Magnus Carlsen

On the free day Saturday I joined the excursion offered by the organiser while Magnus chose to sleep long and rest.
The first stop was a traditional factory for handmade carpets.


Despite having to start their career at a very early age, the relatively strenuous work and long hours, being a knitter is considered a prestigious job and the knowledge is often passed down from mother to daughter etc.
Doing some mathematics (30-60 threads per square centimetre multiplies to 10-20 million threads for a 5mx7m carpet), it suddenly made sense that it takes some 8 months to finish one large carpet despite the nimble trained hands at work.


The finished carpets are washed and stretched and sure are beautiful but also comes at a cost of 2-200 kusd a piece dependant on fabric and size. (The above is a 2500 usd silk carpet.)


The next stop for the sightseeing caravan was the war cemetery near the seaside with a breathtaking view of Baku and the harbour.


Afterwards we enjoyed a nice lunch with folklore music in the 14th century Caravansara restaurant (and hotel) within the old city close to the maiden tower.

Magnus preferred a game of table tennis, while most of the players continued from the sightseeing to join the football match between the Azeri and a mixed "All star team". After 7-7, the stars won the penalty shootout.

Round 6 brought 3 more decisive games. Cheparinov countered against Inarkiev to score his first win, Kamsky won a long, tense and probably very good game against Adams, while Svidler outplayed Karjakin.

Magnus played 1.Nf3 against Gashimov and after a quite set up he found a very promising continuation against blacks somewhat passive play. After 18.Nb5 Bxb5 19.cxb5 he was clearly better, but afterwards he claimed that his 23.Bd2 allowing the black bishop to go to d4 was a clear mistake. 
Magnus continued to put some pressure on Gashimov but while Magnus made some more inaccuracies while Gashimov defended well, the position got closer to equal and after the exchange of queens, black played 35...d5 and Magnus found nothing better than forcing a draw.

Magnus was clearly not happy with the outcome of the game, but if he continues to create an advantage in the middle game the chance of scoring more wins are of course very much present.

Today Magnus is black against home favourite Radjabov. Let?s hope for a great fight!

Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, April 28th 2008

  

Magnus losing the semi-final against Kamsky is old news of course. I'm sorry about late update of the blog. This is partly priorities, but mainly due to lack of internet connection at the hotel in Khanty-Mansiysk early this week, and the fact that I was out travelling when Magnus returned to Norway on Wednesday.

The purpose of this late review of round 6 is to present Magnus own comments and to put his World Cup performance in perspective. 

Magnus again got white in the first game in his 6^th round encounter with Kamsky, and he tried to surprise his opponent by playing the Scotch. He had not expected the unusual bxc6 but knew about the line with Qh4. He thought he had seen a game where Glek scored a convincing win but could not remember the variations.
Choosing the not very ambitious Qe2 and Be3, he spent a lot of time on the clock but could not think clearly.
It seems that both players assumed black was slightly better in the endgame. Magnus was satisfied to find b4! which forces a draw after cxb4 Rc7 Rc8 Rxc8 Bxc8 Rb1 Rc2 Rb4 with a complete extortion of both sides remaining forces.    

As black Magnus chose the Petroff as Kamsky seemed to have avoided this opening after his comeback. Magnus made a mistake in the opening, when playing 8...Nc6 instantly, he soon discovered that 9.Nc3 immediately led to position that he had tried to avoid all along (by playing Be7 and Bg4). Neither Bxf3 gxf3 nor Bb4 Nxe4! with a strong initiative for the exchange appealed to Magnus. After a very unusual 40 minutes think he decided to play Bg6 knowing that after Bd2 white would have a long term advantage. Kamsky later went on to develop his initiative efficiently and after some further inaccuracies from Magnus it turned out that the position was nearly hopeless. Pity for Magnus but it must be said that Kamsky with his powerful play no doubt deserved to advance to the final. (Where he is now leading 1,5-0,5 after an impressive demolition of Shirov today.)      

The World Cups arranged up to 2004 attracted a majority of the top 50 players in the world, but not necessary a majority of the top 5 or 10. The status of the championships was obviously affected by the competing parallel cycles.
The top 3 players in the World did not participate in 2005 and 3 of the top4 neither in 2007. Still, the legitimacy is enhanced with respect to the status as a qualification event for the final World Championship phase.
In 2005 four players were directly qualified for the WC Tournament and a 5^th (Kramnik) stayed sidelined until the match against Topalov. In 2007 there are just three players (Anand, Kramnik and Topalov) pre-qualified for the remaining 2009 World Championship cycle. 4 more top20 players (Leko, Morozevich, Gelfand and Polgar) decided against participating, but with 26 out of the top 33 players in the World and a total of 69 players above 2600, the World Cup was a very strong qualification tournament. (Just ask the top seeds Ivanchuk, Mamedyarov and Radjabov...) 

Through his shared 3^rd place Magnus is qualified for the Grand Prix cycle 2008-9 and hence the 2010-2011 World Championship cycle. He was among the last 7 players left in the 2009 World Championship cycle(!) and he gained valuable rating points advancing to an expected 13^th place on the FIDE January 2008 list.
His only slightly older adversary S.Karjakin showed a very impressive performance in Khanty-Mansiysk and reached the semi-final to share 3^rd with Magnus. On the January list only 1 point is expected to divide them (Magnus 2733, Karjakin 2732) at the top of the Junior list.
This bodes well for a sharp and exciting battle for the World Junior throne over the next 3 years! 

After returning to Norway Magnus is back in school.
He still enjoys the pleasant feeling of his successful achievements in Russia, and he really appreciates all the support and encouragement he has received via the internet and through blog comments!
We would also like to thank the main sponsor FAST for the successful cooperation this autumn, GM Kjetil Lie for his great help and support in Khanty-Mansiysk, his second and training partner on several occasions Peter H. Nielsen as well as his school teacher Simen Agdestein. 

My only concern after such tremendous results throughout 2007 is that expectations will rise further.
(I was expecting to be in a position to say that we should allow Magnus another year or two to stabilize around the 2700 level but with one 2750 performance after the other, this does not seem very ambitious right now.)
Still, the emphasis should be on gaining experience at top level tournaments, enjoy playing chess, learn as much as possible and not focus much on results. 

The 1^st quarter schedule for Magnus is much the same as this year; Corus A in January, Linares in February/March and Monaco in March!
It is a very tight programme, but an extenuating aspect is that Magnus is getting used to top level tournaments and no longer have to make an extraordinary effort in every game. (I've no doubts it will be tough though.)
Magnus' first ambition is to perform significantly better at Corus in 2008 than this year. 

Over Christmas he will annotate some of his recent games from Tal Memorial and the World Cup and hopefully go some skiing in the beautiful surroundings of Lommedalen!    

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, December 14th, 2007

Just before round 5 we received the information that the semi-finalists are qualified for the new Grand Prix 2008-2009 series. This added an extra flavour to the quarter final fights.  

Magnus was up against Ivan Cheparinov, Bulgaria (Oct.2007 rating 2670, but unofficially already well above 2700). He is known as Topalov' second, but by now he has become a very strong grandmaster himself.
He had made an impressive performance in the first four rounds, including the elimination of 2^nd seed S.Mamedyarov. 
Magnus was white in the first game and played 1.d4 followed by 3.Bg5 avoiding the Kings Indian. After aggressive play by black the computers like black's position but Magnus felt that his position was strategically superior. Cheparinov managed to create complications although Magnus had anticipated f5 and Be5 and felt in control.
After exchanging a rook and the queen he had the better chances in the endgame and felt he did some good manouvers improving his position.
At one point he thought Cheparinov could equalize with 41...e5! instead of Kf6
After exchanging the a-pawn for the b-pawn and getting his knight to e6, he could finally pursue his plan Be4-c6-e8-f7 but spent far to much time so that he was in time trouble when entering the bishop and 2 pawns versus 4 pawns ending.
He looked at Ke5 thinking it would be winning until he saw a ghost after Kf4 (e5+, but it doesn't work for black after all). Having spent all his remaining time, he played Kd3? in panic without having calculated it at all. 
The rest of the ending was played with increments only, and Magnus was not able to calculate properly.
Fortunately for Magnus the same applied to Cheparinov who did not find the drawing lines and Magnus could finish him off with the sequence Kc4, Bg2 and Be4! in the end winning the game.
His third white victory in a row! 
Somehow the increments don't seem to help the players as much as would be expected. Magnus agrees that this may have to do with the notation. It doesn't take that many seconds but it breaks the flow of thought and rhythm of the game as you obviously use a different part of the brain for this activity.
(Some times it seems as if the quality of rapid games without notation can be higher in time trouble despite only 10 seconds increment).      

Shirov again won convincingly with the white pieces against Jakovenko and the other two games ended drawn. (Quite impressive by Kamsky by the way as he arrived for the round prepared to play white against Ponomariov and soon had a difficult position as black (!), but managed to save the game in the end.) 

Today Magnus played the same line as he beat Jakovenko with in the Tal Memorial. Both players blitzed out some 20 moves (and Cheparinov even another 5!)
Interestingly the computers like black until 23.Rxe3. After this it becomes obvious that black has to give up a pawn and has the worse ending due to the misplaced queen. A great preparation by Cheparinov (or even Topalov maybe?)

Magnus found a good defence with Ra8-d8-d7, Rf8-d8, f6 and Qf7, and after exchanging queens it is not obvious how white can utilize the extra pawn.
The fighter Cheparinov tried various plans but Magnus found g7-g5-g4 which he was quite satisfied with.
White tried Rb5-b6-a6-a8-d8-d6-d5 but did not seem to make progress. In the must-win situation Ivan returned the pawn and Magnus countered with Rd7+ and Rd4 after which black probably is better (if any). Cheparinov continued to try but Magnus wins another pawn and after exchanging one rook black is better.

After 80 moves Magnus repeats moves and this time Cheparinov took the draw as the alternative was to be clearly worse and probably lose. 
Advancing to the semi-final Magnus' comment was: "I'm very happy about advancing as I had not expected to reach the semi-finals. Now anything may happen!"

Kamsky seemed better prepared in the opening today and won a nice game against Ponomariov.
Shirov outplayed Jakovenko who was in a must-win position, to win 2-0! And he is the only player left who have not played a single tie-break!
Alekseev-Karjakin ended in a draw and they will play tie-break tomorrow for the last semi-final spot (against Shirov). 

Sunday December 9^th Magnus plays white against Kamsky (2714) who has the exact same October 2007 rating as Magnus!
(Magnus inherits the pairing position of Cheparinov/Mamedyarov (no.2) and therefore does not change opening colour this round either.) 

He is quite tired after the tough battles in the proceeding rounds and nearly a month continuous tournament activity in Russia, but he feels very motivated going into the semi's. 

Thanks for all the great support in this blog and on other internet sites! 

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, December 7th, 2007 

Somewhat surprisingly only 3 out of 8 matches went to tie-break today.  
Shirov has won all his matches outright and after winning as black against Akopian yesterday he showed his usual fire with an early piece sack! He got 3 pawns for the knight and seemed to easily draw the ending to win 1,5-0,5.
Ponomariov advanced by holding Sasikiran to a draw with black while both Karjakin and Cheparinov won as black against Nisipeanu and Wang to advance. Karjakin cleverly held on to the pawn sacked by Nisipeanu on g4 while Cheparinov played a great attacking King Indian. 
Current highest seed Aronian and 3^rd seed Svidler both drew their matches against Jakovenko and Kamsky and has to play tie-break tomorrow. The same goes for Alekseev-Bareev. 

As black against Adams Magnus was a bit tired today as he had thought too much about the game late last night.
He felt reasonably happy about the opening after repeating his 10.d5!? against the Ruy Lopez. There should be sufficient compensation for the pawn with initiative and the (now famous) pair of bishops. 
However, Magnus missed a few things, like Qd3, and as a result he had to make quite some consessions. Despite having much more time on the clock he was suddenly just a pawn down before the time control. For nearly 2 hours he suffered the queen and bishop ending while Adams made progress moving his king to the queenside. Magnus thought Adams could win at one point with Ka5, but in the continuous time trouble Adams instead chose a plan with Qa8 trying to put black in zugswang. He had probably missed the nice blow 78... Bxc5+.  After Kxc5 white has nothing better than allowing a perpetual, and after the played 79.dxc5 Qxe5 80.Qb7+ Qc7 81.Qxc7 Kxc7, the ending is drawn. Puuuuh!
Magnus was continuously short on time but never as close losing on time as yesterday. A good game by Adams but Magnus' tenacious defence paid off in the end. Relieved and impressed I'm sure glad it's a day off tomorrow :-)

Credit also goes to second GM Kjetil Lie (Mr. Sunshine). Not only does he do a good job on opening preparations and as excellent company for Magnus, he was also considerate enough today to mention missing my cheap jokes! (Well.... I left a week ago Kjetil, what took you so long?) 

Magnus is veeeery satisfied with his advance to round 5 where he'll play white in game 1 against Cheparinov on Thursday.
This will be a very tough match. Cheparinov has played convincingly and forceful thus far. 

If Aronian advances tomorrow we suddenly have the two highest remaining seeded players Aronian against Shirov (original 4^th and 5^th seeds) in the quarter finals.  

In the 2005-2007 World Championship cycle Magnus was one out of 20 players left in the cycle when he lost the candidate match to Aronian.
This time he has already secured a place among the 11 remaining contenders (Anand, Kramnik, Topalov and the 8 quarterfinalists) in the 2009 Championship cycle! 

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, December 4th, 2007 

The World Cup is certainly tenser. Despite all three top seeds out by now, 13 of the 16 players left are 2700+. There's no easy prey and the margin between success and failure is small indeed. 

As white against 7^th ranked M.Adams (2729) Magnus was quite well prepared in the Nimzo-Indian opening.
(His second Kjetil Lie got to bed around 07:30 this morning and obviously did a great job again!) 
After taking the pawn on c7 Magnus struggled with lack of development and coordination well into the middle game.
The computers disagree a bit on whether or not black has sufficient compensation for the pawn, but Magnus felt he was at least a little better most of the game.
When the position seemed a bit deadlocked around move 29, Magnus decided to regroup his pieces and give back the pawn. He was especially satisfied with 33.Rb1! and 35.Kg1!
Blacks position is playable for a computer, but for a human the bishop pair and weakness on b6 makes the defence very difficult. 
Magnus managed to exchange rooks and win the b-pawn after which black is in real trouble.
Adams may not have found the best continuation and after 64.Bc1 white is winning.

Being down to 2 seconds on the clock on one occasion and below 10 seconds several times Magnus sure kept the spectators nervous, but he managed to find the right moves and make progress.
After 76 moves Adams resigned as the kingside pawns will fall and the king is too far way to save the game. 

A great fight and seemingly another great game by Magnus, although he is not really sure about the quality of his play as he sometimes felt he was missing things. 

Shirov continued to impress with a nice win as black against Akopian ,and Ponomariov is also looking very strong beating Sasikiran with the white pieces. The rest of the games ended drawn. 

Magnus has 5.5/7 so far (plus the two rapid gains against Naiditsch) and a performance around 2850! 

Lets hope he has some energy left for tomorrow as black against Adams. 

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, December 3rd, 2007

In my understanding Dominguez Perez has some very good opening preparations and is a strong tactical player. In this light yesterdays preparation seems like a good strategy from Magnus and second Kjetil Lie.
Against Magnus' 1.e4 Dominguez played the Najdorf, and Magnus could follow a prepared line as they had found that the position after 12.a3! Bxb3 13.cxb3 may not be as simple for black as the computers want you to believe.
Magnus gives a lot of credit to Kjetil Lie for this preparation, great work! 

And indeed, despite the knight on d4 black faces several challenges. After some preparations Magnus could play Bg4, f4 and f5 without any real weaknesses in his own camp.
Dominguez was getting short on time when he played 23... Ra8 walking into the tactical threat Bd7, Nd5, Nf6 etc after 24.fxg6.
Rather than sacking the exchange he played 27.... Rc1 and after 28.h4! Magnus is probably already winning.
This must have been Dominguez' view as well as he spent most of his remaining time before sacking his queen for a rook and pawn and some potential counterplay instead of the more materialistic continuation Qd8 29.Rxc1 Bxc1 30.Qf1 attacking both c1 and f7.
However, Magnus found an easy way of realizing his material advantage by exchanging pawns on the queen side and attacking f7 while avoiding black mating threats and gradually improved his position.
Dominguez fought on until move 42 when he was facing mate or further loss of material.
Seemingly a great game by Magnus, (winning round 3 by 1,5-0,5)!
He felt quite well and confident today and will hopefully enjoy his day off tomorrow. 

Having reached round 4 the burden of expectations should be firmly removed from his shoulders. Despite playing 3 lower rated opponents the accumulated probability of reaching round 4 was probably less than 50%. (The number of top seeds reaching round 4 may not support this conclusion though. We'll see tomorrow.) 

All the 5 winners from yesterday secured direct access to round 4 by drawing their opponents. Magnus, Shirov (with black!), Alekseev, Akopian and Ponomariov followed suit by winning today leaving 6 tie-break matches tomorrow featuring strong players like Ivanchuk, Aronian, Svidler and Grischuk. 

Magnus will play 7^th seed Michael Adams (2729) on Monday with the white pieces in game 1.

So far Magnus has played only the highest rated opponents possible (Naiditsch, Dominguez Perez and Adams) but if he advances to round 5 he will play Wang or Cheparinov as Mamedyarov was eliminated by the latter.   

The win today also implies that Magnus will improve his rating on the next FIDE list irrespective of the outcome of the rest of the tournament :-)

H. Carlsen
Lommedalen, December 1^st, 2007 

There have been many people claiming that a KO tournament is too much of a lottery. Of course 2 games is insufficient to really determine the relative strength of about equally strong players.
But statistics says it works quite well early in the tournament. An impressive 15 of the top 16 seeds are still in contention.
(For comparison, probably less than 15 out the 16 top seeds would end up among the top 32 in a 128 player swiss.)
That said we must of course expect several more rating upsets in the top in the next rounds. In game 1 of round 3 we saw 5 white victories (Cheparinov, Adams, Kamsky, Jakovenko and Wang) and 11 draws. 

Magnus celebrated his 17^th birthday as black against Dominguez Perez.
(Many thanks for all the greetings on the blog and elsewhere!)
He was satisfied with his position after the opening feeling he had equalised. Being quite comfortable when he played 17.Nd5 and 19.Nf4?, after the replay Qg4 he suddenly saw all white tactic threats. He had to defend very accurately to survive and felt that he managed to do so.

Dominguez Perez had the initiative controlling the c-file and threatening f7 but in the beginning time trouble he could not find any better alternative than exchanging rooks and the bishop to enter a queen ending a pawn up.

There does not seem to be any way white can defend his pawns and avoid perpetual while at the same time making progress, and a draw was agreed after 45 moves. 

Lets us hope that tomorrows game will be an interesting one. 

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, November 30th 

I left Siberia early Tuesday morning to go back to Lommedalen and Norway, and only today I got some comments from Magnus on his four games against A.Naiditsch (2639).  

Some of the people surrounding Magnus were a bit nervous ahead of this 2^nd round encounter, but Magnus did not really share our worries :-)
Naiditsch has won Dortmund and can be very dangerous but Magnus did have a good score against him (+2=4) prior to World Cup 2007. 

In the first game Naiditsch surprised Magnus in the opening with 9.e5.
Magnus found a reasonable continuation but according to online commentators (and the computers) 13.Bd2 was a small mistake. Magnus was happy about 15.c6! and by returning the two pawns he gets a slightly better ending. He was later a full pawn up and clearly better but to enter the double rook ending was probably a mistake.
It ended in a draw as he could not find any win despite trying through the 5^th hour. 

As black in the second game Magnus was happy about the Scottish opening but allowed white a dangerous attack as he had missed 15.f5!
Later he defended well and was quite comfortable. He was again surprised by 21.Bg6 which fortunately was accompanied by a draw offer.
Magnus thought for a while and as he was tired and in his own opinion took dangerously long to see that hxg6 would lose because of the mating threats following Qh4+ and Ng5, he decided the best thing would be to go for the rapid playoff. Draw. 

The 1^st rapid game today was another Nimzo-indian but Magnus chose 8.b4 instead of Nf3. 
After exchanging queens Magnus thought he was slightly better and when he found 19.g3 sacking the a-pawn for initiative and attack against black weaknesses he was quite optimistic.
Naiditsch probably played some inaccurate moves and Magnus was soon up a pawn instead and had with a strong initiative. He efficiently converted the rook endgame into victory! 

As black in the second rapid game he chose the Ruy Lopez against 1.e4. Naiditsch chose 7.a4 and after exchanging the a-pawns and both knights white had an initiative. After the exchange of one rook and a lot of bishop manoeuvres, Naiditsch tried to utilize the Ba5 pin against the c7-pawn and queen at d8 but could obviously not find a decisive continuation. When he finally chose 39 Rxc7 he wins the pawn but after Qe8 threatening Qe1 white has nothing better than allowing a black perpetual check.
In the must-win situation he of course played on but the combined threats along the b8-h2 diagonal and the passed b-pawn soon decided the game.
2-0 to Magnus in the rapids who felt very determined today and was of course both happy and relieved to qualify for round 3. 

Most of the favourites got through to round 3 although Ponomariov again created excitement by losing (as white) only to comeback as black.
The biggest surprise was Radjabov losing 2-0 to Macieja from Polen.
12 of the 32 matches went to tie-break today but without any real surprising results. 

Tomorrow Magnus is turning 17 and is up against Dominguez from Cuba! 

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, November 29th

Magnus had a difficult task today being fully motivated. After winning with black yesterday, his thoughts were drifting towards round 2 and he had problems concentrating properly. In the opening he was probably slightly better but needed a long think to come up with a coherent plan.
After b3, a3 and b4 removing the knight from c5 and taking control of the c-file again Magnus is better.
The Rc6! manoeuvre finished the game in the sense that Zhao had to chose between an ending a pawn down (obviously without realistic winning chances) or a clearly worse but complicated position after Ra4.
He chose the latter but was fiercely punished by Magnus exploiting the d7-pawn and the threats on e8. After exchanging a rook and losing the e-pawn black simply resigned after 36 moves (according to Magnus scoresheet).  2-0! 



After quite some exciting upsets yesterday, the favourites hit back today. Alekseev and Ponomariov both won with white and will play tie-break tomorrow. Not all games have finished yet but Adams looked clearly better when we left. 

In round 2 on Tuesday Magnus will play Naiditch as he beat Granda Zuniga with black in the time scramble. 

It's beautiful winter over here, blue sky and some -4 oC.

Tomorrow we're planning to visit the World Championship biathlon stadium just a few kilometres from the hotel. 

Henrik Carlsen
Khanty-Mansiysk, November 25th

A heavy schedule awaited the Tal participants also playing the World Championship Blitz and the World Cup in Khanty Mansyisk.
Including the ETC at Crete Ivanchuk, Mamedyarov, Shirov and Magnus have already been playing continually for nearly a month even before the WC.
Typically Ivanchuk does never seem to tire and he also did excellently in the Blitz.
The other three all had some problems at various stages of the tournament.
 
Jakovenko and Alekseev skipped the Blitz due to the World Cup and Peter Svidler was ill.
They were replaced by A. Morozevich and qualifiers nr 7 and 8 Rublevskij and Korotylev.
Except for Topalov, Anonian and Radjabov the whole World Elite played in the 38 round Blitz marathon taking place in the ballroom of the GUM shopping centre at the Red Square with a nice view to Kremlin and the Lenin Mausoleum.  

Magnus had to get up nearly 4 hours earlier than he was used to during his stay in Moscow and was pretty tired from the start. He got black against Anand in round 1, managed to get a promising position but when he started making mistakes Anand punished him in his impressively clean and efficient way to secure a won ending.
In game 2 Magnus was an exchange up against Kasimzhanov when he blundered back the exchange. Draw. After winning game 3 against Savchenco Magnus lost 3 in a row against Kamsky, Kramnik and Rublevskij and was quite disgusted with his own play.
After a exceptional coca-cola he got more energetic and got back to 50% beating Ponomariov, Karpov and Korotylev.
The rest of the day he had many nice positions but lost quite a few of them to end the day at 50%. 

Grichuk and Ivanchuk was leading the field most of the day, while a surprisingly modest Anand was at 50% after 15 rounds. He duly won the last 4 and the first 6 or 7 the next day to join the race for the trophy. 
Magnus started day 2 by a simple blunder in a slightly better position against Anand and lost in the end. The next few rounds he did well, winning 3 and drawing Kramnik. The rest of the day resembled the first day with too many missed opportunities.
For instance his knight + 3 connected pawn against Ivanchuk's rook should have been winning.
He showed a good fighting spirit in round 36 against Leko declining a repetition of moves with 24 seconds against 2 minutes in a fairly equal position as black! It was a draw in the end though. 

Ivanchuk and Anand was leading the event most of day 2 and they met in the final round. Can it get any better! Anand was 2 pawns up when he dramatically blundered a full rook and resigned. Congratulations to the winner Ivanchuk, runner up Anand, and Grischuk and Kamsky at shared 3^rd! 
Magnus was not satisfied with his 9^th place nor by his many poor missed opportunities on day 1. One reason may be that he has not played as much internet blitz this year as he did in the past years.
On a positive note, he got a number of promising positions even against the highest rated players, he won a total of 15 games and improved his score from last year (+1) to +3 this year.
He also was only 1 point shy of 5^th place so the margins were small this time. 

Yours truly had joined the organisers chauffeur in picking up GM Kjetil Lie at the airport during day 2. He is joining us as Magnus' second in Khanty-Mansiysk.  The marathon blitz was followed by closing ceremony (in Russian) with a buffet at the Golden Ring hotel leaving time for only a few hours sleep before the early morning departure to Khanty-Mansiysk. 

UT air was a pleasant surprise this time. They accepted Visa at the ticket desk and the flight went smooth, on time, the service was excellent service, and the meal very good! 

Most of Friday night was spent for accreditation, the Players meeting, Opening ceremony and the Governor?s reception, and Magnus was very tired when preparing for black in the first game against IM Zhao from Australia.
He got a long night sleep but still felt a bit exhausted during the long tense game today.
Missing several of white's continuation he managed to pull him self together to put up sufficient resistance to avoid a loss. In the slightly better endgame he tried a last trick Bd4+. Young Zhao thought both Ke2 and Nxd4 would draw and he chose Nxd4 having missed Kh7 with a very promising rook endgame for black.
Zhao defended quite well but in the end the black g-pawn decided the game. 0-1 and the best possible start for Magnus.
All credits to the most likeable young Australian, who is clearly underrated and more than ready to play for his GM-norms in Europe this winter. 

Henrik Carlsen
Khanty-Mansiysk, November 24th

All games were drawn on the last day of Tal Memorial, but only one lasted less than 20 moves though.

Magnus was eager to try to win as white against Kamsky. He played 1.e4 and after the response e5 Magnus went for the closed Roy Lopez and 8.a4.
Based on time spent on first 10 moves Kamsky did not seem to have a preparation in hand but as usual with black his experience and understanding makes him able to play the right moves.
Magnus felt his plan with h3, g4 and Nf3-h4-xg6 was promising. Kamsky again found good responses. Magnus turned down a draw offer after 25....Bxc5 and tried to exploit having the black king locked up at h8. He thought he had real winning chances, however, after playing 34.Bf7, Kamsky found the immediate save e4! after which white cannot make progress in the opposite coloured bishop endgame. Game drawn after 37 moves.
Fortunately a good try by Magnus and a fairly interesting game for the audience. 

Mamedyarov is normally a fantastic fighter, (we loved his repeated comments in Wijk a few years back after winning several drawn-looking endgames; "He said draw, I said play") but after his losses in round 7 and 8 he seemed disinterested in the last round as white against Alekseev. Shakryar came about 15 minutes late and traded off queens and 2 pieces and offered a draw in 15 moves. A bit of a surprise as both players had a considerable economic incentive to try to win while a loss wouldn't really hurt them the same way. 
Ivanchuk presented Kramnik with some challenges in to his Petroff but was probably never anywhere near a decisive advantage and not surprisingly the opposite bishop ending came down to a split of points. 
Jakovenko was well prepared as white against Shirov but despite initiative he obviously could not find a way to exploit it and a draw was agreed well before the time control. This secured Shirov an unshared 2^nd at +1! Gelfand used a lot of time in the opening against a well prepared Leko but could not get a advantage and the game was drawn just after Magnus and Kamsky had finished. 

4.5/9 and the fact that he did not lose to Kramnik gave Magnus a 4^th place on tie-break (shared 3^rd-6^th) after Kramnik (+4), Shirov(+1) and Gelfand(0).   
Magnus was interviewed by several Russian TV stations after the round and said he was reasonably happy about his overall result. He strongly disliked losing to Shirov from a clearly better position, but on the other hand saved some difficult positions. 

Several Russian experts I spoke to commented that Magnus had made significant progress over the last year. Going from -2 last year to 50% this year is no coincidence.
Not surprisingly they still think he plays a bit too much (and they are probably right), but as one pointed out Magnus learns a lot from his tournament activity based on the strong ability to transform new information related to the preparation, playing and analysis of his games into real knowledge.

If the Classic part has been the main course, the World Championship Blitz will be the dessert for Magnus:-)
It'll be a real marathon, according to the latest information 20 players will play 38 rounds November 21^st and 22nd. There's 6 qualifiers despite the late inclusion of Grischuk and Svidler.

Amazingly the qualifier has 39 participants above 2600 and 4 above 2700 (Adams, Ponomariov, Akopian and Wang Yue).
After 8 rounds and with 14 to go, Kasimzhanov is in the lead.
 
Henrik Carlsen
Moscow, November 19th

Magnus was eager to strike back after his loss in round 6.
As white against Gelfand he decided to avoid the most usual lines and played 1.c4. He was a bit surprised when Gelfand allowed 7.d4 which is supposed to be good for white. Magnus is not so sure about this anymore.
He decided on the plan 11.f3 exf3 12.exf3 missing the counterplay black gets with Ra8-b8-b4 and Magnus was clearly worse.
Managing to pull himself together he chose a typical way out for him by givng up the b-pawn tfor counterplay on the queenside. Gelfand gave back the c-pawn and exchanged queens to enter a slightly better ending. Magnus chose to take the black d and f-pawns before returning with his rook to a2 to stop the black a-pawn.
During the march of the black king Magnus pushed his g- and h-pawns so that he would get sufficient counterplay with the d- and/or g-pawns to secure a draw after sacking his bishop on a3.
Gelfand took the d4 pawn instead and offered a draw which Magnus accepted.
Another good defence by Magnus but he is not happy to have squandered another white game by committing a serious oversight early in the game.

Kramnik secured his lead with a draw against Jakovenko where he shook off the white attach against his pet Petroff. Kramnik was a pawn up in the ending but maybe it is difficult to find a way to try to exploit the material advantage.
Shirov looked solid as black against Alekseev and when white tried a manoeuvre on the king side leaving a pawn unprotected on h5, Shirov duly countered and won the endgame in style. What a comeback! 5 decisive games, 2 wins in a row and unshared 2^nd for Shirov.

Mamedyarov got problems after the opening as white against Kamsky who showed his deep understanding of certain positions to take home the full point with an attack against the exposed white king.
Ivanchuk did not manage to get an edge as white against Leko and the game was drawn relatively early. 

Round 8 saw many exiting games but only one with decisive result.
As black against Kramnik, Mamedyarov chose the modern defence and the position was highly tactical in the middle game. Despite his exposed king Shakryar managed to hold on to an extra pawn for a while. He probably tried to win although his bishop was less dangerous than the white knight and after exchanging rooks black allowed a white queen plus knight attack resulting in deadly mating threats. 1-0 and Kramnik has won 4 white games!!
Only Magnus has survived as black, no wonder Kramnik was impressed with Magnus opening preparation in round 1.
 Shirov played white against Gelfand and had the initiative. But then he seemed, from his clear expressed sigh's, to have missed an elegant defence by Gelfand, and entered a worse ending with black having the bishop pair. However, some 10+ moves later white had reached a drawn ending. Draw.

Magnus was black against Leko, from my perspective one of the toughest challenges in this tournament for Magnus. It's both because Magnus lost as black in Linares and because there are obvious similarities between the two. At 14 Leko was the youngest grandmaster ever and at 16 he was a gifted attacking player that got invited to most of the top level tournaments. He's been there, experienced it and moved on. 11 more years at top level has obviously give him a considerable edge when facing young Magnus.
Leko chose the open Spanish with Bxc6 but was maybe a bit surprised when Magnus chose the Qf6 continuation.After exchanging queens white has a tempo or two that he used to double his rooks in the d-line, but Magnus blitzed out the next three moves as well to play b6, 0-0-0 and c5 to establish the right defence. After Magnus found 16....f5! the position looked very drawish, but Leko played on to try to fence of the queenside to be in a position to exploit his kingside pawn majority. Magnus had exactly the tempo necessary to force a repetition of moves with Kc4 Ne5+ Kd5 Nd3 etc.
White cannot let Magnus play b4 to penetrate the queenside defence. Draw.
Maybe not a very exciting game, but as black in the exchange variation of Spanish his job is mainly to defend. 

Congratulations to Kramnik for (already) winning the tournament and for his impressive play. 

Before the last round as white against Kamsky, Magnus is sharing 3^rd to 6^th. Depending on the result tomorrow his tournament performance will be acceptable, good or excellent! (He has 4/8 and the expected score is 4,15 out of 9.) 

On a positive note, many thanks to cereal trafficker (and New in Chess Chief Editor) Dirk Jan van Geuzendam Magnus has received renewed supplies of Weetabix (wholegrain wheat). (Not surprisingly his loss in round 6 coincided with having run out of Weetabix...)

The internet access is working fine in the hotel and after the game today Magnus was eager to get an update on his schoolmates playing a tournament in Trondheim, and on his sisters Ellen and Ingrid  in Round1 of the World Youth Championship (U-18 and U-14 respectively) in Antalya, Turkey. 
 
For those who might think so, the action is not over by tomorrow in the Tal Memorial festival.
Tomorrow and the day after the super strong blitz qualification for the Blitz World Championship 2007 takes place. All the ten main tournament participants, invitees Anand and Karpov and rumours says also Svidler and Grischuk, will join the qualifiers in the 34 round final November 21-22 on the catwalk of the famous GUM shopping mall.
 
Henrik Carlsen
Moscow, November 18th

The good news is that the draw ratio is going down both for the overall tournament and for Magnus, the bad news is that he lost against Shirov :-(
In a sideline in the Ruy Lopez, Shirov played 17.Rec3 instead of the usual Rd3 sacking an exchange for a passed pawn on c6 and better coordinated pieces. Still the computer likes black. Magnus thought he found the right continuation and even felt quite confident after 25.h4 Qb6 26.Rd2. 
He considered the probably drawing line Bxd4 but thought Rd6 was better as he had missed the blow Nf5! After having made his 26^th move Magnus immediately spotted Nf5 and really suffered during Shirov's long think.
After 30.Ne3 Magnus could not see any direct threats and took on h4 with his bishop to recapture the lost pawn, but after Qf3+ Rf6 he is simply loosing.
Maybe 31....Bf6 instead could have kept him alive but it was obviously a very dangerous position for black.
With 3/6 Magnus is still a full point ahead of his score in Tal Memorial last year and has had 4 black and 2 white with 2 white and 1 black to go. 

Kramnik again played an impressive game with the white pieces to beat Alekseev, and Jakovenko managed to win a long endgame as black against Kamsky to climb back to 50%.
Gelfand-Ivanchuk and Leko-Mamedyarov ended in draws. 
After 6 rounds Kramnik at impressive 4,5 is a full point ahead of Mamedyarov. Five players share 3^rd with 50% (Magnus, Gelfand, Shirov, Jakovenko and Leko). 

Interestingly Magnus spent more time preparing for his game against Shirov that he has done in the previous rounds. This could of course have paid off if the right variations but it may also be a contributing factor to his seemingly lack of energy during the critical stages of the game.
Anyway, his cold seems to be gone, he is sleeping alot, and he should be in excellent shape for the last three rounds. 

Today he has white against Gelfand, let's hope it will be an interesting game! 

Henrik Carlsen
Moscow, November 17th

The draw ratio (19 out of 25) is high in Tal Memorial despite a lot of fighting games and few, if any, short draws. The total number of games is too low to draw bombastic conclusions, but there seems to be a number of contributing factors.The field is fairly even, there's no easy prey. Except for round 3 the margins seem to have been on the side of the defenders (for instance several players had trouble today but escaped). Finally there has been some middle game draws where one of the players could reasonably have continued and given it another try. 

In round 4 there were probably quite some expectations when Magnus faced co-leader Mamedyarov.
However, Magnus was surprised by Shak's choice of Pirc and could not recall white's best plans after Nbxd7. Magnus probably missed a more promising continuation and felt he had to accept an early simplification of the position.
When Shak offered draw after 22....b6 in a drawn endgame Magnus did not see any sense in declining as the higher ranked player had fully equalised. The slightly better queen side pawn structure was more than offset by the weak bishop on f2 and the pawn on f4.

Shirov-Ivanchuk fought it out till the end but black's advantage, if any, was not anywhere near sufficient to win.
As black against Kamsky, Kramnik got a promising position from the opening. He had a pawn extra but felt that white had compensation. Many players would have chosen to play on as black in the position he offered a draw though.
Leko as white seemed to have an initiative against Alekseev after the novelty 19.Rg4 but could not find any way to make progress and accepted a draw in the middle game.
Gelfand-Jakovenko concluded another drawn day. 

Fortunately for the audience, round 5 saw a lot of spectacular fighting.
Jakovenko had a promising attack against Leko but went wrong somewhere and had to defend a difficult ending instead. It is hard to say if there was a win somewhere. Leko tried hard but had to accept a drawn rook ending near the 2^nd the time control.     
Kramnik did not seem to get much out of his Catalan, but despite exchanging all the heavy pieces he managed to put pressure against the black queenside. Shirov defended the queen side but could not stop Kramnik getting a passer on the kingside. Shirov resigned when it became clear that Kramnik would win the race and the black knight could not stop the white king and h-pawn. Probably a real high-class ending by Kramnik who are the sole leader with 3,5/5.
Mamedyarov got an exchange for two pawns against Gelfand and when he could win the black b-pawn with axb4, some commentators regarded the position as very promising.
However, as part of giving up the pawn, Gelfand elegantly forced a repetition of moves Nd7-e5-d7 etc when threatening the rook on c5 and c4 or otherwise regaining the b4-pawn. Draw.
In Alekseev-Kamsky, Kamsky again spent lots of his time in the opening. It seemed to be worth while as he was slightly better and the ending with 3 against 1 pawn on the queen side and initiative, versus whites f2, g3 and g4 pawns against the black g6 pawn, looked better for black.
Alekseev defended well (as usual) nd activated his king and managed to create a balanced endgame. Draw. 



Magnus was black against the world no 2 Ivanchuk (2787) and was quite optimistic taking into account his 2,5/3 score in classical chess as well as 1/1 in rapid.
He has always liked the Sveshnikov sicilian variation as black. Having arrived about 7 minutes late he soon recouped the spent time by blitzing out 16 moves.
Ivanchuk seemed well prepared. He played Bc4, Magnus continued with Rb8, Kh8, f5 and Bxf5 after which Ivanchuk quickly played Qe2. Magnus thought for a long time before he played Bg6 followed by e4 creating room on e5 for the knight.
Ivanchuk chose to play Nd4 forcing Magnus to take with his c6-knight to avoid the threat Ne6. Magnus doubled rooks in the f-file and pushed the h-pawn to create some space for his black bishop and his king.
Ivanchuk played Rd5 threatening the a-pawn with both rooks. At this point Magnus thought he was OK after Rxd5 Rxf2 etc because he had missed the ensuing Rxh5+ yielding white an extra pawn.
What Magnus expected to be a slightly worse ending was basically lost.
After a couple of quick moves Ivanchuk understood that it wasn't so easy after all and spent the remaining 40 minutes before the time control. Still he could not avoid letting Magnus back into the game with Bh5-e8-b5-c4 protecting his d5 pawn and the b5 square.
After the time control Ivanchuk used most of his time looking for ways to make progress while Magnus spent even more time making sure he put his queen on the right square both avoiding mate and queen exchange.
After the second time control Ivanchuk had finally manouvered his bishop from h3 via c8 and g4 to h5 and started his king march with Ke3. Magnus created some confusion with the break d4+, but Ivanchuk found the right continuation and after Qc5 he is soon two pawns up and winning.
However, with little time left and his king in the middle of the board Ivanchuk allowed Magnus to trade bishops and start checking with his queen. Ivanchuk had a b4 pawn, a g2-pawn and queen on f1 but had to keep moving his king around the b-pawn. If he wanted to try to win he would probably have to give up one of the pawns to stop the checks. Trembling from stress or fatigue Ivanchuk chose to take a draw after 93 moves and 7 hours of play.
Puh! A very narrow escape again for Magnus, but I don't think anyone can help being impressed by the patient and resilient defence he put up for more than 4 hours. 

With the free day coming up, we celebrated the draw and shared 2^nd place (with Mamedyarov) with the usual Italian food and also a dessert at McDonald, as we expect the blood sugar level to be back to normal well in time for round 6 :-)

Only the Russian arbiters were present today. Chief arbiter Geurt Gijssen was unfortunate enough yesterday to fall on the slippery ground and break a leg. He is hospitalized awaiting operation and will probably have to stay in Moscow for a couple of weeks. We wish him a quick and painless recovery. 

This morning I went over to the nearby SAS Raddisson to enquire about their sports facilities but was told it is for guests only. Tomorrow we will be looking for a possibility to go to a nearby sport centre to exercise and relax.
Any proposal of good alternatives here in central Moscow will be highly appreciated.  

Henrik Carlsen
Moscow, November 14th

Both yesterday and today we had dinner at the nearby Italian restaurant in the fashionable Arbat street close to the hotel. Eating out can be quite a challenge coming from a country with strict anti-smoking laws. Magnus is very sensitive to cigarette smoke and most Russians seem to smoke during restaurant visits. Fortunately the restaurant is fairly empty early in the evening. Maybe it is related to the fact that a dinner costs 5-10 times more than in nearby McDonald (compared to for instance a ratio of 2 or 3 in Norway.) 

Magnus had a bit of a cold when he went to Crete and a worse cold when he came back. He was better when we left for Moscow but not really in his best shape to start a super-tournament. After sleeping long nights and resting a lot here in Moscow he is fortunately much better now, and we believe he can finish this tournament without being affected by illness.  

Lots of fighting games today in Tal Memorial.
Magnus was surprised by 1.d4 by Jakovenko. He followed a prepared line and more or less equalised but was not sure what to do after 20.Re1. After 24.a5 Jakovenko offered a draw but nearly an hour ahead on the clock and with a comfortable position Magnus chose to play on. It is hard to say exactly where white went wrong, maybe the whole plan of pushing the a-pawn was faulty. After 28.Bd5 f3 black is better and after 29.c4 he is probably winning due to all the tactics in the position. At the right time Magnus could play Bxc4 and exchange two rooks for the white queen and a c-pawn that was impossible to stop. Jakovenko fought on until move 41 before resigning. 0-1.
Magnus felt in great form during the game today and it was probably quite a good one. In his 12^th Tal Memorial game (previously he has scored =9-2) it sure was great to secure his first win! 

After some 20+ moves Mamedyarov and Ivanchuk had a position it was extremely hard to evaluate, but when Shak found the excellent piece sacrifice Bf7 removing the queen from the protection of e5, his powerful knights and discovered threats soon overpowered Ivanchuk. 1-0.
Another decisive game of the day was a close to 6 hour battle between Kramnik and Leko. Kramnik got a pawn majority on the queen side and through his better coordination of pieces in the end managed to break Leko?s stubborn defence to win the a-pawn and the game. 1-0.
Kamsky soon got into trouble against Shirov despite the white pieces. Shirov was positionally much better after 19 moves but with 2 minutes and 30s increments left on the clock we would not have been surprised by any outcome of the game. In a probably lost position Kamsky ended up hanging a piece. 0-1.
Alekseev seemed to have an initiative against Gelfand but obviously could not find a way to break Gelfand's defence and a draw was agreed before the time before 40 moves. 

Kramnik, Mamedyarov and Magnus is leading with 2/3, and Magnus has white against Mamedyarov tomorrow! 
Several GMs present has noted the improvements in Magnus' play relative to last year. It does indeed look promising with regard to improving last year's 3,5/9 performance.
 
Henrik Carlsen
Moscow, November 12th 

As last year the Tal Memorial is taking place in the famous Central Chess Club. A painting of young Tal at the chess board is overseeing the 10 participants together with organiser Alexander Bakh and chief arbiter Geurt Gijssen.
Since last year the floor has been covered by a new carpet to reduce creaking from the wood beneath.
There may not have been much information about Tal Memorial in the English language chess press, but the tournament is well organised and the quality of the internet coverage for onsite spectators (4 out of 5 boards) is excellent. 

Round 2 brought intense fighting on all boards and the spectators could expect a number of decisive games. It came as quite a surprise that all games were drawn in the end. 

Against Magnus' 1.d4 Alekseev chose an opening he plays very seldom. Magnus initially thought the plan with 7.cxd5 was interesting but soon discovered that Alekseev could equalize. When he also missed 15....g6 Magnus was probably worse already, and after what he considers a very poor middle game he was clearly worse, and soon a pawn down.
Magnus then decided that he really had to pull himself together to try to defend half a point, and he did!
Despite the 2 free (a and b) pawns Magnus put up a blockade and Alekseev obviously did not dare to sacrifice an exchange on c4 to try to make progress. On move 45 they repeated moves and agreed a draw. A narrow escape for Magnus but it does show that he has become quite resilient when in trouble, even against 2700 players. 

We expected Gelfand-Kramnik to be rather peaceful, but what a game! After Kramnik grabbed a pawn on a3 the rest of the game was full of tactics. When Gelfand finally collected the piece Kramnik had produced sufficient counterplay in the centre to secure a draw.
Leko's position against Kamsky looked somewhat better but then he started to consolidate his own defences, and short on time he let the initiative evaporate, and after exchanges the game steered into a drawn rook ending.
Shirov-Mamedyarov was an intensely tactic battle after Shak captured with his knight on e4. Following a long sharp battle black sacked his queen for 2 rooks but in the endgame Shirov advanced his a pawn to f6 and had sufficient play to force black into repeating moves.
Ivanchuk-Jakovenko looked like a balanced struggle on both sides of the board and ended in a draw before the time scramble. 

Leko is still leading with 1,5 points. Shirov is last with 0,5 points before round 3.

Magnus obviously was unhappy about his many mistakes today but happy to secure a draw in the end.
Tomorrow he has black against Jakovenko and intends to improve his play. 

Henrik Carlsen
Moscow, November 11th

There was only one decisive game in round 1 of Tal Memorial today. Fortunately is was not Kramnik-Carlsen.
 Magnus normally wants to win irrespective of the colour, but he is realistic enough to consider drawing with black against Kramnik's Catalan quite a challenge in itself.
They played the same 10....Bd6-line as in Gelfand-Anand in the World Championship in September, and Magnus was a bit surprised when Kramnik did not have (or did not present) anything better than the line they played.
After 18.... Qd5 Magnus considered black to be at least OK.
Maybe white's play could have been improved but as it went Magnus had sufficient compensation for the pawn and when Kramnik played h4 Magnus could force the drawing line 26.... Nf3+ 27.Kh1 Qc8 28.Nf4 Qg4 etc. If white had chosen 28.Qd7 Magnus thought black would be equal or better after Rc2.
In a last attempt to avoid the threat of perpetual with Nh4-f3-h4 etc, Kramnik sacked a rook on f5 to reach a drawn ending. 0,5-0,5 after 40 moves.
For a drawn game, the audience got a good show both with regard to the game itself and by the time consume. Magnus more or less blitzed out the first 25 moves and spent less than 35 minutes on the whole game constantly keeping the pressure on Kramnik! 

Kamsky looked a likely winner in the middlegame against Gelfand but suddenly gave (or blundered) away his extra pawn. Draw.
Alekseev-Ivanchuk and Jakovenko-Mamedyarov looked balanced and ended in relatively early draws. In a tense position as black against Leko, Shirov sacked his bishop on d4 for 2 pawn and some initiative. It looked quite reasonable for black but he must have missed the best continuation somewhere. After exchanging queens, Leko could quickly exchange more material to reach a won end-game. 1-0.
Leko is off to a great start, leading the tournament and playing white again tomorrow. 

Tomorrow Magnus has white against Alekseev. Their 3 previous encounters in classical chess has ended in draw although Magnus was fairly close to winning in Dortmund in June. 

Henrik Carlsen
Moscow, November 10th 

In a way there's some justice to the fact that it is cold up north. Distances are short. Oslo-Moscow looks far on the map but is less than a 2,5 hours flight.
Travelling to Moscow in the morning left time for a few hours at the (Arbat) hotel prior to the opening ceremony, drawing of lots and ceremonial dinner.
Magnus and as many as five of the other Tal participants played the European National Team Championship in Crete and some of them travelled directly to Moscow afterwards. Magnus fortunately could spend two nights at home trying to recover from his cold. 

In Crete the Norwegian team did well, but in the final 3rd the 3-1 loss against Israel and 2-2 against Montenegro and against Serbia left them at 7 team points and 22^nd place. Well ahead of initial ranking (27^th) but not really what they had hoped for.
Magnus was generally happy about his performance although the last round loss with white spoiled what looked like a tremendous tournament performance. 6,5/9, a TPR of 2757, and gaining 6 rating points are still very good!
He was especially pleased with 3 out of 4 with black against Shirov, Sutovsky, Stefansson and Kuolats.
His team mates Espen Lie and Jon Ludvig Hammer did well with around 2500 performances and the last round win gave 2^nd board Kjetil Lie an acceptable 4/9.
Probably many internet spectators shared my feeling of surprise when Magnus seemingly rejected the possibility to claim a 3-fold repetition in the worse ending against Sutovsky. (In the opening, when playing Ng4-f6, Magnus had missed the white resource Qa5 and was happy and a little lucky to be alive at all.)
However, Magnus did try to claim a repetition. He stopped the clock, called the arbiter and wrote down the 3^rd repetition. Sutovsky protested and correctly pointed out that Magnus had got things in a slightly wrong order. He should have written down the move before stopping the clock and calling the arbiter. I wonder it he could simply have stopped the clock once more and called the arbiter again without making his move?
(In the end another repetition occurred and Magnus followed the correct procedure this time.)
What makes Sutovsky's behaviour questionable, was that he himself earlier in the game had acted unacceptably in several ways. He had for instance violated the rules by writing down several forced moves ahead. Magnus reacted to this by visibly shrugging his shoulders but did not protest to the arbiter.
The whole incident was very surprising by seemingly gently Sutovsky. (Maybe it boils down to a difference in culture. For Norwegians the intention of your actions is the important thing. As long as you're not intending to do wrong you are considered innocent, while if you purposely try to cheat your opponent you are morally guilty despite not being caught or punished.) 

In Tal Memorial Magnus is facing 5 of the top10 players and all 10 participants all ranked 19 or higher in the world. The field Ivantchuk (ranked 2), Kramnik (3), Leko (5), Mamedyarov (7), Shirov (10), Gelfand (11), Alekseev (14), Carlsen (16), Kamsky (17) and Jakovenko (19) is category 20 and Magnus faces an average opposition of 2744!
The opening ceremony and drawing of lots last night took place in the elegant Golden Ring Hotel at Smolenskaja avenue. Each participant chose an umbrella, opened it and revealed the starting number underneath. The first 6 drew 4 black and 2 white, followed by Alekseev drawing white.
Magnus was quite optimistic being left with 2 out of 3 "white" umbrellas but managed to find the only black left :-(
Black against Kramnik in round 1, well, it could have been easier. Let's hope that more than 12 hours sleep was what it takes to do his best. 

Last year Magnus made his top level debut in Tal Memorial 2006 with 3,5/9. In the meantime he has had a somewhat dismal performance in Corus, done excellently in Morelia-Linares, made a very good Monaco debut, won Gausdal GM A, fought courageously and well beyond expectations against Aronian in the Candidates match, had an acceptable Dortmund debut, won the category 18 Biel tournament and shared 2^nd in the Arctic Challenge.
Year 2007 has already offered more than any 16 year old chessplayer could reasonably hope for or even dream of. 

Henrik Carlsen
Moscow, November 10th

The chess community in the Oslo area responded well to the Glitnir Blitz in Oslo City shopping mall yesterday.
I've never seen so many current and former chess players visit a chess event in Norway. People were standing on chairs and in the shop windows on the floor above to follow the excitement.


Ready to go!

During the group play the internet broadcast shown on the big screen worked for some time, but unfortunately not during the cup play. 

IM Bjoern Tiller was the only lower ranked player to advance from the group play after beating GM Stefansson in one game and holding Grischuk to a draw in another. Equal on tie-break with Stefansson Tiller won the drawing of lot. 
Magnus lost one game after blundering against Nyback, but was never in any really danger and advanced together with Nyback. 

In the quarterfinals Magnus beat GM Johannessen 2,5-1,5, Grischuk beat Tiller 3-0, Agdestein beat Nyback 2,5-1,5 and Nielsen Lie 3-1. 

In the semifinals Agdestein showed an immense fighting spirit and won both the first game (as black!) as well as the 4^th game against Grischuk. 2-2, but in the Armageddon Grischuk won with white. 

Magnus played his second and friend Peter H.Nielsen and after drawing the first game with black, the audience really got some excitement in the second game. Magnus seemed to be losing due to a pinned knight on d4, but after the creative Bg3-h4-e7 the board was on fire and Magnus came out with a queen and a pawn against rook, bishop and knight. Due to lack of coordinated pieces Peter had trouble and with a few seconds left on the clock he faced a mate.
But.... Magnus had left his advanced pawn on h8 not substituting it for a queen, in principle an illegal move. Peter could maybe have protested but decided to resign instead. A true gentleman.
In the  3^rd game Magnus relatively easy drew with black.
In the final game he did not take any chances. He was better in the endgame when he blundered his bishop. But with a black-squared bishop and his only pawn on a6 for Heine the ending was drawn anyway, securing 2,5-1,5 for Magnus. 

Peter had obviously spent most of his energy during the initial 14 games including tight matches against Lie and Magnus, and simply lost 3-0 to the never-tiring fighter S.Agdestein in the losers final. 


The audience seemed well satisfied with Magnus against Grischuk in the final.

As white in the first game, Magnus had a tempo or two from the opening and open lines, and thought he was clearly better. But after Grischuk's manoeuvre Bf5-e4-f3, Magnus did not find any better alternative then the repetition of moves with Qc7 Qg5+ Qg3 Qa5 Qc7 etc.
In the second game something went seriously wrong in the opening. Magnus had to give his queen for a rook and a bishop and did not have sufficient counterplay. Grischuk swapped pieces and advancing his c-pawn. 1-0. 
In the third game, a Spanish opening, Magnus really fought hard to try to win. In the bishop versus knight ending probably only very precise defence from Grischuk saved the draw. 

In a must-win situation with black Magnus went for the Benoni. He seemed to be in trouble when he had to play f5 to free up his position, but as the white rooks invaded the 6^th and 7^th rank it looked very difficult for Magnus with his knight and rook still on b8 and a8. His only active piece was the black-squared bishop, but somehow he managed to create sufficient counterplay with his b- and a-pawn and after Magnus sacked his knight on d7, Grischuk had to give a whole rook for the b-pawn. Magnus was simply winning and had 50 versus 18 seconds on the clock when he blundered his bishop. He could still have won with Ke4 going after the only remaining black pawn, but instead Grischuk was allowed to sack his last rook on the a-pawn and advance his own f-pawn. In the must-win situation Magnus let Grischuk queen his pawn, hoping to win on time (I guess) in the queen versus rook ending.
But Magnus lost his rook and when suggesting a draw as Grischuk did not have time to mate, Magnus' own time went out (I think). 3-1 to Grischuk in a spectacular final. Congratulations!
 
Magnus was quite upset with himself after the final game, but soon calmed down and was ready for TV interviews and the closing cermony.



Many thanks to Glitnir and the Norwegian chess federation for staging this great event! 

After the closing ceremony the Norwegian European Team Championship-team headed for the airport and Crete where Magnus is facing Shirov, Spain with the black pieces in round 1.       

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, October 28^th

One of the strongest tournaments in Norway ever is staged in the City shopping mall in the centre of Oslo tomorrow October 27^th at 11:00 !

The Glitnir bank is sponsoring the event.

After a double round robin in 4 initial groups with 4 players in each, the top 2 qualify for quarterfinals.
The top ranked plays no 8 etc, and each match consists of 4 games plus Armageddon in case of equality, followed by 4 games semifinal matches and the final. 

 World Blitz Champion 2006 A.Grischuk, Russia, (2716) is top ranked ahead of Magnus, Peter H.Nilsen, Denmark,  S.Agdestein,  H.Stefansson, Iceland,  T.Nyback, Finland, K.Lie and L.E.Johannessen.
The 10 invited players are joined by 6 outsiders from regional qualifiers that took place last Saturday. 

In the initial group Magnus is up against GM T.Nyback, IM J.L.Hammer and D.Madsen.
More information about the event on: http://www.sjakk.no/glitnirblitz/program_finale.htm ,
but I'm not aware of any plans to broadcast games live. 

The quarterfinals starts at 12:30, the semifinals at 14:15 and the final at 15:30. 

As IM E.Lie qualified from Porsgrunn last weekend, the whole Norwegian European Championship team (Magnus 2 x Lie, Hammer) will participate in the Blitz and leave directly for Crete right after the event. 

On Sunday  round 1 starts at Crete and the Norwegian team is probably up against Armenia or a similarly strong team.   

Henrik Carlsen
Lommedalen, October 26th

In the final rounds Magnus beat Topalov 4-1 but fell to 3^rd place as a result of Karjakin beating Harikrisna 6-0.

Bu secured his clear 1^st with an endgame win against Polgar as white. In the second game Polgar got revenge and secured a clear 4^th ahead of Topalov and Harikrisna. 

In the first game Topalov probably mixed up the move order playing Be7 without having castled and in the middle game Magnus could comfortably put pressure on black weaknesses c6 and a7 without taking any risks. Topalov voluntarily gave up the c-pawn but when he lost the a-pawn some 10 moves later he decided to resign.
In the second game Magnus was struggling after the opening with white controlling the c- and d-files. After a long thought he played b5, a slight weakness, but which got his pieces activated and he felt he had sufficient counterplay to balance the position. After exchanging rooks the endgame is probably better for white because the black pawns on a3 and b4 are more of a weakness than a strength, but both players wanted to win. (Topalov probably because he always wants to win(!) while Magnus needed to win to secure 2^nd place overall.)
However, a few moves later, after Topalov had made an illegal move, he seemed to be looking for drawing chances to avoid a tense and difficult time-scramble. When he found one, Magnus didn't have any choice but to accept. Draw.   

In the end the 3-1-0 score determined the rank between Karjakin (+5=2-3) and Magnus (+4=4-2). Final table:
X. Bu                 21 points
S.Karjakin       17 points
M.Carlsen       16 points
J.Polgar           12 points
V.Topalov          9 points
P.Harikrisna     6 points 

Rating performance is not important in rapid blindfold, but with 6 out of 10, a 2778-performance and nice wins against Karjakin, Polgar and Topalov, the tournament cannot be described as anything but a success for young Magnus!  
Congratulations to X.Bu for a tremendous performance and a deserved 1^st place, and to S.Karjakin for his impressive finish and 2^nd place. 



The closing ceremony was held in the centre featuring Basque folk dance and gifts to the organisers, arbiters, commentators, guests of honour and players followed by canapés and wine! 

Many thanks to the organisers for a nice event, great hospitality, excellent cuisine and exciting chess! 

Next challenges for Magnus are the Glitnir Blitz in Oslo October 27th followed by the European National Team Championship in Crete starting October 28.

Henrik Carlsen
Bilbao, October 21th

Magnus playing Judith Polgar has some kind of mystique to me. She has just turned 30 and is the strongest female player ever, but still I had read about her fantastic results as a prodigy before Magnus was born!  

With black Magnus played Spanish with 6...Bc5. He was out of theory after 11.Sdb2 but felt he managed to find an acceptable continuation. Despite the loose kingside he never felt in danger of losing. In the end both players had to repeat moves to avoid a worse position. Draw. 
With white Magnus really wanted to win to try to catch up with Bu and Karjakin (who had won as black against Topalov in round 7) and to improve his 50% score.
The opening transposed into something English-like and Magnus knew he could give the pawn on d4 for an initiative but not how to continue.
He chose 11...Bg5 and in the commentary room they looked at Qxb2 as interesting but probably dangerous for black. However, after 12.e5 c5 it is hard to see how black can survive. Magnus attacked the kingside ferociously and decided the game with mating threats a piece up after a very nice game.

Bu looked clearly worse as black against Harikrisna when the latter blundered his queen (for a pawn and rook) with Qxc6. He got some compensation but in the end Bu was winning. Demoralized Harikrisna went on to lose the second game as well. 

After missing to transpose a promising attack into something decisive Topalov as white lost on time in a lost position against Karjakin, but as black he showed his great capability winning convincingly in a Lb5 Sicilian. 

Before the last round Bu has 18 points ahead of Magnus 12, Karjakin 11, Polgar 9, Topalov 8 and Harikrisna 6.
In my understanding Bu also will have the better tie-break irrespective of the results today and therefore is the winner already. Congratulations! 



This morning several hundred children participated in a tournament near the centre. 



Before the round today the players visited the venue to pose for pictures, write autographs and have lunch with the group winners. 



In parallel with the children tournament an internet match was held between young players from Bilbao and South Africa!  

The nice win against Polgar and the visit to the children tournament in my mind has contributed in different but equally important ways to make this Bilbao trip very successful for Magnus!  

Todays rounds start an hour earlier than usual, at 17:30.

In the first game Magnus has white against Topalov and leader Bu is facing Polgar.        

Henrik Carlsen
Bilbao, October 20th

Another exciting day in Bilbao yesterday! Leader Bu faced Topalov and Magnus played his youngster "rival" S.Karjakin, Ukraine.
The players seemed to have got used to the technical part of way of entering moves, but also this round featured some spectacular blunders. 



Organisor Andoni Madariaga started by welcoming Grand Slam partner Corus' organisor Theo Hoogland who started the game between Harikrisna and Polgar.



 Magnus is sometimes a bit hesitant to enter the sharpest variations because he generally rather wants to play it out at the board and not let preparations decide. But in these blindfold games he felt more inclined to accept the risk of walking into a prepared line. The result was that both games against S.Karjakin followed preparations quite far, with black having the advantage of the better preparation in both games! 

In the first game Magnus played a line he beat Grischuk with in blitz in Tal Memorial last year and he decided to continue along the same path despite his fears that Sergey had found a better continuation for white. Although the position looks aghast for black a pawn down and with a white rook on f7, knight on g5 and queen on f3, the tactics seems to work in favour of black. And it did! Sergey had to give up a piece for 3 pawns and the resulting endgame could not be saved due. The additional black bishop effectively stopped white counterplay. 0-1 and Magnus? first tournament win against Karjakin! 

In game two Magnus wanted to win again. He started with d4 and allowed a sharp variation where black sacks an exchange on c4. Too late Magnus remembered that he had seen an analysis concluding that black had sufficient compensation after Bg7. Interestingly both players later thought black was lost after Magnus returned the exchange on e5 followed by Qe2, but Sergey found the probably only defence Nc7. In the analysis room the GM?s suggested Bxe6 Nxe6 Nc5 but Magnus thought he would end up a pawn down after all the exchanges.
After Nc7 white probably does not have sufficient compensation for the two pawns and Sergey finished the game with impressive accuracy. Especially his Qf5 was a precise move that prevented white from exploiting the centralized black king because of counterplay against h2 and g2. 0-1. 

Leader X.Bu continued to win! Topalov seemed to choose a suspicious line as black and soon found himself in trouble. Despite opposite coloured bishops the additional pawn and the strong bishop on e6 soon decided the end game for Bu. Magnus thought Topalov was winning as white in the next game but somehow Bu escaped and managed to draw. He now has a clear lead with 12 points. Polgar won 4-1 against Harikrisna to join Magnus and Karjakin in shared 2nd with 8 points. Harikrisna has 6 and Topalov 5. 

On a different note I'd like to praise the excellent hotel cuisine. It's varied, tasty and well prepared!
Unfortunately Magnus has not yet learned to appreciate international cuisine and prefers sandwiches, omelette, pizzas etc. He don't know what he is missing!

Tonight features Magnus against Polgar, Topalov-Karjakin and Bu-Harikrisna where Bu in practice could decide the tournament.

Henrik Carlsen
Bilbao, October 19th

In round 3 and 4 yesterday the players continued to make blunders and typing errors.
The surprisingly high number of mistakes is in my opinion partly a coincidence, and we will see less of them the last 3 days. (Topalov is normally a very strong blindfold player who is usually not dropping pieces, and Magnus will get used to the from-square - to-square notation as he has not yet lost touch with the blindfold position itself.)
But the fact that they have to type the from-to move, check it on the wall screen and press the clock with only 10 second increments (versus 20 in Monaco), does not leave much room for thinking and obviously affects the quality of the games when in time-trouble. 

As white against X.Bu Magnus felt he was simply a pawn up in the middle game but after Qxd5 he had missed Rd8 (and only expected Qc3+ and Qxe3).
Still he was probably better with Rook, bishop and pawn and active pieces for the queen but lost the long endgame. After the game he was quite disgusted with the his play and was eager to get revenge.
This is not easy as black but thought he was slightly better when he declined repetition of moves playing Nd7-f8-g6 instead of Nf6.
He was hoping to put pressure on white due to the week d-pawn but after Nc7 he got slight problems instead.
A pawn down, but not really worse arrording to himself, he noticed that Bu's 44^th move Kd3-e4 was erroneous as the king was already on e4, but as it appeared on the screen and the arbiter did not intervene, he thought "maybe it was at d3 after all and I have to make a move anyway because of the time trouble". They played on for about 15 moves without the live monitors outside the room showing any progress, and was not stopped by the arbiters until Bu pointed out that Magnus move h5-h7 was erroneous as the pawn was already on h6.
The irony was that Magnus had won two pawns (a and h-pawn) during these 15 moves and he thought he was winning. But, (I guess in order to be able to continue the game at all in a way acceptable to their computer system), the arbiter decided that they had to start from move 44 again! (I'm not blaming the arbiter who was in an impossible position.) Relative to normal chess an illegal move many moves back discovered during reconstruction would not have such unfortunate consequences as the players would simply play on from the final position.
 When they reconvened after some 10 minutes, they immediately repeated moves. Draw. (Maybe the young Chinese repeated moves partly as a guest due to the circumstances earlier in the game.) 

After drawing with white Topalov seems to outplay Harikrisna as black but in beginning time trouble he again blundered a piece (on c5 allowing bxc5).
Last year he won convincingly against Polgar 3-1 and we certainly expect him to be back in this tournament. 

Polgar had an advantage as white against Karjakin but after a serious mistake she had to fight for the draw.
In game two Karjakin played a nice piece sack giving him pawns on f5 and e6 and control of the d-line and he finished the game in style. 

Prior to day 3 X.Bu is in the lead with 8 points ahead of Magnus, Karjakin and Harikrisna on 5 and Topalov and Polgar with 4. 

Today Magnus plays black against his fellow youngster S.Karjakin at 18:30 and white at 19:30.  

Henrik Carlsen
Bilbao, October 18th

Yesterday most of the players and accompanying persons took advantage of the beautiful weather and courtesy of the organiser and participated in the interesting excursion along the river Nervion. After a short trip south under the Calatrava bridge and to watch the Guggenheimer museum, we headed towards the sea.



Bilbao was one of the biggest shipping points for iron ore and had many shipyards but today the city has been modernized, the river cleaned and the main industry is tourism.
The Bilbao area has more than 1 million inhabitants but the city itself has less than 400 thousand after Franco in the 30's divided the area into several smaller cities supposedly to promote the status of Madrid relative to Bilbao.
Near the sea we visited the charming port of Portugalete and walked across the 63 meter high and more than 100 meter long iron bridge built in 1893. (The unique iron construction paved the way for the building of the more famous Eiffel tower in Paris.) 
Magnus chose to sleep long and prepare for round 1 at the hotel instead. 

The opening ceremony was headed by eminent chess journalist and radio reporter Leontxo Garcia in the stairs of the impressive atrium reception hall of Sheraton. It was followed by a great number of journal