Category: Famous Players Page 4 of 6

I set out to make Norway Chess 2015 the first tournament where I produced a daily tournament report and summary of games, but trying to do so with family visiting from out of town was probably a bad idea. I wrote seven tournament reports and published six of them because there was not enough time to balance family and blogging. And now Norway Chess is over and GM Veselin Topalov is the clear winner with a quick (18 move) draw against GM Vishwanatha Anand and earning 6.5/9 points in the overall tournament.

Much of the chess world had already pegged Topalov to win the tournament, so his victory was not as much of a surprise as was Magnus Carlsen’s loss to GM Jon Ludwig Hammer! I can imagine that commentators and enthusiasts will be analyzing the 34-move Carlsen vs. Hammer game for some time, especially considering the shock factor associated with the win. GM Hammer is the lowest rated player in the Norway Chess tournament and Carlsen is the current World Chess Champion. I am sure that Hammer is going home today with a big smile on his face knowing that he defeated the World Chess Champion in the last round of one of the strongest tournaments out there.

If the final standings of Norway Chess 2015 are any indication of how the Grand Chess Tour is going to go then I think we can all sit back and get ready for a year filled with exciting and mind-blowing chess! Replay all of the games from Norway Chess 2015 below.

Round 6 of Norway Chess 2015 is roaring along with the eyes of chess fans looking in two directions: 1) at Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura’s game to see if Carlsen can squeeze out another win, and 2) at Veselin Topalov’s commanding 5.5/6 lead. Round 6 earned Topalov another win against Alexander Grischuk. Grischuk’s recent performances have brought him below the 2800 ELO mark to 2781 and another loss in this tournament (1 of 3) did not help his cause.

On the Carlsen front, the World Champion played a somewhat interesting game against Nakamura in which the position looked won at several times, but the competition eventually gave way to a draw. Nakamura is a master of tactical positions and that expertise shined through in holding off to get the draw against Carlsen. The 95 move game between the World Champion and his potential challenger was exhausting to watch, so I can only imagine how exhausting it was to play. In fact, I was able to run some errands, take a nap, and spend some time with the kiddos before the draw was made on move 95. Here’s the full game:

Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, and Jon Ludwig Hammer have almost completely disappeared from headlines and online tournament reports as each of them sit with Carlsen near the bottom of the cross table. Only time will tell if any of them can stage a comeback in the second half of the tournament and earn one of the top-three spots. Check out all of the games here:

If fortune tellers could predict the end of the world from the wins and losses of Magnus Carlsen, then they can put away their crystal balls and stop wearing signs that say The End Is Here because Carlsen earned his first win in Norway Chess 2015 today against GM Alexander Grischuk. The two players chose the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian Defense with 6.g3, which led to an excitingly devastating endgame in which Carlsen viciously pushed his opponent into the h8 corner:

The standings at the halfway point in the tournament are very exciting and definitely a surprise. Veselin Topalov is clearly in the lead with 4.5/5 at the end of Round 5 following his victory over Jon Ludvig Hammer. Hammer has contributed a number of wins to other players and sits at the bottom of the cross table with 1.0/5 with two draws.

Play through all of the games from Round 5 below:

I cannot imagine that anyone saw this coming! After finishing Norway Chess Round 3 with an unconvincing draw against Anish Giri, today’s game against Vishwanatha Anand was nothing short of disastrous. Anand probably wishes that this kind of win had appeared in the November 2014 World Chess Championship in Sochi. Magnus Carlsen’s loss against Anand today gives him 3 losses, 1 draw and makes him .5/4 for the tournament.

I am sure that some analysts are wondering what is happening to Magnus Carlsen and maybe even considering that he might have reached his peak playing ability. However, I think that by looking at the context of Magnus’ losses and the fact that the way he is playing right now is highly inconsistent with his usual classical style that most of it can be attributed to life distractions and the chaotic nature of chess. Magnus has a great amount of demands from chess fans, sponsors, and I am sure that his family puts some form of pressure on him to continue winning tournaments. Eventually, the increasing layers of expectations begin to get out of control and can weigh down the lightest of chess amateurs up to the highest in the professional world. Some have speculated that Bobby Fischer might have cracked under all the pressure of being #1 in the world. However, I think it is more likely that the world needs to take a break from searching for a reason to condemn Magnus for any misstep in his game and give him the rest from the demands that we place on him. As of the end of today’s round, the current standings look like this:

Check out all of the games from Round 4 below:

Norway Chess 2015 continued today by delivering more roundhouse kicks to the face to World Champion Magnus Carlsen while it also gave us our first sense of who is in contention for the top spot in the tournament. Of course, with is devastating 0-2 start in the tournament, all eyes were on Carlsen’s game against GM Anish Giri. I have family visiting this week from out of town, so I did not get the opportunity to sit down and follow much of the tournament throughout the day. When I checked in on the Carlsen-Giri game, this was the position:

It was hard to discern Giri’s exact strategy against Carlsen from this move, and it was about that time when my family’s plane landed and I had to shut the tournament off. Carlsen and Giri went on to play a grueling 76 move battle in which Carlsen squandered a clearly winning position to end up with a hard-fought draw from Giri. On the positive side for the champion, this ends his losing streak in the tournament, but the .5 points he received for the draw may not do much for his confidence. Here’s the full game:

I was very excited to look back on the game between Caruana and Nakamura since both of them have demonstrated their potential to rise the the pinnacle of professional chess in the last few years. This was one of those matches where I felt that it was hard to really pick a side. Nakamura is a blitz expert who plays regularly on Chess.com while Caruana is an exceptional player with a powerful presence in prestigious tournaments around the world. Either way, a loss for one of them in this match is a loss for all of us. Yet, Nakamura claimed victory in a beautiful and decisive 56 move game with the white pieces. Some of Nakamura’s moves just out of the opening lines were reminiscent of blitz and speed chess, which are designed to put pressure on one’s opponent early in the game, but Caruana equalized the position nicely. In the end, it was Nakamura’s deadly passed pawn and Rook combination that sealed the deal for the American Chess Champion.

The remaining games were drawn.

Earlier today, Norway Chess director Jøran Aulin-Jansson issued an official apology to Magnus Carlsen and the other players on behalf of the Grand Chess Tour and the Norway Chess Chief arbiter. The apology focused on the problems with sharing critical information about the revised time controls that cost Magnus Carlsen his loss in the first round. Here is a complete transcript of the notice:

On behalf of the Grand Chess Tour and the Chief arbiter, as well as personally, I would like to apologize to the players for the insufficient information with regards to the time control. Allthough [sic] the information was on the www.grandchesstour.com and was also announced prior to the first round, we learned that several players, during the first round, were not aware of the new and unconventional time control. This fact tells us that our work providing the information leaves room for improvement. For this, we are truly sorry, and especially towards Magnus Carlsen who lost his first game due to not being aware of the time control.

Round 4 begins tomorrow at 1600 local time in an ancient medieval monastery! In the meantime, play through all of the games from Round 3 below:

Professional and amateur chess players lose games all of the time. Unless you are the World Chess Champion, then most people tend to not notice or make a big deal enough to blog about those losses. Magnus Carlsen is the current world champion of professional chess and is 0-2 in Norway Chess 2015. The first loss was stunning on its own, but the loss today to GM Fabiano Caruana continues the shock and awe among the chess faithful.

On a positive note, Carlsen did adhere to the appropriate time controls in this round and his game with Caruana was the only game played today that was not drawn. At one point, Nakamura looked bored at his board (ouch…grammar) against Topalov in a drawn position:

The rest of the games were drawn as well, which puts Carlsen in the tragic position of last place in the tournament. There is still a lot of chess to be played in this tournament, but Carlsen is the only player that has put up goose eggs on the board in the first two rounds. Since it will already take a significant act of concentration and willpower on Carlsen’s part, another loss could doom his chances at winning this prestigious tournament. A significant loss in Norway Chess would probably only serve to embolden the likes of Caruana and Nakamura who remain close behind to challenge him for the World Chess Championship in 2016. Play through all of the games from Round 3:

There is a fantastic scene at the end of Star Trek Generations where Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Commander William Riker are walking through the destroyed bridge of the Enterprise. At one point, Commander Riker tells Captain Picard that he is going to miss the ship because “she went before her time.” Picard then proceeds to give one of the best speeches in science fiction film when he replies:

Someone once told me that time is a predator that stalks us all our lives, but I like to think of time as a companion who goes with us on the journey. It reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived.

Perhaps time can be a companion that guides us on the pathways of life, but for a chess player trying to score a victory in a tournament, time controls tend to be much more predatory. This was the case today with GM Magnus Carlsen, who was unaware of the established time control and lost on time in a position that was clearly won for his pieces.

Carlsen’s play was as strong as always, but his late arrival to the playing hall caused him to miss the crucial information from the tournament arbiter about the time controls. Carlsen believed that he had an extra 15 minutes on move 60, but lost the game when his clock flagged. This tragic end for the World Champion’s Round 1 is a memorable start to the incredibly strong tournament. Other wins include Anish Giri against Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura with an easy victory over Jon Ludvig Hammer, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave over Levon Aronian, and a draw between Vishwanatha Anand and Fabiano Caruana.

Nakamura’s game was the only one I had time to follow live, and looking at the PGN results I think that it is one of the more interesting games. He wasted no time creating a highly complex position and forcing Hammer into a corner. The pressure in that game was intense, and even when it looked as though Nakamura held a compromised position, victory was all but certain to the very end. Play through all of the games from Round 1 below: