Carlsen Wins the Tal Memorial Blitz = Blitz World Championship
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 5:48PM Magnus Carlsen stayed hot through most of today's final 14 rounds, and won the Tal Memorial Blitz, which was also the World Blitz Championship this year, with a fine score of 31 out of 42, three full points ahead of world champ Viswanathan Anand. It didn't hurt that he defeated Anand in their individual game, but he was pretty dominant even aside from that game. It was a very good result for both players. For Carlsen, it's further evidence that he's as real as it gets; his rivals aren't going to pinch themselves and wake up to find out he's not there. He's there, and the title is unlikely to stay out of his hands for very long. For Anand, resting on his laurels as always (not getting into the action like Topalov), it's also a good result that should help both his confidence and his sharpness as he continues his preparation for Chaos and son.
In a mild surprise, Sergey Karjakin finished third with 25 points, three points behind Anand but just half a point ahead of Vladimir Kramnik. Kramnik started the day on fire, winning five straight to close on the leaders and to come within half a point of Karjakin. In his sixth game (round 34) he had White against Morozevich and seemed to be playing real chess (i.e. using serious openings and actual preparation), and had his opponent on the ropes for a long time. When Morozevich finally scraped out a draw, it seemed to take all the air out of Kramnik, whose subsequent results were horrible: loss, draw, loss, loss, draw, loss. After another draw, he finally found a victim - Karpov - and maintained fourth place. What's amazing is that at the end of that terrible sequence, he still finished just half a point behind Karjakin!
Svidler, Ponomariov and Grischuk finished a further point back, and as the drop to the next group was a point and a half this seems like a good place to stop listing results. Other results worthy of note in an unfortunate way: Ivanchuk, who won the blitz title two years ago and came in second last year by half a point, finished 15th this time around with 19.5-22.5. Less surprisingly, but a little sad after his great play the first day, was Karpov's 16th place finish with 19 points. The women did even worse: Judit Polgar was 19th with 17 points, and Kosteniuk came in last with 12.5, two and a half points below the next-to-last place finisher. Considering her rating, it was a good score, and she can boast of wins against Carlsen, Anand, Aronian and Karpov, among others. She had a nice run at the end of yesterday's rounds, but today was a disaster: she drew in round 29 (today's first round), but then lost 11 in a row. (Full results here.)
There were lots of good and interesting games, of course, and I'll try to present some later tonight. If there were any especially good games you've seen, please paste the PGN in the comments to this post or the one I hope to present later tonight.
Anand, Carlsen, blitz in Tal Memorial 2009
Reader Comments (3)
Judit Polgar's last-round win over Aronian was nice, a KID melee followed by White unable to find how to push the d-pawn without hanging things to forks. Game score mouse-copied from TWIC site.
Aronian, Levon - Polgar, Judit
World Blitz Moscow RUS (42), 2009.11.17
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4 Ne8 10.c5 h6 11.Nd2 f5 12.Nc4 g5 13.Ba3 Ng6 14.b5 Nf4 15.f3 Rf7 16.Rc1 Bf8 17.Kh1 Qf6 18.Ne3 fxe4 19.Nxe4 Qg6 20.Bd3 Nxd3 21.Qxd3 Nf6 22.Qc4 Nxe4 23.fxe4 Rf4 24.cxd6 cxd6 25.Qc7 Qxe4 26.Bxd6 Bh3 27.Bxe5 Rc8 28.Bxf4 Rxc7 29.Bxc7 Qxe3 30.gxh3 Qe4+ 31.Kg1 Bc5+ 32.Rxc5 Qd4+ 33.Rf2 Qxc5 34.d6 Qxb5 35.Rd2 Qc5+ 36.Kf1 Qf5+ 37.Ke1 Qd7 38.Kd1 Kf7 39.Re2 Kf6 40.Re7 Qa4+ 41.Ke1 Qxa2 42.Re2 Qa1+ 43.Kf2 Qd4+ 44.Kg2 a5 45.Rf2+ Ke6 46.Re2+ Kf5 47.Rf2+ Ke4 48.Re2+ Kd3 49.Re7 Qd5+ 50.Kg1 a4 51.Kf2 a3 52.Re3+ Kd2 53.Rxa3 Qc5+ 54.Kg2 Qxa3 55.d7 Ke2 0-1
Anand vs Carlsen 0-1 World Blitz Championship 2009
Carlsen's great Black win over Anand.
30 ... Re8xe3! and 32 ... g4-g3!! highlight the win.
[Event "World Blitz Championship"]
[Site "Moscow RUS"]
[Date "2009.11.18"]
[EventDate "2009.11.16"]
[Round "38"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "V Anand"]
[Black "M Carlsen"]
[ECO "D31"]
[WhiteElo "2788"]
[BlackElo "2801"]
[PlyCount "92"]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bf4 Nf6 6. e3 Bf5 7. h3 c6 8.
Nf3 Nbd7 9. g4 Be4 10. Bg2 O-O 11. O-O Re8 12. Nxe4 Nxe4 13. Nd2 Nxd2 14.
Qxd2 Nf8 15. b4 Ng6 16. Bg3 Bd6 17. Bxd6 Qxd6 18. Rab1 a6 19. a4 Nh4 20. b5
axb5 21. axb5 Qg6 22. bxc6 bxc6 23. Rfc1 h5 24. Qc2 Qg5 25. Qxc6 Nxg2 26.
Kxg2 hxg4 27. h4 Qf5 28. Qd6 Qf3+ 29. Kg1 Ra2 30. Rf1 Rxe3 31. Qd8+ Kh7 32.
Qg5 g3 33. Qxe3 gxf2+ 34. Qxf2 Rxf2 35. Rxf2 Qg4+ 36. Rg2 Qxd4+ 37. Kh1 Qe4
38. Rf1 f5 39. Kg1 d4 40. Rgf2 d3 41. h5 Qg4+ 42. Rg2 Qd4+ 43. Kh1 d2 44.
Rgg1 f4 45. Kg2 Qe3 46. Rh1 Qg3+ 0-1
Nice game, Ken - thanks for passing it along!