Magnus Carlsen again

80th Tata Steel Masters Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands Jan. 12-28, 2018 Final Standings

1-2. Magnus Carlsen NOR 2834, Anish Giri NED 2752, 9.0/13

3- 4. Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2787, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov AZE 2804, 8.5/13

5-6. Viswanathan Anand IND 2767, Wesley So USA 2792, 8.0/13 7. Sergey Karjakin RUS 2753, 7.5/13 8. Peter Svidler RUS 2768, 6.0/13 9. Wei Yi CHN 2743, 5.5/13 10-12. Gawain Jones ENG 2640, Fabiano Caruana USA 2811, Maxim Matlakov RUS 2718, 5.0/13

13. Baskaran Adhiban IND 2655, 3.5/13 14. Hou Yifan CHN 2680, 2.5/13 Ave Rating 2750 Category 20 Time Control: 100 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 50 minutes for the next 20 moves then 15 minutes play- to- finish with 30 seconds added to your clock after every move starting move 1.

Magnus Carlsen has just won the Super GM tournament in Wijk aan Zee, the Tata Steel Masters. What’s more this is the 6th time he has done it, a record. Viswanathan Anand has won the tournament five times. Former world champion Max Euwe, the Hungarian legend Lajos Portisch, Viktor “The Terrible” Korchnoi and Levon Aronian have accomplished the feat four times each. We have to put an asterisk in there somewhere — the 13th World Champion Garry Kasparov has only participated in this event three times but has won all three. Should be some sort of record as well.

Carlsen actually tied for first with the Dutch GM Anish Giri but then prevailed in the two-game tie-break blitz match 1.50.5. Carlsen was the heavy favorite to rule the tie-breaks because it had a fast time control (five minutes for the whole game with a three second increment) and (1) he is a helluva speed chess player — there was a time when he was simultaneously the classical, rapid and blitz chess champion of the world, and (2) the last time he lost a tie-break was back in 2007 in the candidates’ match to Levon Aronian, and he was only 17 years old at that time. He has since proven invincible in speed chess tie-breaks no matter how heavy the stakes — you need only recall the 3-1 victory over Sergey Karjakin in 2016 New York when the world title was up for grabs.

The prize money was split equally — should there have been a match to break the tie at all? It was only for bragging rights anyway. The need to have a solo champion was just introduced last year — before that they two would have been declared co-winners. And even then they could have used the usual mathematical tie-breaks to declare the champion without the need to call the players back to play. They could have used the result of the direct encounter between the two players (this was a draw, so it won’t count) or the Sonneborn-Berger system (adding the sum of the conventional scores of the players he has defeated to half the sum of the conventional scores of those he has drawn against, in which case Giri would have been 1st place) or comparing performance ratings (in which case Girl would also have been it).

Anyway whatever the arguments having the players settle it over the board has to be the most objective criteria.

At the end of the Tata Steel Masters the live ratings of the top 10 players in the world are: 1. Magnus Carlsen NOR 2843.3 2. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov AZE 2813.8 3. Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2799.8 4. Wesley So USA 2799.3 5. Hikaru Nakamura USA 2791.5 6. Levon Aronian ARM 2789.9 7. Maxime Vachier- Lagrave FRA 2788.6 8. Fabiano Caruana USA 2784.4 9. Viswanathan Anand IND 2778.8 10. Anish Giri NED 2776.7 Anand ( gaining 11.8 points) and Anish Giri (with an additional 24.7 points from Wiijk aan Zee) have re-entered the Top 10 (replacing Ding Liren and Alexander Grischuk) while Fabiano Caruana has lost 26.6 points and tumbled down from the second highest rated player in the world to no. 8.

Magnus Carlsen did not win a single SuperGM tournament (at classical time controls) in the whole of 2017. Is he back to his best form? I think not yet — but he is getting there. Take a look at the following hard-earned win over the reigning European Champion. After the first time control on move 40 Carlsen was two hours ahead of his opponent — as he explained, “when you are trying to win with not much, you need the clock as an ally.”

Carlsen, Magnus (2834) — Matlakov, Maxim (2718) [B48] 80th Tata Steel Masters Wijk aan Zee NED (12.1), 27.01.2018 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 a6 7.Qd2 Nf6 8.f4 Bb4 9.Bd3 Na5 There are many ways to fight in the middlegame, for example 9...Ng4, 9...b5, 9...d5, 9...0–0 or even 9...e5, but Matlakov wants to exchange queens. 10.a3 Bxc3 11.Qxc3 Qxc3+ 12.bxc3 d5 13.exd5

The main move here is 13. e5 and now after 13...Ne4 14.Nb3 Nc4 15.Bxc4 dxc4 16.Na5 the “Chess Openings 24/7” website, otherwise known as “Chopin,” suggests 16...Bd7! 17.Bd4 Rc8 (17...b5?! 18.0–0–0 0–0–0 19.Rhe1 f5 20.exf6 Nxf6 21.g3 “White has a lasting advantage. D. Kadric- A. Calugar, Dallas 2014”) 18.Nxb7 Bc6 19.Na5 Bd5 20.Rb1 Kd7! 21.Ke2 f5 22.Rb6 g5 23.fxg5 Rhg8 24.Rg1 Rxg5 25.Rxa6 Rgg8 26.Rb6 Rb8 27.Rb4 f4 Black has sufficient compensation for material deficit. Volokitin,A(2683)Giri,A(2749), Germany 2014 0–1 49. 13...exd5

[13...Nxd5 is also ok. After 14.Bd2 Nb6 15.0–0 Nbc4 16.Be1 0–0 17.Nb3 b5 18.a4 Bd7 19.axb5 axb5 20.Bf2 White has the two bishops but Black should be able to hold. Ziaziulkina,N (2386)-Zhigalko,A (2619) Minsk 2014 1/2 59.]

14.Nb3 Nc4 15.Bd4 Ne4 16.Nc5 Nxc5 17.Bxc5 Bd7 18.0–0–0 0–0–0 19.Bxc4 dxc4 20.Bb6 Rde8 21.Rd4 Re6 22.Rxc4+ Rc6 23.Rxc6+ Bxc6 24.Rd1 Bxg2 25.Rg1 Be4 26.Rxg7 Bg6 27.a4

White is a pawn up but it is not going to be easy as his own pawns are not in good shape. 27... Rf8 28. Kb2 Kd7 29. f5 Bxf5 30.Bc5 Rc8 31.Rxf7+ Ke6 32.Re7+

Kf6 33.Bb4 a5 34.Ba3 Rc4 35.Rxb7 Rxa4 36.Ra7 Re4 37.Rxa5

Now White is two pawns up but remember the bishops are of opposite colors. Perhaps with best play this is a draw but anyway White can continue playing with no risk.

37...Re2 38.Bd6 Bxc2 39.c4 Ke6 40.Ra6 Bf5+ 41.Kc3 Be4 42.Kd4 Kf5 43.Ra5+ Kg4

Maybe 43...Ke6 is better, trying to keep his king in the vicinity of white’s passed pawn. The dangerous looking 44. Re5+ Kxd6 45. Rxe4 Rd2+ 46. Ke3 Rxh2 does not work — it is a clear draw.

44.c5 Bf3 45.Ra7 h6 46.Rh7 Re4+ 47.Kd3 Re6 48.Kc4 Bc6 49.Rc7 Bh1 50.Kb5 h5 51.Rg7+ Kh4?

Clearly a mistake as his king gets cutoff on the h-file. 51...Kf5 would make a better fight of it. <D> POSITION AFTER 51...KH4 52.Rg1 The original annotation by the chess. com Web site was that the text move was “not bad but Carlsen misses a nice and quick win with 52.Be7+! Kh3 53.Rg3+ Kxh2 54. Bd6 and Black can resign.” Carlsen, however, wrote that it was not so simple. Black has 54... Re4 which saves the rook, at least momentarily. His main line went 55.c6 Rd4 56.c7 (56.Rd3+ Rxd6 57.Rxd6 Bxc6+ 58.Kxc6 h4=) 56... Rxd6 57.Rh3+! (57.c8Q Rd5+) 57...Kxh3 58.c8Q+ but he could not find a way to pick up the rook, only the bishop, which leaves a lot of technical difficulties.

Carlsen also considered 52.Be7+ Kh3 53.Rg3+ Kxh2 54.Bd6 Re4 55.Ra3+! ( going to c3 or b3 also work) followed by c6. Carlsen: “I suspected it might win, as it does, but it is not very intuitive, and I did not want to risk miscalculating as I thought I had an easy win in the game.” 52...Ba8 53.Kb6 Re2 54.Kc7 Bd5

55.Rg3 Bh1 56.Rc3

During the game I thought that 56.Bf4 threatening Bg5 mate was the coup de grace, but it turns out not to be so easy. After 56...Rxh2 57.Rg1 Kh3 I was surprised to find out that the planned 58.Bxh2 Kxh2 59.Rxh1+ Kxh1 60.c6 only leads to a draw. After further study it turns out that to win White must come up with mating (!) threats against the Black king. How is this done? Well... 56. Bf4 Rxh2 57. Rg1 Kh3 58. Rc1! Bf3 (what else can Black do? If he moves the rook then his bishop becomes en prise) 59.Bxh2 Kxh2 60.Rc3! Kg2 61.Kd6! (only move to win — this king must go down to f4 to pose mating threats. Sounds unbelievable, but watch!) 61...h4 62.Ke5 h3 63.Kf4 Bc6 64.Rc2+ Kg1 65.Kg3 and now White is well and truly won. 56...Kg4 57.c6 1–0

After 57. c6 here is how the game might end 57...Kf5 58.Kd7 Kf6 59.c7 Bd5 60.Kd8 Be6 61.Be7+ Kg7 62.Rg3+ Kh7 63.Bd6 h4 (63...Rxh2? 64.Re3 wins one of Black’s pieces) 64.Rg5 Re4 65.Re5 Rxe5 66.Bxe5 Black has to give up his bishop for the pawn, after which White will win because his bishop is the same color as the h8 square.

Going into the last two rounds Carlsen NOR, Giri NED and Mamedyarov AZE were tied for the lead and it looked like Carlsen had to face the stronger opposition among the three — Magnus’ last two opponents were Matlakov and Karjakin, Giri faced Adhiban and Wei Yi while Mamedyarov had Gawain Jones and Vishy Anand. The Azeri GM, of course, knew that the former world champion Vishy Anand, who was in quite an acceptable form in Wijk aan Zee, would be one tough customer to go for a win against, so everybody expected Mamedyarov to go for broke against Gawain Jones.

To general surprise, however, he agreed to a quick 12-move draw against the Britisher and allowed Carlsen and Giri to surge into a tie for the lead. It became worse when he drew with Anand in the last round and Kramnik defeated Baskaran Adhiban to wrest 3rd place from Mamedyarov by virtue of the higher tiebreak points.

It is still a puzzle to me why the short draw in the penultimate round. Did Shakh get cold feet because he was already no. 2 in the rating list and a loss might tumble him down the standings? I don’t think so but you never know.