Magnus Carlsen

Magnus played 4 tournaments in the 1^st quarter and 2 in the 2^nd quarter of 2009. He will be less active in 3^rd quarter with more tournaments coming up in the 4^th quarter again. 

Before turning to a follow-up of Sofia and Leon, I'd like to dwell briefly on the 1^st quarter super tournaments.
Despite the financial crises, traditional top level chess events have continued in 2009. The only notable difference seems to be that the crisis have made the organisers even more focused on presenting the best possible event to players, on-stage spectators,  via internet and for the media in general.  
Corus has a unique position in the chess world due to the 70 + year tradition, the presence of the whole world elite most years, and the huge number of players participating in the various tournaments.
Linares, 'the Wimbledon of chess', exudes brilliancy by being closely tied to the World Champion and 9 time winner Garry Kasparov. Amber Rapid and Blindfold has attracted the world elite for 20 years and is renowned for the luxurious standard in every aspect and the relaxed atmosphere accompanying a fast time control event without rating implications. 
This year they all seem to have managed to improve further!  

The financial challenges seemed to make the Corus organiser and management present during the event even more enthusiastic and helpful.
Linares staged the whole tournament locally this year after the successful cooperation with Morelia in 2006-8 and everything from the decoration of the playing venue to the helpfulness of the organisers made a lasting impression. Regarding Amber it was difficult to see how the organisers could improve further but somehow they managed! 

Magnus participated in Sofia for the first time, and despite his last round loss to tournament winner Shirov, he was very satisfied with his performance. In the second half he held Topalov and Ivanchuk to a draw with black in a convincing manner. His white piece victories against Dominguez and Wang Yue, added to his first round win against Topalov, gave him an impressive 4/5 score with white.
In the last round Magnus (and Shirov) thought black had amble compensation until he blundered with Qc7 (mistakenly thinking he had mate threats preventing Nb4). 
The Sofia organisers deserve the highest praise for a very well organised event. The hotel and the playing venue were excellent. The park area where the event was held had a great atmosphere with plenty of chess players grouped around the benches deeply emerged in their favourite pastime.
The city centre is compact, has many historical sights as well as modern buildings, and several new shopping malls.

Magnus played in a class cube for the second time, and in Sofia it was surrounded by a large group of enthusiastic and knowledgeable spectators following expert comments from female World Champion Stefanova and others.
The air conditioning worked excellently in the cube. The players could hear a little noise from outside occasionally, but not to the extent that it represented a real problem.
We think the cube is good idea and it has already succeeded in promoting chess in a great way.
Some practicalities may be improved further, including, even better noise protection, one-way glass to avoid contact from outside and maybe an inclined spectator area to allow more people direct vision. 

Magnus played in Leon 2005 in one of his first encounters with really top players. Although he had beaten Shirov in a single game in Drammen in January 2005, he was clearly no match for Anand in June 2005 and lost 3-1. But it was a useful experience, and it was a good backdrop for reflecting on his progress during the last 4 years having gone from a promising young player to the 3^rd rank position in the world. 

With semi-finals played on Friday and Saturday and the final on Sunday, the Leon Rapid tournament programme is not much of a burden for the losing semifinalists, it is reasonable for the Friday winner with his day off on Saturday, while quite tough for the Saturday winner.

Ivanchuk won fairly convincingly 2,5-1,5 in his semi against Morozevich, while Magnus needed more than 5 hours and 6 games to defeat Wang Yue on Saturday.
In the first game, Magnus missed a win in the endgame (he discovered too late that he should have prevented the black king from returning to the 7^th (and 8^th) rank.
In the second game he went for a very sharp line and later made too many ambitious (and not so good) moves and lost to a well-playing opponent.
In the third game he more or less had to win and amazingly Wang Yue did the same mistake in the opening as Anand did last year in the final he lost to Ivanchuk.
After drawing game 4, Magnus did not manage to get much from the opening in the first blitz game and it fizzled out in a draw.
In the final game, Magnus played quite well, but was still maybe slightly worse when Wang Yue made a mistake in the ensuing time trouble and later lost the difficult rook ending.  

The final against Ivanchuk brought all the nerve and excitement the audience could hope for. Lots of fighting chess with both playing some excellent chess mixed with some bad mistakes.
Having defended well, Magnus got the chance to counterattack in the 3^rd game and was trying to win the bishop endgame when he blundered his g-pawn. After another mistake he simply lost.
In a must win situation in the 4^th rapid game he got a very good position but from there on Ivanchuk defended excellently for 20 moves. Magnus missed a few promising continuations and in the end the queen and rook ending was probably theoretically drawn. In practice though, it is nearly hopeless for black as there as some many pits to fall into and so little time left on the clock. Ivanchuk erred with Kd6?, and the checks won the rook. 2-2.
In the first blitz game, Magnus got a promising position from the sharp Sveshnikov variation and looked great when he missed a winning continuation. Ivanchuk again defended superbly and reached a rook + knight against rook ending which he held for 53 moves ending in a stalemate.
In the second blitz game Ivanchuk held the dynamic balance my pushing his pawns on the kingside, but Magnus had an advantage and could have made it difficult with Ne4 instead of Nc4 as pointed out by Ivanchuk at the press conference. Draw.
In the Armageddon, Magnus drew the white pieces, 6 minutes against 5 and had to win.
Ivanchuk had a promising position for a while but when Magnus finally counterattacked the position was very difficult to defend. In a nice combination Magnus won a piece and when Ivanchuk's last piece was trapped he resigned with only a few seconds left. The Leon rapid has 4 participants as compared to the more typical 6, 8, 10 or 14 in classical high level tournament. Anyhow Magnus was very pleased to win Leon Rapid 2009, his first tournament victory in nearly a year (after being pretty close in Linares, Nice and Sofia).   
The Leon organiser does not escape our highest praise either :-)
 A very well organised event by Marcelino Sion with first class media coverage headed by famous journalist and commentator Leontxo Garcia, and lots of spectators in the large auditorium.
Leon is a nice city with plenty of cultural sights and park areas.
The devil is in the detail and the organiser excelled in many ways. For instance, when the hotel internet performed poorly they got Magnus a mobile internet card before we had even asked for one. Great job! 

Friday 12^th Magnus had his final high school exam and later that day he was celebrated as the "sport-student of the year" at the top athletes high school despite strong competition from a world class snowboarder and a junior world champion golf player.

Magnus is now planning to become a full time chess player for some time. 

He is leaving for Dortmund on June 30. Round 1 starts July 2^nd and the tournament finishes on July 12^th.
Format has changed from previous years, six players, double round robin and ten rounds this year.
Magnus (2772) is first seeded ahead of Kramnik, Jakovenko, Leko, Bacrot and Naiditch in the strong category 20 (nearly 21) event.   

Lommedalen, June 17^th 2009,
Henrik Carlsen