Carlsen *May* Play in the 2012 Candidates
At least that seems to be what Magnus Carlsen said, or suggested, in an interview with a Brazilian website. (A rough English translation can be found here.)
HT: Brian Karen
At least that seems to be what Magnus Carlsen said, or suggested, in an interview with a Brazilian website. (A rough English translation can be found here.)
HT: Brian Karen
Here's an article on Magus Carlsen's split with Garry Kasparov (HT: Brian Karen). The split is old news, as the oxymoronic phrase goes, and that there was acrimony or at least tension is also reasonably well-known, thanks to the New Yorker profile of Carlsen earlier this year. The new article at least manages to fill in some details, and is also newsworthy for the information that while they're no longer working together, their relationship has at least returned to normal.
The battle between the fearsome foursome of Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian is half over, and so far it's the world champion, Anand, who is in the lead. The play was full of fight, but five of the six games were drawn. The only decisive game came in the second round when Anand defeated Aronian with the black pieces. Tomorrow, we'll have the second cycle: the same pairings with colors reversed.
The event website is here, and as with the World Cup there's live coverage (in Russian only, except when they interview non-Russian speaking players like Anand) that can be replayed afterwards as well - just use the scroll bar. (Right now, there are post-game interviews with both the men's and women's players - there's an accompanying women's event with Humpy Koneru, Viktorija Cmilyte, Tatiana Kosintseva and Elina Danielian. On Sunday and Monday, the men and women will join up for a tandem event, with those from the same country teaming up [in the three relevant cases; the other team is Carlsen + Cmilyte].)
Which is today for most of us. It's a double round-robin rapid event in Moscow Friday and Saturday featuring just four players, but when the quartet comprises Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik, it's enough! An interesting feature is that the players will sometimes come out when it isn't their move and offer commentary to the audience on the game they're playing.
Official event site here.
By this I mean only the redundant bit of information that Magnus Carlsen won the Biel tournament (redundant because he had already clinched clear first with a round to go), not that he won today's game. With no pressure or anything (but rating points) to gain, he played simply and drew comfortably against Caruana to conclude another triumph in his short but remarkable career. Vachier-Lagrave and Shirov took things even more easily, drawing by repetition in only 21 moves (and without having burned much time on the clock - it wasn't that the players had to work their way through some crazy fireworks to split the point).
Morozevich was in a less compromising mood, and he bounced back from yesterday's defeat by grinding Pelletier down in a queen and knight ending. He came up short of Carlsen in the race for first, but it was a very successful tournament for him overall. Between his performance here and in the Russia Championship qualifier in late June Morozevich has gained 31 points and moved up a staggering 27 places on the rating list. (Or at least, it would be staggering if we didn't recall that his official 2694 rating is by far his worst in about eight years, and his drop then was also a deep trough compared to what he had achieved for years prior to that. So this is just regression [or in his case, progression] to the mean, with a vengeance.)
Final Standings:
1. Carlsen 19/30 (on 3-1-0 scoring, on normal scoring he went 7/10)
2. Morozevich 17 (6.5)
3-4. Vachier-Lagrave, Shirov 12 (5)
5. Caruana 10 (4)
6. Pelletier 5 (2.5)
The Kasparov material is familiar and Adams' is brief, but you might enjoy reading it all the same.
There were two decisive games today and the third was a very lively draw. That's the way to enter the rest day!
Magnus Carlsen defeated Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu with surprising ease. He stood a little better with White in a queenless QGA, but the advantage quickly turned decisive as Nisipeanu completely lost his way. With the win, Carlsen stayed half a point ahead of Sergey Karjakin to remain in clear first, and also kept ahead of Viswanathan Anand on the live rating lists.
Karjakin also won, catching an out-of-form Vassily Ivanchuk napping with the dirty trick 15...Bc8-e6 16.Rad1 Bxh3! Prior to White's 16th move the sac wouldn't have been as strong, as White's queen could subsequently retreat from c2 to d1, but once that avenue was cut off it was a different story. White still could have held with 17.d4, but after 17.c4? he wound up too far behind in material, and Karjakin won comfortably.
Teimour Radjabov and Hikaru Nakamura tested a Poisoned Pawn-like variation in the Najdorf whose name, if it exists, is unknown to me. (The line goes 6.Bg5 Nbd7 7.f4 e5 8.Nf5 Qb6 9.Qd2 Qxb2 and so on.) Both players were in prep for a long time, well past the official "novelty", and the result was a position where Nakamura was up an exchange but Radjabov's pieces were extremely active. This was still the case when they agreed to a draw, somewhat prematurely, on move 31. Radjabov may not have stood better, but he could have continued. With only 10 minutes left for his last nine moves, and having had to prove compensation for a while, he probably felt relieved even if the trend had been slightly in his favor the last few moves.
Standings After Round 5:
1. Carlsen 3.5
2. Karjakin 3
3. Nakamura 2.5
4-6. Radjabov, Nisipeanu, Ivanchuk 2
Pairings for Round 6 (on Friday):
Radjabov - Ivanchuk
Nakamura - Carlsen
Karjakin - Nisipeanu
Here it is, from Carlsen's countryman and fellow GM Jon Ludvig Hammer.
He's not approving, either, but as Kasparov says in response to a different question, Carlsen "is growing up just now". Carlsen, like the rest of us, gets to make his own mistakes.
HT: Brian Karen