Magnus Carlsen

Magnus played 1.d4 against Volokitin. He had of course noticed how the Ukrainian misplayed the middle game against Van Wely in round 8.
The appearant novelty 14.Qe4 lead to a better ending for white.
Magnus needed a draw to secure tournament victory with a round to go, and was quite happy to be in a position to put pressure on Volokitin without too much risk.
After black advanced his b-pawn, Magnus felt very comfortable with the position and played fast. Maybe too fast. Having played 23.b3? he immediately saw that Volokitin could respond b4! so that he should have played e4 instead. 
Magnus might still have an edge but when he chose 30.Nd5 (instead of maybe Nh5) it might not be so difficult for black to hold.
Volokitin deserves praise, he defended very well in the rest of the game, for instance when finding only-moves like 33....Rd7 and 48....Bg2. 
In the end Magnus overpressed slightly and had to suffer a rook ending a pawn down for some moves before a draw was agreed.
With 7.5/10 Magnus has already won the tournament! 
He did not look that happy right after the game as he was very tired (and still a bit angry with himself for having played 23...b3), but after a while he really appreciated the outright victory and great performance in Aerosvit 2008!

We had dinner at the Foros Pizza together with two representatives of Norwegian main television (NRK) who has arrived to report from the tournament finish.

There were two decisive games yesterday.
It was interesting to see Shirov fight his way back. After his 2 out of 2 he has had many nice positions but scored miserably until his excellent win against Svidler yesterday.
Svidler had a protected pawn on f2, but couldn't avoid the nice mating net created by the white king and two rooks.

Van Wely seemed in reasonably good shape from the opening against Ivanchuk, but after one or two questionable moves he went down quickly losing a piece in Ivanchuk's king side attack around move 20.
And it was of course a great game by Ivanchuk who moved into shared second with Eljanov at 6 points.
(As predicted by many, Magnus' first round win against Ivanchuk may very well turn out to be decisive to the tournament result.)

Today Magnus has black against 4th placed S.Karjakin. He is of course interested in playing a good game against his rival youngster.
With some of the pressure gone by already having secured tournament victory, let's hope for an exciting game!

Henrik Carlsen,
Foros, Crimea, June 19th 2008

The draws all came in battles between young players (Karjakin, Volokitin and Alekseev) having the white pieces against the more experienced Ivanchuk, Svidler and Shirov respectively.

Eljanov, with the black pieces put pressure on Onischuk along the long white diagonal and white decided to sacrifice an exchange on d5. Later Eljanov gave back the exchange in a beautiful combination to win a pawn and gain a dominant position that was quickly won.

Jakovenko beat Van Wely with the white pieces in an interesting game.

Magnus was black against Nisipeanu and encouraged by his excellent results so far was determined to play for a win. In the end he chose the Sicilian Dragen against 1.e4 and when Nisipeanu avoided the most principled variations, played Be2, castled short etc, black has already equalised.

White spent about 20 minutes deciding on the novelty 12.a4 after which Magnus felt he had the better position. White?s plan sacrificing a pawn with 15.c3?! was judged unsound by most commentators while Magnus thought it was a reasonable idea. White may enjoy excellent compensation exploiting his extra space and coordination on the king side. However, Magnus decided against taking the c3 pawn right away (and in fact never did).
Instead he responded 16...Rc8 and 18....Nc4! reducing white counterplay while getting ready to take advantage of the many white pawn weaknesses.

Magnus felt he played a good game yesterday and that he was in control in the rest of the game.

After sacrificing an exchange on d4 he had two pawns, the bishop pair and a clearly favourable position.

The computers' evaluation was that black had to find some only-moves to maintain an advantage (for instance 26.Bh6, which he did play), while Magnus felt comfortable and played rather quickly in most of Nisipeanu's time trouble.

After the exchange of a rook, the black a-pawn started to march to a2 and although white can prevent queening with Qc3, he is totally tied up and will lose the f-pawn. Soon the black pawn avalanche will decide and he resigned instead. 0-1 !

Although his opponent was not in his best shape yesterday, Magnus was very satisfied with his own play and the victory. Having had a slight trace of a cold on the free day and the evening before the free day, he felt fit for fight yesterday and thoroughly appreciate the two points lead going into the last four rounds.

At 6/7 he is followed by the Ukrainian trio Karjakin, Volokitin and Eljanov at 4 points. Last year's winner Ivanchuk has 3.5 points together with Shirov, Svidler and Jakovenko.

Magnus finished relatively early yesterday as he had plenty of time left on the clock in Nisipeanu's time trouble. And with the Euro 2008 starting later than usual, Magnus went to the internet café, while I preferred a swim in the Black Sea.

The sea temperature has improved during our stay, but it is still quite refreshing and has not yet reached the 23oC normally enjoyed during the summer.

The Black Sea has had dozens of names and the current one supposedly has several possible explanations.

Many Greek sailors and traders were surprised by the turbulent weather of the Black Sea resulting in a significant number of ship wrecks and deaths. The wife's of dead sailors wearing black headdresses of sorrow gave the sea a repute for danger and death and hence the reference to the 'black' (headdress) sea.

The sea is more than 2000 meters deep. Maritime life is limited to the top 200 meter layer below which the bottom is mainly dark mud.

Seen from the Crimean mountains nearby, the dark bottom is quite distinctive and could well be the bases for the current name.

Today Magnus is white against current tail-ender A.Onichuk, USA.

We try to focus on tournaments as excellent training for Magnus, on him doing his best and having fun while playing chess, but I guess he is aware of the fact that a win today would bring him to the #1 spot on the unofficial live rating list.

It is not important to reach that target today, but being in the position of having this possibility in itself is quite a mind-boggling achievement!

Let's hope it will be many interesting games today.

H.Carlsen,
Foros, June 16th, 2008

Before round 5 yesterday we tried the tennis facilities in the pleasant sunshine.



Magnus wore his FAST T-shirt and it turned out to be another lucky T-shirt!
(FAST Search & Transfer is his main sponsor and share his ambition of becoming the best in their field. They are a billion dollar search engine company and was purchased by Microsoft this spring.)

Magnus played 1.d4 again and Shirov chose the Slav defence instead of his successful Gruenfeld from round 1. Magnus again opted for the relatively innocent Bxf6-line and deviated from his 3rd round game against Van Wely with 8.Rc1. Shirov's position seemed a bit cramped and despite his bishop pair white was probably slightly better. 

When Shirov played 16....Nf8 to really start his counterplay, Magnus, somewhat surprisingly for many spectators, decided to swap his powerful e5-knight against the seemingly weak black bishop on d7. The reason was that he could not find a way to maintain an advantage with other continuations and settled for another slightly better endgame.

After Shirov freed himself with the 29....e5 break Magnus felt he had winning chances due to all the black weaknesses. White consistently improved the position but at a critical moment allowed 36....Rc5, which solves most of black's problems.
In the continuation Magnus seriously considered to repeat moves on a couple of occasions as he did not seem to have any realistic winning chances.

However, also this time his opponent seemingly mismanaged his time left.
As Magnus continued to find new threats, Shirov entered time trouble around move 50.
After defending well for a while, Shirov started to go astray in the tricky position, and when Magnus set up a final mating trap, the position is objectively drawn but Shirov blundered and resigned in face of mate in 2!

Main commentator GM Golubev in the doorway of the majestetic playing venue next to the hotel.

Today Magnus was white against Alekseev and after getting only a slight edge from the Queen Indian opening, he found an interesting pawn sacrifice that probably surprised most spectators, 14.b4?!
However he had missed the response Nc5! after which black is at least slightly better. 
Magnus again spent lots of time evaluating the alternative continuations.
Magnus thought the ending after 16.....Bd6 and sacrificing the rook on b7 would have been drawish despite only one pawn compensation for the exchange.
Alekseev probably wanted to avoid too much complexity and instead played the probably equally strong Rc8.
After exchange of rooks and 18.Qb1 Magnus is a pawn down but has some initiative. 
Alekseev thought for more than 20 minutes, so that both players where down to 30 minutes, and finally opted for the fairly safe 18....a5 accompanied by a draw offer.
Magnus did not have a very good feeling after having missed 15...Nc5, and was also slightly worse so he accepted the early draw. After all a reasonably good result.

Shirov-Karjakin was the game of the day. Shirov sacked a piece a la Topalov-Kramnik in Corus and went on to sack his queen as well! With quite precise play from both, the game finally ended in a perpetual and drawn like all the other games today.

Entering the free day tomorrow, Magnus is in the lead with impressive 5/6 ahead of Karjakin and Volokitin at 3,5.

Time for Euro 2008!

Henrik C.
Foros, June 13th, 2008 

The weather in Miskolc has been very sunny with temperatures up to 30oC. Yesterday was very humid as well and the dark afternoon clouds promised rain that never came. Today is another beautiful day and we will surely see 30 oC again. 

In game 5 yesterday Peter played the slightly unusual 10.Qe1 variation in the Sicilian Dragen, and Magnus chose the variation with 12..... cxd5 instead of the more normal Sxd5.
Magnus thought he was alright after the opening but he was not prepared for 20.Qa5! after which he spent more than 10 minutes evaluating the possibilities. Later he thought he should have exchanged queens and played the slightly worse rook ending. It may be better for white but black should hold with precise play. 
Too late he realized that his plan Qc7-e7-h4 was giving white a serious advantage. He still thought he could create difficulties for white with 24....c3 but had missed 26.f4! after which he is was short on time as well as a pawn down with no compensation.
After 34.Qe5 black looked lost. Qh4 loses to Qg5! and Qb6 probably to f5!
Magnus found Kg7! to activate his king. 
Exchanging queens brought white a very good rook endgame with 3 versus 1 pawn on the queenside and 2 versus 3 on the kingside. Fortunately for Magnus his king was slightly better placed to support the advance of pawns and the commentators say the position was theoretically drawn after about 40 moves.
Magnus generally played well in the endgame but supposedly made a mistake with 44....g4? instead of Kg3. Afterwards Peter supposedly also went wrong and when Magnus found 48.....Rg6! he has excellent drawing chances. 
If white plays c5 Magnus checks on g4 and the rook goes to h4 in which case there will be a queen ending with white having an additional pawn. Theoretical drawn but black could easily make a mistake.
Peter may have thought that he could win with the two advanced pawns and played 51.Rxh3 Kxh3 52.c5. 
Magnus had about 50 seconds (plus increments) at this time and after eliminating the other possible defences he found the drawing plan Rg4+ 53.Ka5 Rc4 spending two valuable tempi getting the rook into the right position. Afterwards it was a fairly straight forward draw as the black king arrives just in time to capture one pawn while sacrificing the rook on the other.
An exciting game and a narrow escape for Magnus. Peter again was well prepared and played excellent in the middle game while Magnus excelled in the endgame.

As white Magnus played 1.d4 this time and Peter entered the variation d5 2.c4 e6 3.g3 c5 4.Nf3 cxd4 5.Qc7 and two moves later captured the pawn on c4. Magnus supposedly have good compensation for the pawn, and Kasparov has beaten Kramnik in the same line. Peter deviated from normal theory with 12.....Nxe4 instead of dxe4. Magnus felt he had some counterplay but never enough to play for a win. In the end he settled for rook and opposite colour bishop endgame which is drawn as long as he can keep the black rook out of play. Peter sacrificed his c-pawn, but as Magnus still can prevent black activating his rook blocking with his rook or bishop a draw was agreed after move 32.

In summary Magnus is very satisfied with the results so far and the lead 3,5-2,5 in the match while not entirely happy about his play. He has had serious difficulties in two games and only an advantage in the one game he won.  

We expect Peter to really go for a win in game 7 today and it will surely be an exciting day!

Henrik Carlsen,
Miskolc, Jun 1st 2008

 

 

 

Having slept very well, Magnus was both in a good mood and in good shape prior to the first game against Peter Leko.
With about 30 oC in the shadow, we appreciated the air-conditioned drive down to the National Theatre.
Everything was well organised and Magnus got his own rest room before and between the games.



On behalf of Peter, the mayor Sandor Kali pushed the white e-pawn to e4.
Again choosing the Sicilian Dragen Magnus was well prepared and when Peter deviated from the game Karjakin-Carlsen in Baku with 19.Nb3 Magnus quickly responded Rac8 rather than the passive Re6. Peter took the pawn on d6, but black enjoyed excellent counterplay on the queenside. After 22..... a5 Peter should maybe had captured with the knight to create any real winning chances. Either he did not like the continuation or he avoided the worst complications and played 23.Qg5 instead. After the exchange of queens, Peter tried to activate his knight but Magnus kept control of the open d-file and Peter proposed a draw in the rook endgame. His extra pawn is not giving any advantage as any attempt exchanging rooks or advancing pawn leads to a worse end-game. Draw.



The second game was introduced.



Magnus played 1.e4 and Peter somewhat to his surprise responded 1.... c6. Magnus went for the slightly obscure 5.Nc5 line. He thought he got a small advantage but after Peter continued with precise moves not allowing white's main plan Ne5, the position was probably very equal.
After 13..... Rfe8 14.Rac1 Bg4 Magnus could not find anything better than 15.Qc2 and when Peter moved his bishop back to f5, moves were slowly repeated three times.

Interestingly this is the third time of a early repetition as white against Peter.
In Tal Memorial 2006 Magnus avoided the repetition and accepted a worse position. He was probably lost at one point but managed to escape and draw in the end.
In Morelia in 2007 they again repeated moves, but as none of the players were happy to draw nor to propose draw, they repeated 4 times before Peter took responsibility of the situation and offered his hand!

Yesterday Magnus repeated 3 times but continued to hope that Peter would deviate. After a long thought Peter offered his hand and the draw was agreed.

During the press conference Magnus praised Peter for his accurate play in the second game and appologized to the audience for the unfortunate short draw.

Anyhow, avoid losing on the first day gave both players a reasonable start to the match.

Miskolc is one out of four university cities in Hungary outside Budapest, and this morning chief arbiter Veroci and mechanical engineering student and driver Sandor showed me the impressive university. It has 11,000 students and faculties include engineering, economics, law, medicine and veterinary stuidies, many of which are available to English and German speaking foreign students.
As a former industrial city, Miskolc should be well prepared for the transition into high-tech industries and a project is already under way to establish industry based on nanotechnology.

Miskolc is also well known for the Cave bath with both outside pools as well as pools inside natural caverns.

Let us hope for some interesting fights today!

Henrik Carlsen,
Miskolc, May 29th 2008
  

Henrik Carlsen,

Lommedalen, May 17th 2008

Awfully late reporting from round 7 and 8.
I'll just comment briefly giving some of Magnus own thoughts about his games.

Having scored 50% after 6 rounds, Magnus was eager to play for three rather than two results against Radjabov as black in round 7.
His surprise weapon this time was the Sicilian Dragen and Radjabov obviously was caught off guard and spent quite some time early on.
When Radjabov played 15.g4 Magnus had to start spending time as well, as this is an unusual move order that supposedly does not give white an advantage. At the press conference Radjabov admitted that he had mixed up the move order in the opening, but still thought his attack would work.
The complexity of these lines can be illustrated by the fact that it takes the computers a long time to understand that white has compensation for the pawn and the exchange by playing 18.Qh2.

Having had a clear advantage on the clock Magnus spent more than 30 minutes checking 19....Qa5 but Radjabov went on to spend most of his remaining time calculating the slightly faulty 22.Nf5?! which he thought worked.
(Unknowingly they had followed a database game until move 19!)
When Radjabov chose the ambitious 24.Qh4 instead of entering a worse but maybe drawn ending with Bxe6, Magnus thought he was winning. But still the position was amazingly complex and instead of the dubious 25.Rf1, the alternative Nd5 would have been more challenging for black.

With about a minute left for 12-13 moves, Radjabov had to blitz until the time control and when Magnus played the natural looking 32....e2?, Radjabov could have drawn with Qd7! which none of the players spotted.
After 33.Qf3+ the black king escapes and the e-pawn decided the game at the time control. 0-1.

In conclusion both players put up a great fight but Magnus made the least mistakes this time.

Gashimov impressively beat Kamsky with a nice pawn storm to join the leaders Grishuk and Yue at +2, while Karjakin outplayed Inarkiev from an even position to get back to 50% and Cheparinov continued his uncompromising style to score his second win in a row against Mamedyarov.

Magnus of course was eager to continue his success when white against Cheparinov in round 8. Against 1.c4 Cheparinov somewhat surprisingly e5 and they played a reversed Sicilian. Black blitzed out moves until 13.e3 Nb5, and the opening did not give Magnus much of an advantage. However, his manoeuvring over the next few moves improved his position and he had a slight but comfortable advantage when Cheparinov blundered with 22.....Ne6 quickly realizing that Magnus could take on b7 due to the follow-up Qc4!
Magnus was afterwards still very annoyed about having missed Nb7 until seconds after having responded 23.h4. Too late... 
He played 27.Qe4 as he thought the ending with queens off would be somewhat unpleasant for black due to the pawn structure, but Cheparinov defended accurately and Magnus never got any real winning chances.

Mamedyarov continued his up's and down's winning against Karjakin, while Inarkiev beat Navara after the latter blundered in time trouble. The rest of the games ended draw leaving the standing at the top unchanged with Grishuk, Yue and Gashimov at 5/8, Magnus and Kamsky half a point behind in shared 4th.

Yesterday night Magnus relaxed with Champion League football enjoying the great battle between Man U and Barcelona.

Today Magnus has black against Karjakin, a tough challenge although Karjakin has not shown his best form in this tournament. Lets hope for a great fight!

Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, April 30th, 2008

   

     

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

Henrik Carlsen
Baku, April 25th 2008

Round 2 yesterday featured two more decided games.

Adams won a pawn in the middle game against Cheparinov and with pawns on both king and queen side he managed to win the rook endgame. Mamedyarov sacrificed or blundered an exchange for a pawn against Inarkiev who wrapped up the game efficiently to move back to 50%.

Magnus defended the black pieces against Svidler in the Ruy Lopez and was hoping for an unbalanced situation. However, after 15.a4 he understood that he was worse and after a long thought he had to defend against the invasion of the white queen with Qe7 and effectively giving up his ambitions in the game.
White had some pressure on the queenside and Magnus chose to free himself with 19....c5.
My computer dislikes the sack but the players agreed in the press conference that it leads to a drawn ending. However, due to the pawn structure Magnus had to defend quite accurately in the 3 versus 2 pawn rook ending and was honestly relieved when Peter repeated the position for the third time.
He could well have tortured Magnus another hour or two.

Before round 3 Adams, Grichuk, Kamsky and Radjabov had +1 with Magnus in shared 5th at 50%.

As white against Inarkiev Magnus needed a win and he chose an opening he has played a couple of times before.
Magnus thought he was slightly better after 10.0-0 Nh5 and after 12.Rfe1 Na5 but after the mistake 13.Bb5 he suddenly discovered that he was clearly worse due to 15...e5! 
Magnus kept on making some inaccurate moves and the situation looked pretty difficult when he finally spent lots of time trying to find a way out and found 19.Bd1. 
He thought it would be difficult to defend against the black kingside attack but Inarkiev continued to spend too much time on the clock and played 24...Nd2 as a practical solution in the ensuing time trouble.
The position was pretty equal but Magnus tried to complicate with 26.e5! and after 27...f6 ?! black is still OK but has to defend accurately against the threats on the white squares.
Just before the time control Inarkiev played 34...c4 ? giving up the c-pawn after which the ending is very difficult for him.
After the time control Magnus finished in style with the combined threats of the a-pawn and white square domination around the black king.
Puuuh, why does he have to make us so nervous:-)

Four more games was decided today with Karjakin beating Adams in a seemingly even endgame, Grischuk securing another black win against Navara this time, Gashimov impressingly beat Svidler and Bacrot won a rook a endgame against Cheparinov in which the latter overpressed.

With 9 out of 21 games with decisive ending, spectators and organisers should be fairly satisfied despite a few games ending in repetition of moves.

Grishuk has taken a clear lead with 2,5 points ahead of Magnus, Gashimov, Kamsky, Karjakin and Radjabov at 2 while at the bottom Cheparinov is in real trouble at 0/3.

Peter from Chessvibes is working for the organiser and there are lots of videos from the press conferences at the tournament home page (http://baku2008.fide.com/).

Baku offers exiting sightseeing opportunities. We haven't been much around yet, but a visit to the "old town" by the harbour is classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and a visit is a must during our Baku stay.   

After the game and dinner we played some table tennis today.
Magnus is hoping to get more energetic in the rounds to come as he hasn't felt really fit for fight during the first three rounds.

Henrik Carlsen,
Baku, April 23th 2008