Magnus Carlsen

A childhood fascination of mine was the Viking story by Snorre Sturlasson about our first king Harald Hårfagre (Fairhair).
At young age he was the heir to some scattered kingdoms in Vestfold located by the Oslofjord.
When he was rejected due to lack of might when proposing to Gyda Eiriksdatter (the daughter of king Eirik of Hordaland, a southwestern part of Norway), he swore that he would not cut his hair until he had united Norway. Fighting all the other local Norwegian kings he finally succeeded after 10 years and was the undisputed king of Norway from about 872 ac (when he won the battle of Hafrsfjord).
He subsequently cut his hair, married Gyda and ruled Norway for more than 60 years!

After some initial draws by Magnus I contemplated to threaten to stop blogging until Magnus achieved a decisive result (choosing the blog as weapon as my current hair growth doesn't lend much credibility to any threats in that direction).
Anyway, below you'll find a few comments about round 6 to 9.

In round 6 against Karjakin Magnus came very close to scoring his first victory despite having a complete off-day. Magnus played imaginatively on the kingside but felt that he couldn't calculate a single line properly. He unfortunately missed some fairly obvious winning continuations to reach a drawn double rook ending.

The day after as black against Loek Van Wely he was nearly as close to a decisive result (but this time a loss). Magnus had taken some risks early in the game to keep it complicated. He very much wanted to win and thought he had a reasonable position throughout the game. When he played the dubious 27... Bf2? he still thought he was okay as he had miscalculated one of the possible ensuing lines.
Fortunately for Magnus, at this stage Loek made his only serious mistake by playing 28.Red1? instead of Re2 in ensuing time trouble. When Magnus found g6! it was white who had to avoid the worst pitfalls to reach a drawn ending.

In round 8 Magnus found an interesting pawn sacrifice 9.e4! as white in a Slav opening against Kamsky when the latter had played the somewhat unusual 7....Nbd7.
In the continuation Kamsky wisely turned down the second pawn offered by Magnus and found a way of blocking the a3-f8 diagonal so that he could castle in the end.
At this stage Magnus considered his position equal or worse, and not feeling exactly perky he offered an early draw which Kamsky immediately accepted.

On the free day we had absolutely beautiful spring weather (at least for a Norwegian) and several GM group players, including Magnus, enjoyed a game of football at the school court situated nearby.

Today in round 9 Magnus was black against Adams against whom he has a terrific score winning many games in a row with white and drawing with black.
Against 1.e4 Magnus played the Sicilian Dragon, and Adams avoided complications with 7.0-0 to reach a positional middle game.
Magnus took control of the c-file but couldn't make 17... Rc5 work and played Re8 instead.
After 18.Ra4 the position is probably quite equal.
When Magnus broke with e5! and could double his rook and queen in the e-file the position is a bit tricky for white. However, Adams found 23.Qd1 and the only-move 26.Qd5 after which Magnus had to swop queens to avoid being worse.
The ensuing two-piece ending is fairly equal. Both players can set up a kind of fortress and Magnus offered a draw after 28....Kf8. If white declines and try to win the d-pawn with Bc7?, black would in fact have been clearly better. Adams certainly saw this "trap" and he accepted the draw offer instead.

A couple of hours into the round, most of the games in the A-group looked drawish today, but in the end all the three long games were decided.
Aronian, Dominguez and Karjakin all won to reach +2 and shared lead ahead of Movsesian and Radjabov at +1 and Magnus (with 9 draws) is shared 6-9 at 50% with 4 rounds to go.

Tomorrow Magnus plays white against Dominguez. Let's hope for a good fight!

Henrik Carlsen Wijk,
January 27th, 2009