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The Norway Super tournament started with a bang. There were four decisive games in the first round and one of those had a most unexpected result. World champion and local hero Magnus Carlsen lost on time from a completely winning position against Veselin Topalov.
The Norway time control is unusual, with 40 moves in 2 hours, with an extra hour added in 30 seconds increment per move from move 41. Carlsen assumed an extra 15 minutes would be added to the clock on move 60, as is normal in some other controls. He crossed move 60 with 44 seconds to spare and flagged out on move 61 as he settled down to calculate. Of course, Carlsen had only himself to blame. To cap it, Carlsen was then crushed by Fabiano Caruana in the second round. The American GM produced a masterly positional squeeze.
After three rounds, Hikaru Nakamura and Topalov lead with 2.5 points each. Anish Giri has 2 and Viswanathan Anand, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Caruana have 1.5 each. This is Anand's first event since his mother passed away late last month. He appeared composed in the first three rounds with three fighting draws.
Norway is the first of the three-event grand tour, followed by the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis and the London Classic. Each event has a generous prize fund in itself and the overall winner picks up another $75,000. The field consists of Carlsen, Caruana, Anand, Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk, Levon Aronian, Giri, Topalov, Vachier-Lagrave and a wild card chosen by the organisers of each event. Jon Ludvig Hammer qualified for Norway.
The Norway tournament is inevitably getting more attention than the 50th Capablanca Memorial in Havana. That is a six-player round robin with Yu Yangyi, Pavel Eljanov, Dmitry Andreikin, Perez Dominguez, Lazaro Bruzon, and Ian Nepomniachtchi - very strong in its own right, with an average rating of 2716. Yu leads with 2.5/3 ahead of Eljanov (2).
The Diagram, WHITE TO PLAY , (White: Carlsen Vs Black: Topalov, Norway 2015) can be calculated out to a win in stages, though it's long. 60.Qg5+! Kf7 The idea 60.- Kh8 61. Qh6+ Kg8 62. Bc4# is a key pattern. It will pop up repeatedly and it restricts black's choices.
Here, Carlsen infamously lost on time (0-1) while calculating 61.Bc4+ Ke8 ( Another mate is 62. -Kf8? 63. Qf6+ Ke8 64. Bb5#) 62.Bb5+ Kf7 63.Qf5+ Ke7 64.Qd7+ Kf6 65.Qd8+ Kg7 66.Qe7+ Kh6 67.Qf6+ Kh7 68.Bd3+ Kg8 69.Bc4+ Kh7 70.Qf7+ Kh6 71.Qf8+ Kg5 (A third mate is 72. - Kh7 73. Bd3#) 72.Qg7+ Kf5 73.g4+ Ke4 74.Qg6+ Ke5 ( Or 74.- Ke3? 75. Qd3#) 75.Qe6+ Kd4 76.Qb6+ skewers the queen.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
