Magnus Carlsen

A major reason for not blogging much since March was the "secret" cooperation with Kasparov. It felt too awkward to try to relate inside stories from tournaments while suppressing the main news. After going public in September about the cooperation, and winning Nanjing in style, Magnus soon got his own blog making the continuation of this blog less meaningful. 

At this blog at http://www.arcticsec.no/index.php?button=blog&main_image=35 Magnus thanked his trainer Garry Kasparov and his main sponsors investment-bank Arctic Securities and lawyers Simonsen for their contributions to his rise to the number 1 spot on the January 1^st 2010 rating list with 2810 ahead of Topalov, Anand, Kramnik and Aronian. 

I'd like to bring forth all the other persons and organisations that have made significant contributions and deserve credit. The pitfall is of course that someone may feel left out, to whom I offer my sincere apologies in advance. 

Prior to Kasparov, Magnus has received support and training from GM Simen Agdestein through many years, and a special thanks for his invention, the chess class at the Top Athletes School that Simen started back in the late 90's and which Magnus attended through high school from 2006 to 2009.  

GM Peter Heine Nielsen is a good friend that had occasional training sessions with Magnus for several years and was also his second during many tournaments.  

His first important trainer was IM Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen who's pedagogical skills deserves special mentioning.
I'd also like to mention that Magnus got some initial coaching from Bjarte Leer Salvesen in Baerum Youth Chess Club and from Sverre Johnsen, Oslo Chess Club back in 1999. 

Before and during tournaments Magnus has also received valuable analysis from Dag Soedtholt and several other Norwegian chess players.

Chessbase, represented by founder Frederic Friedel, has for several years contributed with software including the invaluable Chessbase database and analysis engines Fritz, Junior and lately also Rybka. He has also been extremely helpful in providing important contacts throughout the chess world. 

Online chess was a major contributor to Magnus training efforts especially from the age of 9 to 14. He has spent countless hours playing blitz on Internet Chess Club (ICC) and Playchess.

We have received technical help in PC and software matters, and special thanks go to Tarjei Svendsen for his many contributions.

In addition to main sponsors Arctic Securities and Simonsen laywers, Magnus has for several years had Smartfish, a producer of Omega-3 fish oil products, as a sponsor.
For a one year period in 2007/8 he was sponsored by FAST, a search engine company now owned by Microsoft.
As part of their strategy to help young people utilize their talents, Microsoft Norway sponsored Magnus from 2003 to 2005.
His first sponsor, back in the first half of 2002, was IT consultant company Computas.
You have all contributed significantly to make it possible for Magnus to travel to tournaments, hire trainers and acquire training equipment. Thank you!

Espen Agdestein has been of invaluable help. As sponsor agent for Magnus, he has helped secure the current two main sponsors Arctic Securities and Simonsen lawyers. And together with his brother Simen he was instrumental in securing several of our earlier sponsors as well.  

Magnus' progress stems partly from participation in the many events organised by Hans Olav Lahlum at Gausdal. For many years Hans Olav put in countless hours, immense dedication and often his own money to continue the Gausdal tradition originally started and upheld for decades by Arnold Eikrem.  

After his first tournament, the Norwegian Championship U-11 in 1999, Magnus benefitted from the weekly blitz tournaments in Oslo Chess Club throughout the autumn of 1999 and onwards.
Our local club Baerum Youth Chess Club, headed by Oivind Ekeberg, was the first chess club contributing to Magnus' success.
Later Magnus joined Asker Chess Club, represented by primus motor Joeran Jansson and others, and played several seasonal evening tournaments, blitz events, as well as the European Club Cup for Asker. 

Magnus has participated in a huge number of tournaments and throughout the years he has on most occasions been accompanied to tournaments and looked after by grandparents, his mother and sisters in addition to the undersigned. 

Chess has been recognized as a sport by Norwegian media in 2009 and this is consistent with the need to focus on physical training and nutrition in chess as in other sports. Magnus has cooperated with the Olympiatoppen this autumn and feels confident this is an important part of optimum preparations for chess tournaments.  

We would also like to thank the many chess enthusiasts contributing to chess as spectators and commentators, his chess friends at NTG, tournament organisers (as Corus, Linares and Tromsoe to mention a few), chess sites (as www.chessbase.com), chess blogs (with significant contributions from for instance Hans Arild Runde and Mig Greengard) and the influential people, patrons and politicians throughout the world supporting our great game one way or the other. 

Henrik Carlsen
Engerdal, January 1^st 2010

Today Magnus is up at Hamar at the annual Norwegian Sports award.
Hamar is situated at the eastern shore of Mjøsa opposite Gjøvik where Magnus played last weekend. The two cities co-hosted the 1994 Olympics together with reknown Lillehammer (located at the northern end of Mjøsa). 

Reporting from Gjøvik is long overdue as I was waiting for the chance to comment also on the release of the December 27^th teleconference audio transcript.
A fortnight has elapsed since the conference and one may unfortunately begin to doubt the reality of the written guarantee to make the conference generally available on internet.  
(Supposedly the quality of the audio tape is poor, next time I'll tape it myself :-) 

We would like to congratulate Peter Svidler with the victory in the Aker Chess Challenge!
He beat Magnus in the final. Magnus drew comfortably as black but when pressing for a win with white he missed Bb6! in the time trouble and was suddenly lost.
Consequently Magnus did not get revenge for his loss to Peter up at Svalbard 3 years ago, but the good news was that he dominated Peter in their internal encounters (beating him twice with white in the qualifier and the tie-break and experiencing no real difficulties with black). 
The visitors and internet audience got a great show the last day of the qualifier. Magnus, in a must win-situation managed to outplay Svidler with white. Nakamura played an exchange variation as white against Magnus and offered a draw after 12 moves trusting his blitz skills. And when Peter won his games against Kjetil (who again had a nice position in the middle game), there was a three way tie.
Svidler won the first blitz game against Nakamura in style and Magnus played another good game as white in the Ruy Lopez beating Svidler.
Nakamura of course had to win the third game against Magnus and sacked a pawn in the Slav for long term compensation. Magnus was in control but late in the middle game he allowed Namakura into the game. Fortunately the American did not find the best continuation and in the time scramble Magnus won to reach the final against Peter. 

We would like to congratulate 18-year old Jon Ludvig Hammer!
Not only did he secure his 4^th and decisive GM norm in the strong Open at Gjøvik, but he took a clear 1^st after beating GM Bartel with black in the last round. A draw was enough to secure his GM title, and it was very impressing to see him play on in the slightly better queen ending for about two hours to win in the end.

Next Thursday Magnus is off to Wijk aan Zee and the Corus A. In the absence of Anand, Topalov  (and Kramnik), Magnus together with Ivanchuk, Morozevich and 2008 winner Aronian, are probably the main favourites.
Magnus is certainly looking forward to the tournament, and he is quite confident after his performance at Gjøvik despite loosing the final as he played many good games.     

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, January 10th, 2009

Looking back at 2008 it has been a tremendous success for Magnus chesswise.
Climbing to # 4 on the rating list (Oct 1 2008 and Jan 1 2009) and even enjoying 5 days as the unofficial # 1 during Bilbao, winning Corus (shared), Baku (shared) and Foros, and taking second place in Linares and Bilbao, he has every reason to be happy and proud of his achievements.
Having continuously adjusted his ambitions on his way up, he is not fully satisfied with his performances in the 2^nd half of 2008. The good thing is that it may slightly reduce expectations and put him back in "an attacking position", where he has proven to be very comfortable in the past. 

His first quarter program is again very tight this year, starting with the rapid tournament "Aker Chess Challenge" between Magnus, Svidler, Nakamura and K.Lie at Gjøvik tomorrow, followed by Corus A starting January 16^th (opening ceremony).

Magnus is already at Gjøvik where the drawing of lots and a press conference will be held tonight.
The format will be similar to Mainz Rapid with a double round robin qualifier Friday to Sunday and Final / Bronze finals Monday 5th. 
The main Open event, with European Champion S.Tiviakov as the top rated participant, is well under way. As are other parallel events, and this weekend the annual Open Norwegian Rapid championship will be held as another part of the broad festival at Gjøvik.
Main organisers Øystein Brekke and Hans O.Lahlum deserves the highest praise for organising such a great festival in Norway. Thank you!  

The intended change of the 2008-2011 World Championship Cycle has been met by a lot of protests and responding to this, the FIDE President invited some of the highest rated players in the world to take part in a Skype phone conference on December 27^th.
Magnus asked me to take part on his behalf, and as he has already withdrawn from the Grand Prix, we decided to focus on World Championship cycles in general. 
Prior to the conference we were informed in writing that the recording will be made available to all the internet "journals"... who can reproduce it in full as a voice or transcript it if they wish.
As this may take some time, we have decided to include our statement at the conference below; 

"  (Dear FIDE dignitaries, dear World Champion, dear top Grand Masters,)
I'm representing my son Magnus Carlsen and would like to thank you for this opportunity to express our views on the world championship cycle. As communicated earlier we would like to see transparent decision processes within FIDE, and predictability and fairness in the world championship cycles. 
Transparent decision processes require a democratic and open dialogue with the parties involved prior to making decisions. Important issues need to be raised well in advance of major decision points and the decision process needs to be well documented and communicated timely and widely. The process of proposing to change the current cycle as brought forward at the FIDE General Assembly in Dresden last month on short notice, does not meet these requirements.  
Predictability is necessary to ensure the trust and commitment of chess players, chess federations, sponsors, organisers and top players in contention for the World Championship title.
We need to introduce mutually binding agreements in line with the practice in other top chess tournaments.
The current practice of having one-sided escape clauses in the championship regulations and/or players undertaking, for instance stating that the FIDE Presidential Board or the FIDE President may change this or that, is simply unacceptable.
The many examples from recent years of players that has qualified or is in the process of qualifying for a subsequent step in the championship cycle or for a match, experiencing multiple delays or downright removal of rights, must come to an end.
Regarding priorities, the focus on money and privileges must be replaced by fairness, reliability and predictability.
As many businesses around the world has experienced, if you want economics results you have to excel in what you deliver to your customers and your audience. The results will follow suit.   
Fairness; what does this imply? In addition to having predictability, there should not be arbitrary granting of privileges, well, as few privileges as possible really. In the future Magnus would like to see a world championship cycle with a minimum of privileges, or no privileges at all. If any it should be early in the cycle and based on rating and not money.
The transition to such a situation has been difficult in the past due to the legacy of our history.
We strongly disagree with the way FIDE has tried to remedy this by handing out further privileges.
After the unification process from 2005 to 2008, we may be in a unique situation to transcend historical problems and privileges, and it was with disbelief and disappointment we received the news about the proposal to introduce new privileges by creating 4 new spots in the next step of the 2008-2011 championship cycle. 

Next let me mention some features we would like to advocate related to a world championship cycle;
Firstly let's talk about privileges;
What about privileges related to rating? Well, maybe some places in a knock-out stage could be allocated to top rated players as done in the World Cup for many years.
What about the privileges of players backed by strong managers, sponsors or organisers? We don't believe in these as it promotes cronyism and makes it possible to buy your way to important rights.
What about the privileges of the reigning World Champion? This is a difficult question but we see strong arguments for reducing the privileges drastically or even abolishing them outright. In the past, with the right to a re-match, a reigning world champion had about 75% chance of retaining the title against an evenly strong opponent, leaving only 25% chance for all the remaining chess players in the world. It was ridiculous. Even without rematches, the 50% chance of today is strongly favouring the reigning champion. This may have made sense in the past when there were few serious contenders for the title, but today, with about 30 top players within 100 rating points of the top, this is no longer fair. 
Next, let's discuss the cycle;
The first step needs to be accessible to as many players as possible world wide. Both zonal tournaments and the regional qualifiers for the World Cup have worked well and one of these practices may be continued in the future.
Next Magnus favours a knock-out system with for instance 64 or 128 players mainly coming from the preceding step. When there are 8 players left in the knock-out stage, various alternatives are possible and we would like to mention three viable options;
- The first is to continue with the knock-out matches, and the final winner is the new World Champion.
- Another alternative is to proceed with candidate matches between the 8 remaining players at other venues and shifted in time. After two rounds of candidate matches, the two remaining players would fight for the world championship title.
- A third good alternative is to stage a double round robin World Championship tournament between the 8 remaining players from the knock-out cup.The World Champion would retain his (or her) title for two years until the next champion is decided.
Now, you may object and ask us; what is new? This is what has been tried for more than10 years without much success, isn't it?
Well, the main point is that it did not work as long as Kasparov and later Kramnik were outside the FIDE cycle. Currently this is no longer a problem. The chess world has been united and the only privileges we need to care about are those of World Champion Anand, who had to win both the 2007 world championship tournament and the somewhat questionable 2008 match, and the other is the winner of the 2007 World Cup Kamsky who was promised a semi-final match for the world championship title based on the regulations prior to the World Cup. 
A transition from the current situation to a future without significant privileges must of course be organised in a way that is fair and preferably also fully acceptable to these gentlemen.
This obviously involves giving privileges to Anand in the next one or two cycles, and privileges to Kamsky in first of the ongoing cycles.
It is a bit difficult to comment categorically on the planned Kamsky-Topalov match as we don't understand the reason for organising such a match, but neither do we really know what has been discussed or agreed between FIDE and the other involved parties over the last one and a half years. The process has certainly not met our requirement for transparency.  

In summary, we want mutually binding agreements governing FIDE cycles, the eventual abolition of privileges in general, and we want FIDE to focus on fairness and predictability and not money and privileges.   
Thank You for Your attention. 
Henrik Carlsen, On behalf of IGM Magnus Carlsen, December 27^th, 2008.   "
 
Lastly we would like to mention our appreciation of the statements made by reigning World Champion V.Anand and top players V.Topalov and L.Aronian during the conference. Their comments have raised our hopes. Maybe reason will prevail in the end :-)

Happy New Year!

Henrik Carlsen,
Engerdal, January 1st, 2009

We have noted some of the comments related to Magnus' quick withdrawal from the Grand Prix.
Following an interview with the FIDE President addressing the decision process around the introduction of a new candidate tournament, we find it reasonable to provide some more background info on the withdrawal. 
In the days prior to his withdrawal we discussed at lenght the uncertainty involved regarding the FIDE decision process of changing the cycle as it was clear from the wording of the regulations that the General Assembly could not change these regulations. The final decision on changes to the regulations shall be made by the FIDE Presidential Board. 
Upon receiving the earlier reported response from Mr. Mastrokoukos on December 4th, I sent a reply (by e-mail) the same day containing many questions regarding the Grand Prix and the cycle change.
The two first questions were;  
"Has the FIDE Presidential Board already finally decided to change the Grand Prix regulations, and if so, can you please forward the new regulations?
If such new regulations are not in place yet, could you please let us know on what basis you have announced the process of staging a bid for a 2010 Candidate tournament instead of the planned match between the GP and World Cup winners?" 

Later the same day I was contacted by a senior FIDE Vice President, and I asked him some of the same questions. Below are some excerpts from the discussion we had. (The following is of course subject to my memory serving me right and also my understanding of what was said.)
His first response was that the General Assembly had decided the matter as the GA is the highest authority in FIDE. Upon my reference to the wording of the regulations he agreed that the change had not yet been administratively decided by the FIDE PB and there were no new regulations in place. The FIDE PB would anyhow follow the decision of the GA.
When asked if this meant that there were basically no regulations in effect governing the Grand Prix until the next FIDE PB meeting in March 2009, he said that if necessary this was a formality that could be handled quickly by distributing a memo on the GA-approved-change to the members of the PB for their signature. 

When discussing this with Magnus afterwards we had to conclude that either the GA decision should be considered a "done deal", or we would probably not know the outcome until late March 2009. Neither of these alternatives was acceptable to Magnus, also partly due to the need to respond to other tournament invitations.
Having already missed Nanjing due to the GP Magnus definitely wanted to avoid similar occurrences in 2009.

Henrik Carlsen,
December 17th, 2008

We have just informed FIDE by e-mail that Magnus withdraws from the Grand Prix series due to the dramatic change to these regulations approved by the General Assembly.
(According to the regulations the final decision on changes to the regulations is the responsibility of the FPB - and not the General Assembly - but we have been informed by several FIDE executives that the Presidential Board will endorse the GA decision shortly if necessary.)

Magnus is simply not motivated to continue the GP series with the dramatically changed conditions approved in Dresden, and the uncertainty related to any future changes that may be decided by FIDE. 

On November 27th we sent the following e-mail letter to the FIDE office; 

"Dear Sirs,
The purpose of this e-mail is to comment upon the recent news about FIDE changing the Regulations for the 2008 -2009 Grand Prix cycle and to request your comments to our questions pertaining to this change.
Chess as a sport, chess as an attraction to sponsors, the situation of top chess players in general and the Chess World Championship cycle, are in our opinion best and only served by a system which is transparent, fair and
predictable.
Despite a less than impressive FIDE track record over the past 15 years, the implementation of the Grand Prix 2008 - 2009 did seem to offer such a system.
To our surprise and disbelief we have been informed that the FIDE General Assembly has supported a proposed change of the Regulations of the ongoing cycle to the detriment of the Grand Prix players. The planned match of 
the winner of the Grand Prix and World Cup winners will be replaced with two spots available from each event into an 8-player world championship qualification tournament or 8-player candidate match cycle, and that this
will be decided on the next Presidential Board meeting.
We are currently considering alternative measures in response to this highly significant change, which includes legal action and the withdrawal from the cycle.

Below please find some questions which you will hopefully respond to in order to shed some light on the current and future rights of players taking part in FIDE events.
Is it your understanding, that § 1.4 in the "Regulations for the 2008 -  2009 Grand Prix", in the middle of the cycle, gives the FIDE Presidential Board the right to change the regulations in a way clearly detrimental to the
players as represented by the stipulations described in § 2 in these same regulations and also in the "Players Undertaking"?
- If the answer is no, how do you explain the planned change, and how do you justify the harm inherent to the Grand Prix winner?
- If the answer is yes, do you agree that the agreement in effect between the players and FIDE is highly biased with regard to rights, in the sense that the players have no real rights whatsoever (that cannot be set aside 
by the FIDE Presidential Board) while having to stick to the conditions agreed to in the Players Undertaking and also additional adjustments made by the FIDE Presidential Board?
And if so, do you consider this a viable policy for future agreements between FIDE and world championship cycle participants?
Lastly we would like to mention that our criticism of the latest change of regulations is not directed at the change itself. Long term this may be a viable alternative to the current match planned between the Grand Prix and World Cup winners. But changing the rules dramatically in the middle of a cycle is simply unacceptable, and this is something that should be rather obvious to anyone involved in business or high level sports competitions.

We look forward to your urgent response to these questions."   

The following response was received this morning;

"Dear Mr Carlsen,
Thank you once again for your letter.
The main point of the changes is that instead of qualifying one player from the Grand-Prix for the next stage (semi-final match against the winner of the World Cup), now two players (possibly three in case there is no player
to be qualified by rating) will qualify for an 8-player semi-final tournament. This change has been based on article 17.3 of the regulations and it is necessary as sponsors from Qatar and Montreaux have withdrew from
organising two legs of the Grand-Prix (an unforeseen situation), which puts in danger the system if it leaves the Grand Prix with less than 6 legs and no clear winner. Because of this uncertain situation, and by giving more
qualification spots, FIDE is trying to solve this problem and in the meanwhile is searching to secure, if possible, alternative sponsorship for the remaining GP legs and cycle. As the Grand-Prix has just started this
year with two events completed out of six, no player has yet a clear advantage for first place and we feel that all players are benefited as now two or three places (instead of one) are giving qualification.

Kindly also note that the agreements between the players and FIDE are of course not biased at all. The player's undertaking refers to the Regulations for the 2008-2009 FIDE Grand Prix which can be amended according to its
wording (Art. 1.4). In addition as already said, there are clearly objective and important reasons to amend these regulations in order to save the whole cycle.

We are really expecting your understanding and we are looking forward to even more exciting chess by Magnus.

Best regards,
George Mastrokoukos
FIDE - World Chess Federation "

We do find the response highly unsatisfactory. 
To mention one thing, it is hard to understand how diminishing the value of the Grand Prix series can be interpreted as a way of saving the ongoing cycle.

Having withdrawn from the Grand Prix series Magnus does not have to spend more time and energy on the uncertainty involved, and may fortunately now concentrate on playing several well organised and interesting top level events elsewhere. In the first half of 2009 he has agreed to play some Grand Slam events as well as some great rapid events, starting with a rapid tournament in Gjøvik, Norway January 2nd - 5th and the Corus A from January 16th onwards.    

Henrik Carlsen,
Lommedalen, December 4th, 2008

After Dresden I've been more concerned with the changes related to Grand Prix than with writing a summary from the Olympiad, but we would like to congratulate the Armenian team with their glorious victory in the Open group! 

As anticipated, the Norwegian team ended approximately around the pre-tournament ranking (21^st versus 19^th). Magnus was relieved to score 3.5 in the final 4 rounds to secure a decent overall result, 7.5/11 and a rating performance of 2757.
Kjetil Lie and Jon Ludvig Hammer also did very well. With a few losses at the end Kjetil was out of contention for board prizes, but the 2650+ performance and beating X.Bu of course made the Olympiad a great success for him. Jon Ludvig was really close to taking his 4^th GM norm, but as long as he consistently performs close to or above 2600 it is only a matter of time before he is not only a GM but also a strong GM. 

The Norwegian women performed slightly below expectations. The WIM title secured by Silje Bjerke and the great experience the Olympiad represents for our juniors Katrine Tjølsen and Line Jin Jørgensen were clearly  highlights for our female squad. 

What really stole the attention of Magnus and many others during the latter part of the Olympiad was of course the news from FIDE about changes to the Grand Prix cycle.

First came the short notice cancellation of Doha (about two weeks after we had been told everything was all right and could go ahead and buy plane tickets (which we did).
Going to the new venue Elista in wintertime and over Christmas was not something Magnus wanted to do, and later we have got oral confirmation that this issue has been resolved. (I don't know how and do hope it was done without any harm to other GP participants.) 

Later the really big issue came up.
Without proper prior notice, and on the last day of the FIDE congress, a proposal was approved by the (people still left in the) General Assembly to degrade the GP midway by introducing a new qualifying layer, an 8-player Candidate tournament replacing the match between GP and World Cup winners as qualification for the 2011 World Championship match.
Thursday November 27^th I wrote an e-mail letter of protest to the FIDE office on Magnus' behalf and Monday December 1^st they reverted promising a response to the letter by today (which we have not received yet).
What we want from FIDE are transparent processes, fairness and predictability.
Significantly changing the GP regulations to the detriment of the GP players in the middle of the cycle is clearly unacceptable, and the reactions we consider include legal action and withdrawal from the cycle.  

It is understandable that the FIDE board is unhappy about the fact that several top players decided against taking part in the Grand Prix. But, this should not have come as a big surprise and was anyhow known before the start of the GP cycle. Subsequently giving privileges to the players involved in the current World Championship cycle is obviously not the right way to solve their problem.   
In the (unfortunately) lopsided GP regulations, there's a clause (1.4) stating that 
"The body responsible for any changes to these Regulations is the FIDE Presidential Board."
I'm not a lawyer, but to me this passively oriented wording describing the role of the FPB would typically apply to the resolution of uncertainties or conflicts pertaining to the GP regulations and not as a basis for completely changing the purpose of the cycle midway.  

On a positive note, Magnus today visited his sponsor Smartfish (brand name of the company Pharmalogica marketing Omega-3 fish oil products) together with legendary snow boarder Terje Håkonsen.



They got an update from the Smartfish management, tasted the new juice & fish oil - drinks and played a few games of chess!
More info on Smartfish will soon be available on their currently-in-work site; www.smartfish.no. 

I'll provide an update regarding the GP in a few days. 

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen December 2^nd 2008

Yesterday, about half the players, seconds and accompanying persons joined the interesting excursion to Balaklava near Sevastopol.
Courtesy of the organisers we had an excellent English speaking guide in addition to the Russian speaking.

As a major Black Sea marine base with access to the Mediterranean sea, Sevastopol held such importance during the second world war that the most numerous man-to-man battle of the war took place at the Sapun ridge sheltering the city from the south. The Germans captured Sevastopol in 1942 but in May 1944 two red army regiments conquered the ridge and finally managed to end the German seize.


Our guide, Shirov and Nisipeanu in front of the war artilleri weapon exhibition.

Afterwards we visited the diorama (a physical war scene model with a painting behind giving a vivid impression of the terrible battle) up at the ridge, and later the Balaklava harbour nearby. 

Both Balaklava and Sevastopol served as Soviet submarine bases during the cold war, but it remained a deep secret that the chalkstone mountain next to Balaklava harbour also housed atomic bomb proof submarine repair and storage facilities.



On top of the hill to the left there was a chalkstone quarry, and the activities and noise in the quarry facilitated the secret building of the cavern submarine facilities from 1953 to 1961 and the subsequent use until 1991.  
Although a depressing monument of the cold war, one could not fail to be impressed by the size and engineering of the facilities, with several 10 tons leaden doors shielding the interior, a capacity for 8 large submarines and the support of 3000 people for a month in case of a nuclear attack.
The atomic nuclear war heads stored in the submarine base was sold back to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.




Remnants of 14th century Genovese fortresses at the entrance of the Balaklava harbour.

We were told that Sevastopol itself was in a state of somewhat chaos as they celebrate their 225th anniversary both yesterday and today, but it might be the object of next year's excursion instead. 

Yesterday two photographers from a major US news paper visited Foros and Magnus spent a (too) long session posing for a portrait.        

In the evening we saw the Swedish football team lose on extended time against Spain.
They might still qualify, but need to avoid a loss against the Russians later this week. 

Today Magnus has black against D.Nisipeanu, Rumania. They have played three classic chess draws in the past (in 2004 and 2006). Lets hope it will be an exciting game!

Henrik Carlsen,
Foros, June 15th, 2008

A visit to the International Trade Center in Miskolc is a regular feature of the Leko+ matches.



Peter and Magnus responded to a broad range of questions from the audience and afterwards went through and commented upon a favourite game each. 



Magnus chose his win as white in the Semi-Slav in the Copenhagen part of Sigeman 2004 against P. H. Nielsen, Denmark. Nielsen had been well prepared and improved upon the game Magnus had played in the same variation in the European Championship U-14 the autumn before.
Magnus chose to counterattack instead of keeping the offered material. Nielsen, playing for a win, failed to adapt to the slowly deteriorating position and in the end succumbed to the white kingside attack.   



Peter Leko showed his brilliant win in a sharp Najdorf variation against V.Anand in their rapid game in the Amber 2008 in Nice. 



And of course, autographs!

Earlier in the day some of us (but not Magnus) enjoyed a visit to the beautiful Degenfeld castle and winery in the Tokaji region outside Miskolc. The old winery was renovated and expanded in 1996. High quality white wine is produced in magnificent surroundings featuring many hectares of both vineyard and park, and they offer hotel facilities as well as exquisite meals in the castle.



There is even a swimming pool and tennis court in the park area.  



We were welcomed by hotel director Aladar Dome and we got an interesting introduction to the wine making process. Harvested grapes are crushed and the subsequent grape juice is fermented and matured through storage.
They produce both dry light coloured wines as well as sweet deep yellow dessert wines. The dry light wine is produced by maturing in steel vessels without access to oxygen.  Wine stored in breathing oak barrels is allowed to oxidise.  



The young man is our excellent guide Balazs.   



The sweetness (sugar content) is based on the amount of handpicked noble rotted and dehydrated Aszu grapes (containing little water but lots of sugar) mixed into the base wine.  

Afterwards we were treated to a four-course lunch accompanied by the most excellent Tokaji wines in the out door restaurant in front of the castle. Wow, what a meal! 

Game 5 and 6 will be played at 16:30 and 18 hours tomorrow Saturday. 

Henrik Carlsen,
Miskolc, May 30th 2008

The Madrid visit started yesterday with a radio interview at the Circulo De Bellas Artes (Institute of Fine Arts) in the centre of Madrid followed by an excellent classic Spanish lunch.  

Today we visited the Bernabeu stadium for a sight-seeing through the impressive complex which houses museums, restaurants, a separate mall and a three store Real Madrid shop.
A (somewhat depressing) sign of the times is that the Real Madrid museum supposedly is visited by more people than the extraordinary Prado museum down the street (which features a special Goya exhibition this week). 


Anyhow, Magnus enjoyed both the Bernabeu visit as well as the subsequent lunch at Mexican "Si Senor" close by. 

Simultaneous displays may take the form an exhibition event or a tough match against challenging opponents. Today's simul hosted by, and at, the Institute of Fine Arts in cooperation with the Madrid Chess Federation was certainly of the second category.
Magnus faced "just" 20 opponents, but hardly any was easy prey and the first player did not yield until an hour had passed. Among the opponents, which included the Madrid U12, U14, U16 and U18 champions, there were several 2200+ as well as many players around 2000 rating strength.  



Based on the serious look in his face, maybe Magnus had a premonition of the opponent's true strength. After Magnus overpressed slightly in a rook ending, the opponent declined a draw offer (!) but a few moves later a draw was the result anyhow.  

Magnus generally adapted to the strong opposition and played somewhat slower than usual.
After more than 2,5 hours, the result was 18 wins and 2 draws, and Magnus was well satisified with the result.
(In addition one opponent had created an easily drawn position but seemed confused at the time and resigned instead of performing the necessary additional four checks needed to claim a draw.) 

The organiser had planned to broadcast some 6 games live on internet but due to technical problems the games will probably be uploaded later instead. (I will update this blog entry with a link as soon as I know if and where it can be found.)  Link; http://www.ajedrezfma.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=308

Anyhow the conclusion was; a well organised and interesting simul!
Many thanks to the Institute of Fine Arts, the Madrid Chess Federation as well as event coordinator and owner of Jaque magazine, E.Morejon. 

Tomorrow we are off to Hungary and will arrive in Miscolc on Monday for the Leko-Carlsen match. The opening ceremony takes place on Tuesday and the match starts Wednesday 28th. 

Henrik Carlsen,

Madrid, May 24th 2008

Last Thursday Magnus visited his main sponsor FAST Search & Transfer for a walk-through of recent tournament games and a simultaneous display.

GM Rune Djurhuus had prepared many interesting questions regarding Magnus' perception of the critical situation in a number of the Corus games. In addition to showing lines he had calculated, Magnus also emphasised the importance of the psychological elements involved in the over-the-board decision making with good examples from a couple of the games.

About thirty FAST chess enthusiasts followed the presentation and 19 of them participated in the subsequent simultaneous display.



Just like in September, Rune was the only one scoring against Magnus. A pawn down Magnus put up a good defence and a draw has agreed around move 30.
Master level player and reknown chess blogger Hans Arild Runde presented Magnus with quite some problems. Magnus sacrificed a knight for initiative to avoid a losing position, and ended up having to play a line giving black a perpetual. Missing this Hans Arild blundered mate in two instead. Close...

Representatives from 'Sportsrevyen' had visited Magnus' chess class at the Top Athletes School (NTG) in the morning and they also filmed during the simul at FAST. 
The clip is in Norwegian and the coverage of Magnus starts about 28 minutes into 'Sportsrevyen';  http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/sport/spill/verdi/37958

Again, many thanks to FAST for the ongoing cooperation!
It sure is great to see such a lively and unique chess society within a single company, the size and quality of the audience made the event a rewarding experience for Magnus. 

Friday 8^th Magnus left for Bundesliga in Solingen.
He conceded a draw as white against Jusupow (on Solingen) on Saturday and won as black against Bartel (on Wattenscheid) on Sunday to gain another two rating points.
His team Baden-Baden won both matches and has a full score and five point lead in the Bundesliga. 

Sunday I met with Magnus in Solingen and some 48 hours later we arrived in Morelia after successful on-time flights Eindhoven-Madrid and Madrid-Mexico City as well as the 3,5 hours car drive Mexico City-Morelia. 

Henrik Carlsen
Morelia, February 13^th 2008

We received the sad news today that former World Champion Bobby Fischer has passed away at the age of 64.
He was controversial as a person but as chess player maybe the greatest ever. 

His book "My 60 Memorable Games" made a great impression, and I went through a number of the games with Magnus 8 or 9 years ago. 

I'll revert with Magnus comments to Corus round 5 and 6 tomorrow morning. 

Henrik Carlsen
Wijk aan Zee, January 18^th, 2008 

After a well deserved and needed break of a month, the 1st quarter of 2008 will be busy for Magnus with Corus, Morelia-Linares and Amber Rapid & Blindfold like in 2007.

Travelling to Holland was a delight. (5,5 hours from door to hour, and the KLM flight was in a new airplane with better seats, nice food, on time and low cost!)
Magnus (and I) arrived Thursday for the traditional "meet & greet". After changing hotel every year from 2004, we're this time in the same Zeeduin (A-group hotel) as last year. Lets hope this becomes a tradition!
 
Yesterdays opening ceremony was as last year on the Corus premises in Ilmuijden near by.
The opening remarks of organising committee chairman Dolf Vos and Corus top management representatives was warm, brief and to the point as usual.
The Indian Tata group is owning Corus, and the great news this year was the decision to continue the Corus tradition at least 5 more years. Thank You! 

The Corus field is as strong as ever despite the progress on January 2008 FIDE rating of the only top 13 players missing (Morozevish, Svidler and Shirov).
Magnus is ranked 10 in the tournament with an expected score of 6.3 points. 

This year also the B-group is very strong (with Cheparinov, Bacrot, Short etc).  

In the drawing of lots statistics keep on catching up with Magnus. His early affinity to white is fading, and he got start number 12 this time.
              



In the first round Magnus is black against Mamedyarov. Both are considered exciting players but their first 4 tournament encounters have all ended draw.

The sun is shining in Wijk, lets hope we get lots of exciting games today and in the days to come! 

Henrik Carlsen
Wijk aan Zee, January 12^th, 2008

Thursday December 20^th Magnus and I were invited to the Minister of Education Baard Vegar Solhjell. Mr. Solhjell is a chess enthusiast and used to be a decent junior player.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Norwegian school system and chess.

In Norway he have a strong public school and only a very low percentage of children attending private schools. The minister was interested in our views on how to improve the school system as Magnus' background is somewhat special.
At 6, Magnus was interested and quick in arithmetic calculations in the first grade but lost interest and in fact also much of his speed by the time he finished secondary school. Obviously the process of motivating him and giving him sufficient challenges did not succeed satisfactorily.

When we travelled abroad for a year during 2003-4 Magnus and his sisters probably spent an hour or less per day on school work but anyhow they received praise at school for their level of knowledge and maturity upon their return.     

We agreed that continues improvement in the qualifications of teachers, making use of available modern educational and IT tools and taking advantage of the innate intellectual curiosity of children could improve the Norwegian school further. 

Mr. Solhjell was also interested in experiences from other countries on chess in school.
Combined with the aspiration of Tromsoe city to arrange the 2014 Chess Olympics, the Norwegian Chess Federation and chess enthusiasts alike are in a unique situation to make progress on introducing chess in school to help improve the school system.   



Magnus duly won the blitz game but was really impressed by many of the good and natural positional moves played by the minister.  

The newspaper VG reported (in Norwegian) from the meeting; http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/elevavisen/artikkel.php?artid=191600 

Lastly, Merry Christmas from Lommedalen!
(We have beautiful winter weather and good skiing conditions. Here at 60 degrees north there's about 7 hours daylight but very little sunshine due to the surrounding hills.)

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, December 23rd, 2007 

Magnus has been following the World Championship closely and his favourites to win the title were clearly Kramnik and Anand.
Magnus has of course been very impressed by Anand's performance and his opening preparation has been fantastic. He is also impressed by Gelfand who could easily have added another win or two based on his positions.

After school today Magnus visited his main sponsor FAST Search & Transfer.
See article http://blog.magnuschess.com/1182505928_fast_search__transfer.html 
FAST has an impressive chess community headed by GM Djurhuus, and more than 30 people had gathered for pizza and to hear Magnus present two of his most important wins this year (against Ivantchuk and Radjabov) and make a 20-board simultaneous display.
 
 


In a friendly and nice environment Magnus in the end won 19 games and drew a worse ending against Djurhuus.  

After more than one month at home attending school Magnus will have a bussy 4^th quarter starting with the ECC in Turkey next week.           

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, September 27th

A lot has been said and meant about the format and frequent changes of the World Championship cycle as well as the privileges of former champions.
Opinions on the format are mostly subjective, while the privileges and frequent changes lend themselves to objective analytical evaluation. 

V. Kramnik will be playing in Mexico. More surprisingly he will get a re-match against the winner irrespective of the outcome.There are arguments for this solution - he did beat Kasparov in 2000, defended his title against Leko in 2004 and beat Topalov in 2006, the reintroduction of FIDE WC matches combined with the fact that Kramnik has not lost a WC match yet counts in his favour. But there are also strong arguments against. He did not allow Kasparov a re-match, he was not a FIDE World Champion before 2006, to public knowledge a re-match was not part of the Elista 2006 match agreement, and it is obviously unfair to the winner and runner up in Mexico if Kramnik ends 3^rd or worse.
In conclusion it is obvious that he has got a (too) good deal. Why? Maybe simply because it is easier to say yes and to push potential problems in front of you rather than say no. The right of Kramnik was a difficult issue and the proponent a strong name and representative of Russia, while the potential losers are currently nameless and less likely to speak up.

The story about Topalov's sudden right to a challenger match against the World Cup winner follows the same lines. Although it seems odd to arrange Mexico without Topalov, he fell for his own Elista rules.
The short story is; he obviously also got a (too) good deal.
FIDE yielded to a strong Bulgarian delegation at the cost of the nameless World Cup winner and runner-up.
In effect the World Cup final, as a WC match qualifier, has been relegated to a semi-final, the semi-final to a quarter-final etc.            

Some of the criticism of FIDE relates the frequent changes to the purported lack of democracy and the central fiefdom of FIDE as if these are strengths. To me it is more a sign of weakness and their eager want of support. Take politics in general. Wherever we see frequent chance of mind and diverse support for initiatives in spreading directions it is usually a frenetic and populist search for public (and voters) support. 

From this angle Global Chess can contribute significantly in the future. If they manage to find broad corporate sponsorship for the World Championship cycle and the planned Grand Prix series, their main concern will (and have to) be the sponsors. It will not be the whims of FIDE leadership and it will not be to win short term support from individual federations or chess professionals.
Global Chess face a difficult task. It would probably be much easier to sell chess in this future stable environment. But they need to sell it now to get there, (a catch-22). But if Bessel Kok and Jeoffrey Borg are as good as I think they are, they will get there! 

On a positive note, Magnus qualified on rating and looks forward to the World Cup in Khanty-Mansyisk.
He is happy about the return to the KO format, and the memories from 2005 are of course good.
Money prices are also slightly higher than in 2005 so that the event should attract most of the world elite.
 
Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, August 21th

Hamar, beautifully situated by the inland Mjoesa lake, was one of the Olympic cities back in 1994. From July 7^th-14^th it hosted the Norwegian Chess Championship 2007.

The top (Elite) group featured four GM's, but with Agdestein and Johannessen missing, Magnus decided not to participate this time.
(He has participated in the 8 consecutive championships 1999-2006 with the results: No.13 U-11, no.1 U-11, no.6 U-20, and 5 times in Elite - 4/9, 5.5/9, 2^nd on tie-break, 2^nd on tie-break, 1^st on tie-break).

The GM's disappointed a bit this time although top-seed GM Kjetil A.Lie did share the lead going in to the last round. In the end the Porsgrunn team took the tripple (!) with FM Espen Lie (Kjetil's younger brother) and FM Geir Sune Tallaksen sharing 1^st with 6,5/9 (they will play a rematch for the title), with Kjetil 3^rd at 6/9.

Other Norwegian Champions: Inge S.Skrondal U-20, Katrine Kjølsen U-16, Paal Andreas Hansen U-13, Peter Flermoen U-11 (with 9/9!), and Ragnar Hoen, +60. Congratulations!

In addition to the main tournament, side-events included a football tournament, the Blitz Championship (won by Simen Agdestein), team-Blitz with rating-based time-handicap, and team-talking-chess.
(The latter is a Hans Olav Lahlum invention. 4 players on each team play altogether 6 games simultaneously with 12 minutes each on the clock and they may walk about and talk freely within the team during the games. To me this did not sound particularly interesting when I first heard of the idea, but believe me, it's really great fun for both participants and spectators as many a Gausdal participant has experienced.) 

Magnus visited the championship the last 2-3 days to be with friends and follow the event.
He also participated in the team-talking-chess joining his sister Ingrid's (13) girl team (consisting of overall U-16 winner 14-year old Katrine, and promissing 15-year old Marianne) and they duly won all their matches (with individual score +32=4) including the final against the family Moen.      


                                                                                    

                                                                                        Photos by Signe Oeen Carlsen

More than 500 people participated in the championship which is truly the greatest annual Norwegian chess event where you can play chess, socialize with your chess friends and enjoy local hospitality. 
The Hamar organisors arranged another successful championship. Thank You!

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, July 15th

As mentioned early this year, the search technology provider Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) will be Magnus' main sponsor from July 1st.

They both share a strong ambition of being the number one player in their field of expertise, and the belief that this is achievable with the right focus, hard work and the right resources.

For Magnus it is exciting to cooperate with the best Norwegian international software company. This cooperation ensures that Magnus can focus on improving his chess.

More about the kick-of (in Norwegian) at http://e24.no/selskap/FAST/article1838360.ece

H.Carlsen,
June 22nd 

Last weekend Magnus visited his Elista second GM Kjetil Lie during the theatre festival in Porsgrunn (150 km southwest of Oslo) to play blindfold against Kjetil, a simul together with Kjetil making alternating moves and to practice pool.
Kjetil is taking a year off from his school job to play chess full time with the help of local sponsors.
 
Following his blindfold pratice in Denmark and Monaco Amber Magnus early established a promising position with the black pieces in the blindfold debut of Kjetil. A few relaxed moves by Magnus brought tension back into the game, but Kjetil allowed Magnus to mate him in the end.
In the 40 board simul Jarle Nilsen (was to close to winning) and young promissing Timmie Nygaard made draws.
 
You can find the blindfold game at http://www.bergensjakk.no/partier/porsgrunnblind2007.htm and pictures at Nettavisen at http://www.nettavisen.no/sjakk/article1130462.ece    

H.Carlsen 

Yesterday, in round 7 Magnus won a nice game against veteran and runner-up GM Lajos Portisch.
The Hungarian choose an unusual opening and tried to hang on to his acquisition on c4. Magnus was slightly better when he opted for an exchange sack with Rxd5 instead of Bxd5.
The position was probably unclear or better for white with several only-moves for black to try to secure his king.After Nxb5 Lajos should have played Qxb5 instead of axb5 with good drawing chances in the queen endgame. As it turned out white will win the b-pawn to be 2 pawns up and Portisch resigned.
Krasenkow struggled against the dangerous tactician Lie but in the end he won to keep within half a point of Magnus. 

Today, as black against IM Krush Magnus thought he was slightly better after the opening, but then missed several tactics, most notably, after Qc4, Rd2, Qxb5, then c4 wins a piece for white. Afterwards Magnus was slightly worse, but Krush was happy to simplify to a drawn rook ending.
Kuloats, as black against Krasenkow won a pawn early and looked clearly better until Krasenkow got a tactical trick in the endgame to secure a draw. Portisch and Rozentalis won to reach +2 and shared third.

Before the last round Magnus is leading with 6/8 ahead of Krasenkow at 5,5/8, and as they meet tomorrow one of them will win the group (Magnus in case of draw).
Their expected scores are 6,36 and 6 points respectively so they are both on track. 

In GM-B Bromberger continued his impressive performance, winning with white (yesterday) and drawing with black today reaching 6,5/8.

H.Carlsen
Gausdal, April 25th 20007

Magnus, and the rest of his family, are soon travelling to Gausdal, situated in the middle of Southern Norway, to participate in the tournament starting today at the Gausdal Hoyfjellshotell.
Organiser Hans Olav Lahlum has arranged many tournaments at Gausdal over the last 6-7 years and his efforts are finally starting to pay off in the sense that nearly 100 players will participate in the three groups (GM-A, GM-B and Elo-group) this time !

Round 1 start at 19 hours and Magnus has black against GM Kaido Kulaots.
All GM-A games are transferred live on various sites for (instance  www.live.sjakk.net/ ).

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, April 18th 2006

Picture from Bundesliga March 31st by Hartmut Metz.

After I left Monaco, and was later replaced by Peter Heine,  Magnus played 6 more games out of which 4 was decided. But please don't blame his earlier draws on me....  (or his fighting spirit on Peter Heine....)
Apart from his loss to Kramnik's excellent preparation in the Botvinnik-variation ( hybrid Vienna, or whatever it's called) Magnus won his other 3 last rapid games to claim shared 2^nd in the rapid segment.
Expectations have grown after his Linares success, but the rapid result is of course a great achievement for Magnus, and -1 after 22 rounds overall can also clearly be described as a success for a 16 year old in his first Monaco participation.
Congratulations to the overall clear winner (and clear blindfold winner) Kramnik and clear rapid winner Anand!   
Magnus travelled to Baden-Baden last Friday together with a number of the Monaco participants and on Saturday Oos-Baden duly secured another Bundesliga title after 6-2 against Werder Bremen.
Magnus won his game against Hracek after a nice combination in the end-game. 
Sunday Oos-Baden struggled and looked clearly worse on 4 or 5 boards but respectful opponents accepted draws on all boards in the end. Magnus sacked a pawn as black and put some pressure on Kempinski as black, but the rook endgame was an obvious draw. 
With 3 out of 4 in his two Bundesliga weekends Magnus looks to gain some 5 rating points. 

Which brings us to the April 1st rating list.
Magnus wouldn't have lost any sleep over Linares being rated in July, but anyhow it was good to see that FIDE in the end backed down and followed their earlier practice of including Linares on the April list and hence promoting Anand to a well deserved 1^st spot. Congratulations !

The uncertainty with which the chess world received the Chessbase news of FIDE corrections on April 1 was indeed amusing and brought Easter excitement (probably) beyond intentions!
Magnus is happy to keep his 2^nd spot on the Junior list and being 22^nd on the overall top list. (Many players have climbed to or above 2700 and found it hard to maintain this level.)  

Clear guidelines and timely and appropriate communication from FIDE would ensure that these incidents can be avoided in the future. 

It may be interesting to take a balanced look at Magnus' performances in super-tournaments over the last 5 months. (I maintain that even at this high level, there are some partially arbitrary factors effecting the result in individual tournaments - for instance the opening choice and psyche / physical condition of your opponents in individual games, as well as your own feelings etc. Hence it is not always meaningful to try to explain in detail the reasons for player's results in individual tournaments.)
With 58 games, including rapid and blindfold, but excluding blitz, (of which 50 against 2700+ opponents) in 5 months, there should emerge a clear picture or at least a pattern as arbitrary factors start to balance out.
Tal Memorial seems to have reflected Magnus strength at the time (no real winning chances but hard to beat), while Corus clearly was a "bad" tournament (partly due to many missed opportunities and an unusual number of erroneous calculations). Intuition tells us that Linares clearly was a "good" tournament although it is not so easy to pinpoint the details of this "luck". (OK, he got some "lucky" half-points but also shed half-points to for instance Aronian and Anand that may have been saved on a "good" day.)
In Monaco, he missed several "open goals" but in the end had some "luck" so that in total the result seems fairly representative.
It seems reasonable to conclude that although Magnus still is struggling in the opening, he has already adapted to playing high level tournaments and may travel to for instance Elista, Dormund (and Biel) with a reasonable degree of self confidence.       

His next tournament will be Gausdal GM A April 18-26. 

Henrik Carlsen,
Lommedalen, April 2nd, 2007

Impressive live coverage of players and moves in the reception of Anibal Hotel. Some of the players even participated in 1991.

In round 6 Magnus faced Hungarian Peter Leko. Would their tennis yesterday impact their game today ?  It probably didn't, yesterday’s tennis turned out to be their fiercest clash yet in this tournament :-)

Their first chess encounter in a top tournament (Tal Memorial, November 2006) ended in a draw. On that occasion Magnus declined to repeat moves but ended up clearly worse and was probably lost at some point.
Today Magnus had a lot more confidence but was surprised in the opening. Peter does not play the Slav often. They followed the line from Magnus-Topalov (round 5), and Magnus spent some time considering deviating. On move 15, Peter did so instead with Bb4 and after 16.Rf1 Peter put his bishop back on d6. Magnus thought for a while but felt he would be worse if he avoided the repetition although (as the spectators could see from his body language) he did not really want a draw.
Maybe Peter felt Magnus should be the one to declare the draw, having made the 3^rd repetition. Before playing 21.Re1 Magnus stopped the clock and a draw was agreed. It is not often you see a 4-fold repetition of moves at top level :-)  

We have been asked if the recent success and taking the lead in the tournament made Magnus more inclined to accept a draw to secure his position. It is definitely not the case. With his new confidence he  says he is generally more willing then ever to play on.  

Aronian-Topalov was drawn even before Magnus-P.Leko, and Morozevich-Svidler followed suit. Anand seemed to struggle as white against Ivantchuk but after Ivantchuk lost his d-pawn and had 5 minutes left on 10 moves, todays draw score was completed.
This leaves Magnus in the lead with 4 out of 6 ahead of Anand and Aronian with 3.5. The next 4 have 50%, Topalov and Morozevich are trailing with 2 points.

Henrik Carlsen,
Morelia, February 24^th 2007

Linares/Morelia opening ceremony in 4 hours! Well adjusted to local time, Magnus is ready to go.
 
But first, let me mention that we are sorry to hear about the experiences of Teimur Radjabov and his father and the fact that Teimur has withdrawn from the tournament. We appreciate the fact that Ivantchuk could replace him on such short notice.  

In addition to what I wrote about Magnus’ trainers last week, there are also sponsors and accompanying persons who have contributed to Magnus’ road to Linares. 

When Magnus began his extensive travelling to chess tournaments in 2000/1 it soon became apparent that it was a costly sport. I guess our family could afford this but it was also a question of treating all our children just, so it sure made things easier when Magnus attracted sponsors willing to help him on his road. 

The IT consulting company Computas had already sponsored some chess events, and with the help of Simen Agdestein we entered a sponsor agreement with Computas for 2002 wherein they covered Magnus cost of training and travelling to chess tournaments. Due to a downturn in their business, Computas had to terminate the agreement during the year, but anyhow it was a great help!

In 2002 Magnus participated in the top group in the Norwegian Championship for the first time and he also got a lot of publicity for his shared first in the World Youth Championship - Boys under 12. With the help of Simens brother Espen, and also Simen himself, we got a sponsor agreement with Microsoft Norge for 2003, and it was subsequently extended to 2004 and 2005. In line with the business idea of their software, they wanted to support a young talent in fulfilling his potential. Microsoft covered a large part of his travelling costs as well as providing him with a strong tablet laptop. Thank you!

From July this year, Magnus will enter a sponsor agreement with IT-company FAST Search & Transfer, a Norwegian search vendor. In line with their ambition of being the best in their business, FAST wants to support Magnus’ ambition of reaching the top in the chess world! 

Travelling to tournaments (more than 500 days the last 5-6 years), Magnus mainly been accompanied by family and relatives. I have accompanied him to more than half the tournaments, but significant contributions have also been made by his second Peter H.Nielsen, his whole family together (mother and 3 sisters and myself), his 17-year old sister Ellen (who started playing tournaments at 13 and is now in the women national team group), his mother Sigrun, grandpa Sverre as well as grandma Kate. Thank you!
 
I would also like to thank Chessbase and Fredrick Friedel who have been supportive and has provided him with lots of chess software (engines, databases and opening DVD’s).       

Henrik Carlsen,
Morelia, Mexico, February 16^th 2007

Tomorrow Magnus hits the road again. Flying to Madrid, and Friday onwards to Mexico City for a week in the mountains to adjust to Mexican time before Round 1 in Morelia Feb 17^th.
Linares 2007! A few years back the odds against a 16 year old Norwegian being invited to the 8-man top event would seem pretty high, I would say insurmountable. Just to participate will be an extraordinary experience and a great achievement and I hope chess enthusiasts will appreciate his participation irrespective of the final result. 
 
At chess events I’m often asked about his chess training and below I’ll mention the most important contributors to his climb to World Top 25 before turning 16. After starting to work on chess on his own at the age of 8 he has to a large extent been self-going, driven by curiosity and thriving on success.More than 90% of the time he has spent on chess over the last 8 years has been on his own; playing, investigating and repeating positions and games on the board, reading books, playing on ICC and playing tournament games. Anyhow, his teachers have probably been a decisive contributing factor. 

In addition to teaching him the moves and playing a few games / month with him, my most important contribution is probably stopping to give him (poor) advice early in his career. At one of his first adult tournament at the age of 9 a Norwegian FM overheard our analysis and pointed out that my line of reasoning was principly flawed. I thought “OK, I will not make that mistake again!”. 

During a Norwegian Grand Prix (Open) tournament at the Top Athletes School in January 2000, some of his games were brought to the attention of Simen Agdestein who took a strong interest in him. Simen told me that Magnus could become a GM in 5 years. (Exactly 4 years later Magnus achieved his first GM norm and 3 months onwards his third !) Simen offered Magnus lessons with his assistant Torbjørn Ringdal-Hansen (an FM, with a GM norm). Alone or together with another young player Magnus meet with Torbjørn for an hour or two once or twice a week when at home between tournaments for nearly two years. Torbjørn is a very good teacher, is clever with children and Magnus clearly benefited from the joyous atmosphere of the sessions.  

Magnus’ strength was growing and when Torbjørn was leaving to study in another town, Simen Agdestein took over. They had about 30-50 sessions of 1-4 hours during 2002 and the spring of 2003, mainly to go through the games Magnus played at tournaments but also did some other work. Magnus obviously benefited greatly from Simens broad experience and the way he steered their analysis with his energetic and creative style. Simen has always been helpful and understanding.They kept in contact, but less frequently until 2006. Then their contact increased again in august when Magnus joined the Top Athletes School, where Simen teaches chess, to benefit from the flexibility they offer young high school athletes. When home Magnus now has about 14 hours of chess per week at school.  

Magnus meet Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen when Peter was coaching the Norwegian national team in 2003 and over the last 2-3 years they have worked together for two weeks, stay in contact via Internett and Peter has seconded Magnus in 4 or 5 tournaments. Apart from being a world class opening expert, Peter is a remarkably nice man, patient and with a great sense of humour. 

Another Norwegian who has provided a lot of support for Magnus is IA and organiser Hans Olav Lahlum. He has scheduled and arranged bi- or tri-annual tournaments at Gausdal over the last 6 years much with Magnus in mind. Due to his increasing strength and favourable tournament invitations, Magnus is not playing much at Gausdal any longer, but his tenfold tournament participation up there has certainly been a most valuable contribution. It is great to play on “home ground” and combine chess and cross-country skiing. 

Magnus has also been fortunate enough to spend two training session with Garry Kasparov himself, and Garry and his team have been very supportive of Magnus. These sessions were of unique importance not only because of the extremely high quality Garry brings to the analysis board but also as an eye opener of the long, difficult and laborious road leading to the top. Despite being a GM, Magnus really felt like a pupil and novice in the analysis. (It was the first time he had felt like this for many years!) I’m sure these experiences has contributed considerably to his development over the last 2 years.
    
Thursday Magnus plays a simul in Madrid and then Linares/Morelia is next!  

H.Carlsen, February 6^th 2007

January 25th: Restday in Wijk. And what a beautiful day ! The storm is long gone, the temperature is around zero and the sun is shining.

Magnus has 3/10 and no gains and is obviously not happy about this.
So what are the +'s and -'s so far ?

Most importantly his first encounter with nearly all the top chess players of the world is of course a great and valuable experience for a young Norwegian.
Drawing Aronian with black, after Aronian making the offer after only 20 moves, was an important display of strenght prior to their Candidate matches.
Magnus certainly was happy about drawing reigning World Champion Kramnik with black as well !
He has had winning positions in 2 games as opposed to Tal Memorial where he didn't have any.
His losses have mainly been caused by his own flawed calculations and not so much by a lack of understanding or superiority of the opponents.

On the minus side is the spoilt winning chances and an unusual number of decisive flawed calculations (against Navara, Motylev, Ponomariov, Svidler, Topalov).

In the remaining rounds Magnus faces relatively easier opposition. White against Van Wely and Shirov and black against Karjakin.
 
Lastly, all credits to the Corus organiser for staging another great tournament festival !

H.Carlsen, Wijk aan Zee