Chess (#1199)

Magnus Carlsen bounced back from a loss in the penultimate round to win the crunch last round game and take the Altibox Super GM in Norway. Carlsen beat Pavel Eljanov to nose ahead of the pack with 6 out of 9. Carlsen scored four wins and the one loss to Aronian.

Levon Aronian (5.5) took second place, with a last round draw versus P Harikrishna. Maxime Vachier-Largave, Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov shared 3-5 with 5 each. Li Chao (who postponed his wedding to play) scored 4.5 along with Harikrishna (4.5). Anish Giri (4) had a rare minus score along with Eljanov (3) and Nils Grandelius (2.5).

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The result here pushed Carlsen to 2855 while Kramnik climbs to 2809. The third player above 2800 in the May list is Fabiano Caruana (2804) who took his first US Championship title last month. Harikrishna (2764) played in his strongest ever event and did well. He is now #12, just behind #11 Anand (2770).

The US Championships was followed by a mammoth blitz with 4 players playing three double round robins for 18 rounds. There was an unusual time control of 5 minutes, with 3 seconds delay after every move. That is, the opponent's clock starts running only three seconds after a move is made. Unlike with an increment, flagging out is easy since time is not added back. But it is, in theory, possible to play forever without taking any time beyond 3 seconds.

Garry Kasparov, who is 53 and retired from serious play in 2005 did remarkably against a trio of young Top Ten players. Hikaru Nakamura won with 11 points from 18 with Wesley So (10) second and Kasparov (9.5) third. Caruana, who is notoriously inconsistent at blitz, trailed with 5.5.

Valentina Gunina took the Batumi Grand Prix with 7.5/ 11, ahead of her teammate Alexandra Kosteniuk (6.5). Three of the planned five GOPs are over and Gunina (played 2 GPs) shares the lead with Nana Dzagnidze (who has played all three). The World Champion, Hou Yifan, won the first GP but then withdrew from the entire series because she disapproves of the format.

The Diagram, White to Play, [White: Carlsen Vs Black: Kramnik, Norway 2016] is from Carlsen's most impressive win. White is clearly better. But how does he finish here? He finds a trademark technical conclusion.

Carlsen played 42.Re8! This exchanges rooks. One little nuance is the desperate (42.-- Rxh6 43. Rc8+! Kb6 Forced due to Nf5+) The game continued with the more or less forced 42. -- Rxe8 43.Nxe8 Nf8 44.Ne5+! Bxe5 45.dxe5 Kd7 46.Nf6+ Ke6 Now there is a deadly trick that stops Ng6. 47.h5! Kxe5 48.Nd7+! Nxd7 49.h7 Nc5+ 50.Ke2 (1-0). The queen is coming up on h8

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player