Magnus Carlsen

Today is a free day in Linares, and the organiser has most accommodatingly arranged for a game of tennis in the beautiful spring weather.
The timing is excellent as today is also a free day in the Nordic skiing World Championship which Magnus follows with great interest (although his enthusiam does not match the level of Peter Svidlers passion for cricket:-) 

In the first four rounds Magnus has been focused and spent more time on the clock than what we have become used to. He has fought well in every game, but has made too many oversights to be fully content with his play and result.
 With 10 rounds to go he is quite relaxed though. 

In round 2 as white against Dominguez Magnus went into a line of deep preparation from Dominguez.
Having spent lots of time investigating the critical line with e4 which would allow black to chase the white king into the middle of the board, Magnus wisely concluded that he should go for the repetition. 

As black against Wang Yue in round 3, Magnus equalised from the opening. As white did not show any ambition to play for a win, Magnus made several attempts to get an advantage. 
18...Na5 instead of Ke7 looked very promising, but later white defended well at the critical moments.
Magnus still felt he had a slight edge both before and after a rook was exchanged close to the time control.
White offered a draw at move 37, but Magnus decided to play on.
Unfortunately he missed 40.Rc5!, blundering the a-pawn just before the time control, and he had to pull himself together and concentrate on securing a draw.
In the end moves were repeated as white correctly concluded that pushing for a win with the a-pawn could easily backfire and lose. 

Yesterday Ivanchuk played a side-line in the Grunfeld with 5.... Be6 and Magnus again spent lots of time in the opening. When black avoided the most critical line (11.... Nxe4), Magnus was simply better after the opening.
He decided on 16.Nd5 and had a slight advantage due to his more active pieces.
However, 22.Bc4 was a mistake, and after the response e5! Magnus discovered that black has 24.... Qxd4 after which white has to trade off most of the pieces.
Black is slightly better in the ending, but as white has more than sufficient resources, Ivanchuk decided to trade knights and enter a dead drawn rook ending.
With the resulting draw both players have 2/4 and share 4^th - 5^th place thus far. 
Anand has had three white's and has had winning positions in all three!
Against Aronian the position was very tricky and he went on to blunder at a critical moment and lose though.
As black against Dominguez in round 3 he did not seem to be in any serious danger, and yesterday he convincingly grind down Wang Yue to move back to +1.  

Aronian played patiently against Dominguez yesterday and slowly outplayed him to win a pawn and later a second one. Dominguez wisely decided to fight on and Aronian somewhat surprisingly seemed to have serious problems finding the win with R+N+ two pawns against R+N.
Finally he embarked on the right plan and after the exchange of rooks the knight ending is lost for black. 1-0, and an impressive 3 out of 4 for Aronian.
He is sharing the lead with A.Grichuk who has started very well. Despite 3 black games, and getting into slight time trouble nearly every game, he has played and scored excellently.
Yesterday he got some help though, as Radjabov misplayed a seemingly very good position to end up in a lost endgame.  

In round 5 Magnus face co-leader Grischuk with the black pieces at 4 PM. Lets hope for a good fight!   

Henrik Carlsen

Linares, February 23rd, 2009