Kings Tournament 2010 - Simonsen

Round 8

After four consecutive wins, the game Tuesday a possible stumbling block as I played the only opponent with a significant chance of overtaking my lead in the tournament, Boris Gelfand. As black I decided to play a fairly solid opening, the Queen´s Gambit Declined.
The position was fairly balanced out of the opening. Maybe I played a little reckless with Ndf6. White got a serious pressure but it seems that all lines hold for black. I had to find some precise moves to keep the balance in face of the back rank threats.
After trading off several pieces, he allowed a little trick with a queen check and knight to d2 that gave me an initiative in the ensuing queen and knight endgame. I had an extra pawn on the kingside and he had a passed pawn on a2. When he offered a draw at move 33 I spent most of the remaining time searching for a winning plan. I found none and accepted his offer.
Radjabov ? Ponomariov followed a theoretical line and eventually drew. Home favourite and lowest seeded participant Nisipeanu outmanoeuvred Wang Yue in an interesting rook and bishop endgame to score his 2nd victory in the tournament.
Tonight we played football again over in Medias, one out of many nice features I appreciate about the Kings Tournament.
2 or 3 daily matches of World Cup football on TV provide excellent relaxation between chess games, and I´m especially impressed by the performance of the South American teams thus far.

Magnus Carlsen, Bazna, Rumania

Round 7 - Another win

This morning it was decided to move the tournament from Medias to our hotel in Bazna and I think this was popular with all the players.
My opponent today, Teimur Radjabov was the no 1 junior player in the world for several years just after I became a GM. We have already met numerous times in classical chess as well as rapid and blitz.
In classical chess I have a good score against him, but our games are nearly always hard fought.
He surprised me by playing the Accelerated Sicilian Dragon with Qa5 and we soon left theory. Early in the middle game I recaptured with my bishop on d5 to create complications. I think both contestants played accurately in the middle game and after the exchange of queens the position is fairly equal. He tried to simplify by trading of the minor pieces. However, the ensuing double rook ending was somewhat better for me so I decided to play for a win.
I think he made two inaccuracies in the endgame. Firstly he allowed me to double on the 7th rank. Later he moved his a-pawn instead of implementing the plan Rg6 aiming to attack my f-pawn with both rooks when and if I took his e-pawn.
The rook + 2 pawns against rook ending was simply winning despite my passive rook, the activation of which gradually decided the outcome.
After a bit rusty start of the tournament it has certainly gone my way for a while.
Gelfand won with black in the Petroff against Nisipeanu, while Wang Yue escaped with a draw from a very difficult position against Ponomariov.
Tuesday, in round 8, my opponent is Boris Gelfand.

Magnus Carlsen, Bazna Rumania

Round 6

Ponomariov lost with white against the King Indian earlier in this tournament and as black against him today I chose the same opening.
Something went wrong early on and I was very dissatisfied with my position from the opening.
I decided to play a bit risky and placed my knight on the rim aiming for a variation where I could sacrifice a rook for his knight. He allowed the variation and had to choose between a sharp line where I would sacrifice further material to attack his king or to give back the exchange. He chose the latter as he had missed my subtle subsequent queen move attacking both his pawns on a4 and on e4.
I got back the lost pawn, and afterwards maybe he had problems adjusting to the new reality of having to defend. My position improved gradually, and just before the time control I forced the exchange of queens to enter an easily won endgame. The other two games ended draw, and I´m now at with 4.5 / 6 points with my opponents in the next two rounds, Radjabov and Gelfand one point behind.
The organiser deserves praise in many respects but this weekend something beyond their control (the extreme weather) has been a main feature. Yesterday a rainstorm starting on the way to the playing venue flooded the road, and hails nearly the size of pigeon eggs kept us in the cars outside the playing hall for a while and caused the delayed start of the round.
Today the storm arrived later and was less fierce, but during the endgame water leaked from the roof. The table had to be moved to a dry place so that we could finish the game.
Anyway, I´m quite happy about the tournament development this weekend:-)

Magnus Carlsen, Bazna, Rumania

Round 5

The long football session yesterday was popular with all the participants and is likely to be repeated on the next free day.
Sometimes chess makes me really happy. Winning individual games and tournaments is great but playing a game where your pieces work together really harmoniously is something very special.

My opponent in round 5, L.-D. Nisipeanu, plays 1.e4 consistently. As in our last encounter two years ago, I played the Sicilian Dragon today as well. In the somewhat unusual line with 10... Rb8 I sacrificed a pawn a few moves later and he started spending much time in the continuation. It is hard to pinpoint what he did wrong, but some minor inaccuracies quickly allowed me to improve my position. After he returned the pawn (on g5) it is already difficult for white. His position slowly got worse and with 5 minutes left for 10 moves, he blundered with Bb6. It allows intrusion on the 1st rank, and he resigned before I made my next move in face of imminent mate or huge loss of material.
Wang Yue and Radjabov drew while B.Gelfand won against Ponomariov after getting a decisive advantage out of the opening.
Halfway in the tournament I´ve got 3,5 points ahead of Gelfand and Radjabov at 3.

Sunday I´ll play the black pieces against Ruslan Ponomariov, Ukraine in round 6.

Magnus Carlsen, Bazna, Rumania

Round 3 and 4

Not that much to say about my game against Boris Gelfand in round 3. After a quiet opening I chose an aggressive plan moving my queen to his kingside. He made some accurate defensive moves and effectively neutralised the attack. I was forced to enter a somewhat worse ending. At this point I probably defended well and after a small accuracy by him, we agreed a draw with 3 pawns and a piece each.

In round 4 Thursday I played Wang Yue from China, the second highest rated player in the tournament. As white I played the Kings Gambit for the first time in my career and as expected Wang was duly surprised. He decided he did not want to keep the pawn I had sacrificed, and I got a small advantage from the opening. 
In the middle game I got a passer (free pawn) in the d-file but the position was still in balance. He put his remaining rook in e-file and my rook lift made it somewhat tricky for him. He allowed me to push the pawn to d7 and just before the time control he sacrificed an exchange for my d-pawn hoping to draw the ensuing endgame. It is quite interesting and complicated but he erred after just a few moves by pushing his g-pawn allowing my countermove g4 creating a passed pawn in the h-file, and it quickly secured my first victory in this tournament.

All three games were won by white in this round. Ponomariov got a nearly decisive advantage against Nisipeanu out of the opening and steered the game to victory.Radjabov won a nice attacking game against Gelfand and we are joint leaders with 2.5 points going into the first free day.
 
Friday night there was a football match between the tournament participants supported by seconds and the organisers and chess journalists in nearby Medias. The game revealed that many of the participants are former football players and after the planned match everyone even wanted to continue for half an hour:-)

On Saturday I´ll play home favourite Nisipeanu in round 5.

Magnus Carlsen, Bazna, Rumania 

 

Round 2

My opponent Teimur Radjabov from Azerbaijan recently qualified for the 2011 Candidate Matches by capturing the overall 2nd place in the 2008-2010 Grand Prix. He is 23 years old and currently ranked as no 13 in the world, although just two rating points short of a place in the top 10.
As white, he started with a somewhat offbeat Sicilian variation. This was a surprise to me as it is quite comfortable for black. Maybe the reason was that he suffered (but managed a draw) on the black side of the same line against Gashimov in the Grand Prix tournament in Astrakhan last month).

I got a very comfortable position in the middle game and was quite optimistic. Somewhere along the line I must have played inaccurately because after complications he managed to escape into a slightly worse bishop against knight endgame. I continued to put pressure on him for more than two hours and although unpleasant for white he managed to find a way to trade of enough material to draw in the end.
I´m not fully satisfied with two draws so far but the fact that I was quite close to winning as black today makes me optimistic with regard to the rest of the tournament.
Wednesday I´m white facing Boris Gelfand from Israel.

Magnus Carlsen, Bazna, Rumania

Round 1

The road from Bazna to Medias is a bit bumpy but the organisation of the transportation to the tournament was quite impressive. Each player has a car with driver and we moved in a column headed by a police car to arrive in Medias well in time and after a brief introduction by the organiser, round 1 started on schedule.
Having the white pieces against Ruslan Ponomariov from Ukraine, I got what I considered a promising position out of the opening. There were potential threats against his kingside, but when he countered with f5 I retreated my bishop along the wrong diagonal to b1. Moving the bishop to f3 would have been better to stop the advance of his h-pawn and to prepare the advance of my g-pawn. My opponent played accurately in the critical phases and when he offered a draw after move 31 I was slightly worse and saw no better alternative than to accept his offer.
Both the other games ended decisively. Home favourite Nisipeanu defeated Radjabov and Gelfand won against Wang Yue on an exciting first day for the spectators.
Tuesday I´m facing Radjabov in round 2.

Magnus Carlsen, Bazna, Rumania

 
Kings Tournament, Bazna, Juni 2010

We arrived in Bazna (in the middle of Romania) on Saturday after a pleasant travel via Munich.
The organiser has been very helpful thus far even helping out finding a sportsbar on the way from the airport to Bazna so that I could watch Argentina - Nigeria:-) We start to play tomorrow (Monday) and needless to say it´ll be great to get into action again.
The other players are Boris Gelfand, Wang Yue, Teimour Radjabov, Ruslan Ponomariov and the best Rumanian player Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu.
The 10 round tournament is a part of the Grand Slam ciricuit and take place from the 14th to the 25th of June.
My opponent for tomorrow is Ponomariov. The games starts at 3:30 pm local time and the playing venue is in Madic 20 minutes drive from here.

Magnus Carlsen, Bazna, Sunday June 13th