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GM Magnus Carlsen secured victory in the Altibox Norway Chess tournament one round before the end. The world champion won his standard game with GM Alireza Firouzja, who made a mistake in a basic pawn ending.
With one round to go, Carlsen is now four points ahead of Firouzja, clinching the top prize of NKr 700,000 (€ 63,803 / $ 74,746).
GM Levon Aronian and GM Fabiano Caruana are still in third and fourth place after winning their armageddon against GM Aryan Tari and GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda respectively. The pairings for the final round are Carlsen – Aronian, Caruana – Tari and Firouzja – Duda.
You can follow the games here as part of our live platform. In addition to the official broadcast, daily commentary is provided on GM Hikaru Nakamura’s Twitch channel starting at 8am Pacific / 5pm Central Europe.
Norwegian Chess 2020 | Round 9 Ranking
| # | fed | Name | bone scan | one | two | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Pts |
| one | Carlsen, Magnus | 2863 | 1.5 3 | 1.5 | 3 1.5 | 0 3 | 3 3 | 19.5 | ||
| two | Firouzja, Alireza | 2728 | 1 0 | 1.5 1.5 | 1.5 1 | 3 | 3 3 | 15.5 | ||
| 3 | Aronian, Levon | 2767 | one | eleven | 3 0 | 3 1 | 3 1.5 | 14.5 | ||
| 4 | Caruana, Fabiano | 2828 | 0 1 | 1 1.5 | 0 3 | 3 1.5 | 3 | 14 | ||
| 5 | Doubt, Jan-Krzysztof | 2757 | 3 0 | 0 | 0 1.5 | 0 1 | 1 3 | 9.5 | ||
| 6 | Tari, Aryan | 2633 | 0 0 | 0 0 | 0 1 | 0 | 1.5 0 | 2.5 |
Many fans still remember the world champion as the amazing prodigy who broke into the chess world as a teenager. It may come as a surprise that this prodigy turns 30 on November 30 of this year.
It was clear that the roles were reversed for his game with Firouzja, today the greatest talent and a future rival in the world championship. “It’s a tough situation,” Carlsen said. “I mean, he’s 17 and he’s playing a game like that for the first time. It’s not easy.”
It was a mix of nervousness and time pressure that made Firouzja ruin a decent game. He had defended himself “perfectly to the last move,” as Carlsen put it.
Commentator GM Vladimir Kramnik: “It’s a very good experience for him. This kind of thing, especially when it’s painful, can be very helpful.”
Carlsen agreed: “I certainly had many experiences like this. I lost two rook finals to Levon for no reason. It’s part of the growth process. But he’s so strong that he’ll be around for a long time. It’s good to be the wise old man!”
It’s good to be the wise old man!
—Magnus Carlsen
Carlsen was not very happy in the opening when Firouzja chose a more well balanced line as White. Kramnik still saw some chances for a slight edge, but soon (with 15.Bg5) it became clear that Firouzja was playing draw.
Out of next to nothing, Carlsen managed to get a tangible advantage, but then blew it on move 36. Although he ended up with an extra pawn, it was again a draw. However, Firouzja was running out of time; at some point in the game he had exactly one hour off the clock.
Eventually, the players reached the next basic pawn ending on move 61. At that point, Firouzja had just 22 seconds left on his clock versus 35 minutes for Carlsen, an increase of 10 seconds.
Position after 61 … Kxh5.
Many of our readers will recognize “distant opposition” as the main theme here, something most of us learn when we are young. Firouzja must have learned it too, but under the circumstances, he didn’t execute it properly.
“In the end, he didn’t give the appearance of someone who was sure of everything, so I had some minor hopes of tricking him in some way by moving the king, but obviously that was too much,” Carlsen said.
“You basically just need distant opposition, that’s child’s play. But he was shaking his head, he was so nervous, I felt that at some point, where he was going to put his king would probably be a little random honestly, because I was shaking a lot. In that sense, I had some hope but obviously that was luck. “
A Chess.com employee quickly tweeted:
For any beginner or advanced player looking to brush up on king and pawn opposition, Https://t.co/F4mQ6omJpt has you covered! 👀
👨🏫 ➡ https://t.co/v9JTfXPr0w pic.twitter.com/IsitbMCC7F
– Chess.com (@chesscom) October 15, 2020
After the game, Carlsen hadn’t immediately realized that he had won the tournament. He said he was “very happy with the result” and was “pleasantly surprised” with his play after such a long gap with chess on the board: “I am getting used to the wooden screen.”
I am getting used to the wooden screen.
—Magnus Carlsen
In a later interview, he repeated his statement that Firouzja is going to be around for a long time, adding: “Giving him a slightly unpleasant memory, I think that’s not a bad thing for me.”
While the Firouzja-Carlsen game was the story of the day, Tari-Aronian was the game of the day. The reason was Aronian’s very creative play, which was ultimately not rewarded with a victory. In fact, it was Tari who took over, but then he also failed to convert.
The fun started with Black’s 10 … g5 move, especially surprising because he had played it to g6 first, apparently to fianchetto his bishop. Tari took the pawn and accepted the pressure on his king along the g-file.
As the analysis showed, Black’s attack was good enough to tie, but Aronian went astray and lost two pawns. Tari’s lack of time on the clock combined with Aronian’s defensive skills led to an adventurous draw.
The armageddon game saw the Scotsman Mieses Variation, where Tari tried an early h2-h4, which was also played by a young Aronian as early as 2003, by the way. It was GM Alexander Morozevich who really popularized it in 2015-2016.
Aronian pushed the game away from theoretical waters with his ninth move and soon after, Tari chose an interesting form of play that involved a double pawn sacrifice. There was a rather ingenious way to get one back and get compensation for the other, but when the young Norwegian couldn’t find it, he was arrested.
The standard game between Duda and Caruana wasn’t overly exciting until the American GM suddenly played an incredible rook sacrifice. It was completely correct, but no more than a draw after Duda’s answer.
Duda tried the Benko / Volga gambit with reversed colors at armageddon, but was slowly but surely overcome:
The Norway Chess tournament is a six-player double round-robin that will take place October 5-16, 2020 at the Clarion Hotel in Stavanger, Norway. The time control is two hours for all movements with an increment of 10 seconds per movement after movement 40.
In the event of a tie, players play a game of Armageddon approximately 20 minutes after drawing their standard game. The colors remain the same and the time control is 10 minutes for White versus seven minutes for Black (who is likely to tie) with an increment of one second per move from move 41.
The point system is as follows:
- Main game victory: 3 points
- Main game lost: 0 points
- Draw the main game and victory armageddon: 1.5 points
- Draw main game and losses armageddon: 1 point
See also:
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