Candidates Tournament, Round 6: Carlsen, Aronian Win and Extend Their Lead
Going into the second rest day of the 2013 Candidates' tournament in London, the tournament is quickly becoming a tournament of haves and have-nots. Near the end of the first half, there are two "haves": Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian, both of whom sport impressive +3 scores (4.5-1.5). Aside from them, no one else even has a plus score. Eight rounds remain, so the tournament is not over by any means, but the clock is certainly ticking on the rest of the field.
Both of the leaders won today. Carlsen outplayed Peter Svidler in impressive fashion on the black side of a Ruy Lopez. As is sometimes the case in his games, he didn't seem to do anything amazing, but the result was the speedy demise of a great player and Ruy specialist who had seemed in good form in the preceding rounds. Such is chess in the Carlsen era. Meanwhile, Aronian overcame Teimour Radjabov, also winning with the black pieces. This game was roughly balanced for a long time, and although it was Aronian who did most of the pushing Radjabov was almost never in any serious trouble in the game. Exhaustion may have played a role in the end, when in a very tenable position Radjabov committed an outright blunder and resigned almost immediately afterwards.
Vladimir Kramnik has been playing good and interesting chess, and has been close to a win in several games. Today he went into sacrifice mode against Vassily Ivanchuk, first giving up a pawn, then an exchange, and then a piece for a pawn - the latter two sacrifices for the sake of a kingside attack. Ivanchuk burned lots of time, but defended perfectly, and after 27 moves Kramnik was faced with a fascinating decision. He could take a perpetual check (or something close enough to it), or try to play on. Ivanchuk had just over a minute left at that point to make 13 moves; the problem for Kramnik is that declining the perpetual wouldn't result in a murky position but a lost one. He looked for a long time to find some way to keep the game going without excessive risk, but he couldn't and took the right decision, painful though it clearly was to him. Six games, six draws for Kramnik.
Alexander Grischuk blundered a pawn in the early middlegame against Boris Gelfand, but although the latter had an advantage he objectively should have won with, he made a few errors - some even after the time control - and Grischuk escaped with a draw. The players are fighting hard, but some early signs of tiredness are seeping in. Hopefully the rest day is just what they need.
The games, with my notes, are here. Meanwhile, here are the standings in Noah's Ark after six rounds:
1-2. Carlsen, Aronian 4.5
3-4. Kramnik, Svidler 3
5-6. Grischuk, Radjabov 2.5
7-8. Ivanchuk, Gelfand 2
Finally, here are the round 7 pairings, for this Saturday:
- Carlsen - Radjabov
- Aronian - Grischuk
- Gelfand - Kramnik
- Ivanchuk - Svidler
Reader Comments (5)
I have several questions about moves 13-17.
First of all, we know Svidler was extremely familiar with this variation, having played an won with it twice as White fairly recently against top competition (Svidler-Sargissian 2011 and Svidler-Kamsky (blitz) 2008). So exactly how did it happen that within a couple of moves, White went from a position that he had deeply studied and was expert in to a worse position as White?
I'm not quite sure what is going on these moves, what the strategic ideas are given that Carlsen's refutation looks totally obvious. You even write that after ...Bf5 that black is "obviously better". If it was so obvious, why would Carlsen have played Ne3 to go into that, since it's a simple forcing line (...d5 is one of the things Black is aiming for).
Look, Svidler is a super GM. He is expert and very successful in this line. Black is not making any unusual or unexpected moves or responses. So how did Black reach the position after ...Bf5 which is better for Black exactly?
[DM: It isn't very mysterious. Svidler is a great player, but as you say, ...d5 is something Black would like to do. Maybe Svidler's thought was that 19...Bxd5 was impossible, while 19...Rxd5 wouldn't be so clear with the awkwardly placed rook. About 19...Bxd5, White can of course take on e5, but the tactical justification of Black's play in this line is 20.Nxe5 Nxe5 21.Qxe5 Re8! 22.Qxe8 Qg4, winning the queen. Black is somewhat better after 23.Qe4 Bxe4 24.Rxe4 Qd7. After 19...Rxd5 Svidler would have been at least equal with 20.Qe4, preventing ...Bf5 and taking advantage of Black's somewhat loose and jumbled pieces. 20.h3 was a luxury he couldn't afford, and then Black was simply better after 20...Bf5. It's odd that he allowed that, but errare humanum est.]
Jonathan Rowson tweeted the other day:
That was in reference to Carlsen's round 4 game against Grischuk.Apparently the quote about Karpov came from Icelandic GM Johann Hjartarson, at least according to an old blog post from Dennis.
I've got to say that to me Carlsen is looking more and more Karpovian, but with the drive of a Fischer or Kasparov. His pieces always seem to end up on the best squares and his opponent's pieces start looking more and more stupid until something just breaks.
Thank you for a well written and interesting review of round 6. Unfortunately I get "HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable" when trying to look through your comments on the games. Any luck yet with the pgn tool recommended in a previous thread? Keep it up, sir!
[DM: It's back up. I've been fairly busy of late and the CB site has been generally well-behaved, but I reserve the right to switch to one of the suggested alternatives. Thanks for the kind words!]
Carlsen - Radjabov : Carlsen will win against a weakening Radjabov
Aronian - Grischuk : Aronian will pull through in a complex struggle, decided by Alexander's usual time trouble
Gelfand - Kramnik: Gelfand, aware that Kramnik is going to try to keep the struggle alive, will steer to calm waters. Draw.
Ivanchuk - Svidler: Chance for Ivanchuk to score his first point at the expense of a psychologically fragile Peter.
[DM: Well, you got one out of four right. :)]
Regarding the game Svidler - Carlsen, Svidler mentioned after the game that he thought 17...d5 was impossible because after 19...Rxd5 he planned 20.d4 ed 21.Be4 and he missed the reply 21...Rxa4 (his hallucination was that rook on a1 was protected).
[DM: Thanks. What about 19...Bxd5 though? Maybe they both missed the trick I mentioned?]