Chess (#1018)

Magnus Carlsen stormed into contention in the second half of the Sao Paulo-Bilbao masters. First, he beat the leader, Fabiano Caruana and then he followed up by beating Paco Vallejo. Two rounds to go; the Norwegian world no:1 is tied with the Italian GM for the lead.

Both have a scoreline of +3,-1, =4, which equals 13 points soccer-style and 5 from eight games in traditional style. Aronyan also has a plus score (+1,=7) while Anand has logged 8 successive draws without ever looking either in strife or having winning chances. There have been only seven decisive games so far, which isn’t a great advertisement for the format.

 

Carlsen hasn’t played spectacular chess. In the past two years, he has increasingly followed a strategy of avoiding sharp openings and grinding away late into middle and endgame. Given fantastic technique, physical stamina and a great will to win, this has produced impressive results.

Caruana may have gone off the boil after a fantastic first half. He missed a technical draw in the endgame against Carlsen. While one must credit the winner for maintaining pressure, a 2775 player is expected to defend endings accurately when not in time trouble and Caruana wasn’t.

Anand’s form is still a matter of concern. After his last title defence, the world champion confessed in an interview that he thought he was missing some element in his play against the young guns. Perhaps he’s unwilling to sharpen things enough to risk losing or he's relying too heavily on preparation and technique rather than doing what comes naturally. Kramnik, Capablanca and Karpov went through similar phases in their careers.

Even the best players have sight issues in time-trouble. Backward moves are the toughest. The DIAGRAM, (Carlsen Vs Aronyan, Masters 2012), WHITE TO PLAY, is a good illustration. Both were in time pressure with about 2 minutes left to hit move 40. Carlsen played 27.Bf4? Almost any other move is better - Qe2 or c3 for example.

Aronyan responded 27...Bc3? and it ended 28.Qxf3 Bxa1 (28. Nxc3 R8xf4 29. exf4? Nxf4 is what black wants. You'll see why.) 29.Qg2 Qf5 30.Bd2 Bd4 31.h3 Bc5 32.Bc3 Be7 33.Re1 b5 34.Kg1 b4 35.Bb2 Bd6 36.h4 Be7 and ½-½ in 48 moves.

Despite zeitnot, Aronyan saw the lovely finish 27...R8xf4 28.gxf4 Nxf4 29. Rg1 Qxh2+! 30. Kxh2 Rh3# and Carlsen missed it. But Aronyan also saw 27...R8xf4 28.gxf4 Nxf4 29. Ra8+ Kh7? 30. Ng5+ and rejected the winning line. The Ng5 fork was the reason why he tried to pull the Kt away with the diversionary shot 27.--Bc3. However, Aronyan missed the retreat 29. Ra8+ Bf8! which just wins easily.

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Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player