchange down.
In the end they both lost to fix a 'normal' 1-3 team result. 

The Norwegian girls are doing well. They have scored 6 points and lost only to much higher rated teams Bulgaria in round 1 and USA in round 5. All the girls has scored reasonably well and Silje Bjerke exceptionally well with 3,5/4.  

The first ranking criteria is team points instead of individual points in this Olympiad. And maybe even more importantly, the second ranking (tie-break) criteria (TB2) is a 'team-Sonnenborn-Berger' reached by multiplying the individual points scored in each match with the team points of the opponents.
(This is clearly preferable to using only individual points in which case all other teams than the medal candidates would gain from losing 2,5-1,5 purposely early in the competition in order to score many clear victories later against weaker opposition.) 

After five rounds the Norwegian open group team, together with Hungary and Netherlands, have a high TB2 among the teams at seven team points having been 'up there' all the way, faced strong opposition and lost round 5.
The Norwegian team is currently number 19, same as the pre tournament ranking!
With marvellous 3.5/4 against strong opposition Kjetil Lie is in contention for the board prize on board 3 while Magnus has also done very well with a performance above 2800 on board 1.  

Tomorrow we face Finland on board 11.
Norway is clearly higher rated but the Finns has performed well so far and are always a difficult opponent.
On board 1 Finland has young GM Tomi Nyback, already a top-100 player and very dangerous with the white pieces.
Let's keep our fingers crossed for the Norwegian teams! 

Henrik Carlsen,
Lommedalen 18.11.2008