Norway Chess 2017, Round 9: Aronian Wins the Tournament

It's shaping up to be a good year for Levon Aronian. First Wijk aan Zee, now Norway Chess! It looks like his slump is over, and he's once again going to be a contender for the world championship - as he should be. By holding a draw with Black against Wesley So he finished the tournament with an undefeated 6-3 score, with wins against the world's #1 and #2 players - Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik, respectively - plus Sergey Karjakin, the "vice champion". (This is not to be confused with a champion of vice rather than virtue.) He also crushed the 2800 barrier after some time below that bar, and is now the world's #4, 1.3 points behind Wesley So.

Hikaru Nakamura was the runner up - or rather, the co-runner-up. Had he defeated Fabiano Caruana today he could have caught Aronian (and rejoined the 2800 club). Another effect would have been Caruana's ouster from the same club, but it didn't happen. Caruana prepared a new idea with White against the Poisoned Pawn Variation in the Najdorf, and while the computer finds a variety of equalizers for Black, human beings finding them over the board is another matter entirely. Nakamura was unable to negotiate all the complications, and lost a game that was as good as over long before the clocks were stopped.

Sharing second with Nakamura, with 5/9, was the up-and-down Vladimir Kramnik. For the fourth round in a row, White won, and since he had the white pieces this time it was good news for him. His victim was Anish Giri, who also enjoyed and suffered a roller coaster of a tournament. Kramnik played an extremely provocative version of the Colle (a statement that sounds as funny as "an exciting London System" used to, but the richness of the royal game never cease to amaze), and it worked better than Kramnik could have dreamed. Giri is always - or now we should say, almost always - extremely well-prepared, but having sown the wind he wasn't ready for the whirlwind, and lost in just 20 moves.

The other two games were short but not perfunctory draws. Sergey Karjakin was in trouble on the white side of a Najdorf against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and had MVL played 24...f5 followed by 25...e4 he would have been a favorite to win with his extra pawn. Instead, he blundered with 24...Rxd5, allowing Karjakin to bail out with a draw by repetition. The world champion, Magnus Carlsen, was also in trouble against his most recent predecessor, Viswanathan Anand. Had Anand played 23.e5 he would have had good winning chances. The opportunity was missed, and in the end it was Anand who was more forced to play for the draw than Carlsen.

The games, with my annotations, can be replayed here. Here are the final standings:

1. Aronian 6 (of 9)
2-3. Nakamura, Kramnik 5
4-6. Caruana, So, Giri 4.5
7-9. Vachier-Lagrave, Anand, Carlsen 4
10. Karjakin 3.5

Norway Chess 2017, Round 8: Draws on Top and a Spiky Tail

It looks like Magnus Carlsen's reign at the top of the rating list will continue for at least another tournament, as his risky play against Sergey Karjakin paid off. Worse for much of the leadup to the first time control, Carlsen's luck finally started to change when Karjakin erred on move 40. That error wasn't fatal, but Karjakin's 41st move - played after a 27-minute think(!) - was. Very strange.

That took Carlsen out of last place, which he shared with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, but it didn't get him out of the tie with MVL. Vachier-Lagrave defeated one of yesterday's heroes, Vladimir Kramnik, and Kramnik's loss was reminiscent of his previous loss to Levon Aronian (in round 6). In both cases he had superb preparation with Black, rattling out 20 moves and achieving a fine position. But as in the earlier game, it wasn't even close to being good enough to achieve a draw (or more). Vachier-Lagrave outplayed Kramnik to reach a superior but not yet winning double rook ending, and then Kramnik, like Karjakin, made his fatal error after the time control.

So the new tailender is Karjakin, with three points out of eight. Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave are tied with Viswanathan Anand with three and a half points apiece; out of the race for first but also out of the cellar. Anand drew quickly and comfortably with Black against Levon Aronian, who was and remains the tournament leader. Hikaru Nakamura is still in clear second after his short draw, with White, against Wesley So.

Nakamura could have been caught in second by Anish Giri, had the latter won with White against Fabiano Caruana. He was better throughout, but despite the bloated numbers your engine might display he was never winning the bishop vs. knight ending. Giri played on a long time, hoping for a miracle or for his 24-year-old opponent to die of old age, but once it was clear that neither was going to happen he reconciled himself to the draw.

There's one round to go, and here's how the final round pairings shake out:

• Karjakin (3) - Vachier-Lagrave (3.5)
• Caruana (3.5) - Nakamura (5)
• So (4) - Aronian (5.5)
• Kramnik (4) - Giri (4.5)
• Anand (3.5) - Carlsen (3.5)

Norway Chess, Rounds 6 & 7: Aronian Surging Forward With a Bang, Carlsen Going Out With a Whimper

Round 6 (on Monday) and round 7 (on Wednesday) were both exciting and eventful, and after a slow start the Norway Chess tournament has become very lively. There were two wins in round 6 and three in round 7, and it's nice to see that the decisive games have all been well-played by the winners.

Hikaru Nakamura had been leading after round 5, but he was caught in round 6 by Levon Aronian, who promptly went by him with a second straight win in round 7. In round 6 Aronian beat Vladimir Kramnik pretty badly on the white side of a Semi-Tarrasch when the latter underestimated the danger to his queen on g4. That was a clean victory, slightly contrasted with his win over Sergey Karjakin in the next round. Aronian was never in danger, but his play was rather speculative. Karjakin got caught up in the speculative atmosphere, which proved unfortunate. In particular, 28.Rg6 only managed to get the rook in trouble, and in the lead up to the time control things went from bad to worse, and Aronian dispatched him most efficiently.

Things are going even more poorly for Magnus Carlsen, who is tied for last place with 2.5 points out of 7. He lost in round 7 to Kramnik, who bounced back nicely from his loss to Aronian with a surprisingly easy win against the world champion. This put Kramnik back into second place on the rating list, and what's incredible is that he's only 6.4 points out of first. Carlsen has been #1 in the world on every list since July 2011 (and on most of the lists going back to January 2010), but he's just one more loss and one more Kramnik (or Wesley So, or maybe even Aronian win) from falling to #2. Back to the Kramnik-Carlsen game: Kramnik played sharply, but Carlsen was fine until his 25th move. After 25...Bxf2+ he would have been fine with correct play; after 25...Qxf2+, however, and his further error on move 27, he was simply lost, and Kramnik was up to the challenge.

Kramnik is tied for third place with Anish Giri, with four points, half a point behind Nakamura and a full point behind Aronian. Giri played the Accelerated Dragon/Dragon hybrid against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in round 7, and while MVL is one of the best calculators in the world and a player who loves sharp, imbalanced positions this just wasn't his day. He neither took proper care of his king nor got his own attack off the ground fast enough, and lost a short, one-sided game.

The last decisive game of rounds 6 and 7 came from round 6. Viswanathan Anand (the last person not named "Magnus Carlsen" to be classical world champion or rated #1 in the world [in classical chess]) repeated the same anti-English line he lost with against Giri in round 4, but this time he was fully successful with it against Fabiano Caruana. Caruana's queenside play got nowhere, while Anand successfully broke through on the kingside on the way to a queenside mating attack.

The decisive games mentioned above can be replayed here, with my comments. Here's what's coming up in round 8:

• Nakamura (4.5) - So (3.5)
• Carlsen (2.5) - Karjakin (3)
• Vachier-Lagrave (2.5) - Kramnik (4)
• Aronian (5) - Anand (3)
• Giri (4) - Caruana (3)

Norway Chess 2017, Round 5: Five Stable Draws

What round 4 was, round 5 wasn't. (As a dear old friend, now departed, used to say when I told him about an unsuccessful game or tournament, "They can't all be gems!") But as Scarlett O'Hara famously said, "Tomorrow is another day!" Here's what's on tap for Monday's round - round 6:

• Carlsen (2) - Vachier-Lagrave (2)
• Nakamura (3.5) - Karjakin (2.5)
• Aronian (3) - Kramnik (3)
• Giri (2.5) - So (2.5)
• Caruana (2.5) - Anand (1.5)

Norway Chess 2017, Round 4: Three Winners, and it Could Have Been Five

Today's was the best round yet from an entertainment perspective, with three wins from five games. Hikaru Nakamura's win over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave makes him the clear leader with 3 out of 4, while Levon Aronian is the hero of the round after defeating Magnus Carlsen in a great game with sacrifices. Anish Giri also won, and quickly against Viswanathan Anand, while Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana should have defeated Sergey Karjakin and Vladimir Kramnik, respectively.

Nakamura - Vachier-Lagrave was a Najdorf, and White went for one of the unusual sidelines that has cropped in recent years, playing 6.Bd3 e5 7.Nde2. While that's unusual, the race between White's queenside expansion and Black's counterplay on the kingside is one sort of typical Najdorf middlegame. On this occasion Black's kingside play wasn't dangerous - at least when one defends as accurately as Nakamura did in this game. (Your mileage may vary.)

Aronian found an interesting new idea against the Semi-Slav in 10.Bc2, which is aimed against Black's ...e5-e4 ideas. After 24 minutes, Carlsen played 10...Rd8, and after spending 24 minutes on his next two moves, Aronian sacrificed the exchange and a pawn with 11.a3 Bxa3 12.Rxa3. After 12...Qxa3 13.c5 Black's queen is shut out of the game, both to its detriment and the rest of Black's army as well. This became evident when Aronian went for the Greek gift sacrifice 17.Bxh7+, resulting in a large advantage. Aronian's next dozen moves or so were the best ones, and while he made an inaccuracy on move 29 Black's position was extremely difficult to hold, and Carlsen failed to take advantage of his one chance.

The first two games ended before the first time control, and so did Giri-Anand. Anand has reputedly had some difficulties against the English in recent years, and he had some troubles in this game as well. Giri was outplaying Anand in the middlegame and had a won position until he chose 29.g5 rather than 29.Rh5. The error was more than compensated by an even bigger mistake by Anand on move 31. The former champion had to play 31...Qxh4, giving up a piece but getting enough pawns and positional compensation to save the game. Instead, 31...Nc5 lost on the spot: 32.g6 Qd7 33.Bb4, and Black has no good defense against d4.

As for the draws, So was crushing Karjakin until his careless 34.Qxc4??; instead, any move defending the rook (e.g. 34.Re2) would have won easily. The problem was that 34.Qxc4 allowed 34...Nf6, giving Black enough activity to survive. After this both sides played great chess, with So setting Karjakin a series of very difficult problems to solve, and Karjakin rose to the occasion every time. Caruana too was winning against Kramnik, and from early on. Kramnik's 15th and 16th moves were errors, but after that he went into Tal mode, blew a thick fog over the board, and Caruana couldn't manage to put him away.

The games are here, with annotations to Aronian-Carlsen. Here's what's on tap for round 5:

• Karjakin (2) - Caruana (2)
• Anand (1) - So (2)
• Carlsen (1.5) - Giri (2)
• Vachier-Lagrave (1.5) - Aronian (2.5)
• Kramnik (2.5) - Nakamura (3)

Norway Chess, Round 3: Five (Mostly Interesting) Draws

Wins have been a scarce commodity so far, but it's not for want of trying. In round 3 four of the games were very lively and in three of them one of the players had good practical winning chances.

Magnus Carlsen had White against his traditional client, Hikaru Nakamura, but having finally defeated his nemesis last year Nakamura played fearlessly. He more or less surrendered the queenside and the center going for counterplay against the white king, and while his strategy was objectively flawed it was a practical success, and the game was drawn by perpetual at the end of the first time control.

Levon Aronian and Anish Giri played a thriller. Aronian's 16.Bc1 was inaccurate, and Giri would have been better after 16...e4. Instead, he uncorked the dramatic 16...g5!?, setting the board on fire. Aronian missed some opportunities (17.f4!?, 24.Bf4!), and was soon hanging on for dear life because of the clock - there is no increment in this tournament until move 61. He managed to do so with less than five seconds to spare, and the remaining moves were necessary only because of the tournament's Sophia rules.

Vladimir Kramnik's game with Wesley So may not have been thrilling, but he did have his opponent on the ropes. Had he played 30.g4 he would have maintained a clear edge, and even without that he was able to make the world's #2 suffer for a very long time before holding the draw.

Sergey Karjakin was a little unlucky against Viswanathan Anand in that the latter had looked at the very line with his second the day before, and was told the key move (21...Bd7!, to meet 22.Rxb7 with 22...Qc8!) in a way that stuck in his memory. Without that resource White is at least pressing and often even much better. To his credit, Anand worked out what to do against Karjakin's 22.h3 without any mnemonic help, and the game soon resolved itself in a dead drawn rook ending.

Finally, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Fabiano Caruana played the least dramatic game of the round, but it's hard to complain about a round where the least interesting game goes 51 moves and reaches bare kings.

Friday was a rest day, and round 4 has just started, with the following pairings:

• Caruana (1.5) - Kramnik (2)
• Aronian (1.5) - Carlsen (1.5)
• Nakamura (2) - Vachier-Lagrave (1.5)
• Giri (1) - Anand (1)
• So (1.5) - Karjakin (1.5)

Norway Chess 2017, Round 2: Kramnik the Day's Only Winner

After two rounds, there are only two wins on the crosstable - but it's not for want of trying. The shortest game in the tournament so far went 42 moves, and five of the ten games went 58 moves or more. The wins will come, but so far it's just Hikaru Nakamura's round 1 win over Anish Giri, and now Vladimir Kramnik's win - with Black - against Viswanathan Anand.

Beating Anand is always an accomplishment, and while it was a deserved win by Kramnik that vaulted him back into the #2 spot on the rating list, it would most likely have finished in a draw had Anand not played 34.Qxc7. This move, made in haste, allowed Kramnik to obtain an outside passed pawn, and several moves later his advantage was enough to win. Instead, 34.a4 would have maintained the balance and almost certainly led to a quick draw.

In two games, one side had to suffer a bit before achieving the draw. Giri especially really pressed Sergey Karjakin and seemed close to winning, but Karjakin isn't called the "minister of defense" for nothing. Nakamura had White against Levon Aronian, but that didn't help very much. He was quickly worse and had to defend for a long time, and down a pawn for most of the second half of the game.

The other two draws were more comfortable for all the parties. Fabiano Caruana got nothing against Magnus Carlsen, and the game was drawn by perpetual check shortly after the time control. In the last game, Wesley So, playing White against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, first had a slight advantage and then a slight disadvantage, but neither player ever seemed too close to having serious winning chances.

Here's what's on tap for round 3; the first two games look especially tantalizing:

• Carlsen (1) - Nakamura (1.5)
• Kramnik (1.5) - So (1)
• Aronian (1) - Giri (.5)
• Vachier-Lagrave (1) - Caruana (1)
• Karjakin (1) - Anand (.5)

Norway Chess 2017, Round 1: Nakamura Wins; All Other Games Drawn

Magnus Carlsen dominated the blitz tournament, but at least in round 1 of the main, classical event, was unable to convert his momentum from the first event into the second. He had White against Wesley So, and while the latter had to work to get his draw he was never in much trouble. In fact all four draws were reasonably correct affairs. Vladimir Kramnik had an advantage against Sergey Karjakin and Levon Aronian likewise had a plus against Fabiano Caruana, but in neither case was the second player (in both cases playing Black) at or particularly near death's door. And the fourth draw, between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Viswanathan Anand, was almost completely equal from start to finish.

The remaining game was between Hikaru Nakamura and Anish Giri, and if anyone's "momentum" continued from the blitz it was Giri. Not all that long ago, Giri's name was used as a joking synonym for a draw, but between the blitz and round 1 of the main event he has lost six games in a row. In this game he was under pressure for a long time, but still holding an objectively drawn position after the first time control. The critical moment came on move 47, and Giri rightly spent a good chunk of time thinking there - around 14 minutes. Should he go into the rook endgame - all rook endings are drawn, as the cliche has it - or not? He chose the first option, and this time around the rule of thumb was wrong. White's bishop was better than Black's knight, but by exchanging it off the resulting ending left White's king and rook absolutely dominating their counterparts. Nakamura smoothly converted his advantage, and became the sole leader after round 1.

Here are the pairings for round 2:

• Giri (0) - Karjakin (.5)
• Nakamura (1) - Aronian (.5)
• Anand (.5) - Kramnik (.5)
• Caruana (.5) - Carlsen (.5)
• So (.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (.5)

Norway Chess Starts Today (Tuesday); Carlsen Crushes the Field in Pre-Tournament Blitz

The Norway Chess tournament gets underway today (Tuesday) with an elite field of 10 players that includes the world champion (Magnus Carlsen), the two previous world champions (Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik), three world #2 players (the current one, Wesley So, and erstwhile consistent #2s Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian), last year's world championship runner-up and the current world blitz champion (Sergey Karjakin), plus a pair of former (and quite possibly future) 2800s (Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Anish Giri).

As is common (but not universal) nowadays, tournament pairings were set based on results in a pre-tournament blitz competition. Carlsen started out with draws against Nakamura and Anand, and nearly ran the table after that, giving up a draw to Kramnik in round 7 and beating everyone else. His score of 7.5/9 put him two points clear of Nakamura and Aronian, with Vachier-Lagrave alone in fourth with 5 points. Kramnik and Karjakin tied for the critical fifth spot (the top five finishers get an extra game with the white pieces in the main event), and Kramnik got it on tiebreaks by defeating Karjakin in the last round. Both finished with 50% - a good result for Kramnik, who was winless and -2 after five rounds. After Karjakin, Anand and So finished with 4 points apiece, Caruana with 3 and a winless Giri lost his last five games to finish last with 1.5 points.

The games and the blitz tournament video can be accessed here (for now). Here are the pairings for round 1 of the main event:

• Carlsen - So
• Nakamura - Giri
• Aronian - Caruana
• Vachier-Lagrave - Anand
• Kramnik - Karjakin

The world's #1 vs. the world's #2: not a bad way to start the tournament! The action begins at 10 a.m. ET = 4 p.m. local time in Norway = 3 p.m. CET.

Predictions? I've been going with So lately, but Carlsen has been beating him lately  and seems strongly motivated, so I'm going with the champ this time around.