Chessable Houska's Caro

8th Tal Memorial 2013 (1)

Carlsen, Caruana and Mamedyarov day 1 winners in the 8th Tal Memorial

Carlsen demonstrates his Round 1 win. Photo ©

Carlsen demonstrates his Round 1 win. Photo © | http://russiachess.org

The first day of the Tal Memorial saw three decisive games out of five with wins for Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov although none of the players who lost will be all that happy with their performances.

Magnus Carlsen rolled out the Trompowsky against Vladimir Kramnik and was rewarded with a win in the endgame. Kramnik seemed quite uncertain of himself and started consume time when it wasn't really necessary and this left him short later on. Kramnik's position certainly wasn't that bad for some time even when his pawns became fractured. In fact it was after first time control where Kramnik made a very bad error when on move 44 he traded rooks into what turned out to be a totally lost Bishop and Pawn ending a pawn down. Carlsen afterwards said he wasn't hiding opening preparation for the World Championship as he hadn't started yet, he was here to give his best over the board.

I've now seen Carlsen's press conference, one of his very best technical efforts in explaining the game. http://video.russiachess.org/view/1962 at the end from 17:48:30 (last hour, apparently the hour is different depending which time zone you're in). I've transcribed the notes to the PGN file for play through and download. Firstly it confirmed my feeling that Carlsen was in very bad shape at the end of the Candidates from Round 11 onwards. Gone are the error strewn variations there, here there are no glaring errors. He really shows how he made Kramnik make "some decisions" all the way through the game until he cracked. Really this game is what Carlsen is all about. The fact he spent over half an hour explaining it shows he was happy with it and how he rates wins vs Kramnik.

World Champion Viswanathan Anand also had a day to forget losing horribly in the end to Fabiano Caruana. On the white side of a Ruy Lopez Anti-Marshall Anand innovated with 13.Bc2, Caruana sacrificed a pawn for good play with 16...Ncb4 only at this stage trying to equalise. Caruana rather feared 24.Ng4 which Anand didn't play and after 25.Nfd1 he was better. Anand's 39.Ke1 and 40.Kd1 left him completely lost and he resigned 8 moves later.

Even worse was to befall Hikaru Nakamura who just played dreadfully against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Once Nakamura rests from this big run of events the repair on a tattered opening repertoire that has got him into all sorts of trouble recently will surely be a priority. In a Ragozin Nakamura fingered 10.Rad1 as the start of his problems after which he should have concentrated on equalising. Instead Nakamura quickly became worse and his 18.g3?!, 19.h3? absolutely asked for the decisive sacrifice 19...Nxf2 Mamedyarov played and things ended quickly after that.

Dmitry Andreikin had a small advantage against Alexander Morozevich in a Dragon Sicilian but Morozevich defended well. Boris Gelfand played for an annoying plus in a Catalan against Sergey Karjakin but the position gradually became equal.

Round 1 Standings: Carlsen, Caruana, Mamedyarov 1pt, Karjakin, Morozevich, Gelfand, Andreikin 0.5pts, Kramnik, Anand, Nakamura 0pts.

Round 2 Pairings Fri 14th Jun 12pm BST: Morozevich-Mamedyarov, Kramnik-Nakamura, Karjakin-Carlsen, Caruana-Gelfand, Andreikin-Anand.

8th Tal Mem Moscow (RUS), 13-24 vi 2013 cat. XXII (2777)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
1. Carlsen, Magnus g NOR 2864 * . . . . . . 1 . . 1
2. Caruana, Fabiano g ITA 2774 . * . . . . . . 1 . 1
3. Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar g AZE 2753 . . * . . . . . . 1 1
4. Karjakin, Sergey g RUS 2782 . . . * . ½ . . . . ½ 2755
5. Morozevich, Alexander g RUS 2760 . . . . * . ½ . . . ½ 2713
6. Gelfand, Boris g ISR 2755 . . . ½ . * . . . . ½ 2782
7. Andreikin, Dmitry g RUS 2713 . . . . ½ . * . . . ½ 2760
8. Kramnik, Vladimir g RUS 2803 0 . . . . . . * . . 0
9. Anand, Viswanathan g IND 2786 . 0 . . . . . . * . 0
10. Nakamura, Hikaru g USA 2784 . . 0 . . . . . . * 0
Round 1 (June 13, 2013)
Carlsen, Magnus - Kramnik, Vladimir 1-0 72 A45 Trompowsky
Gelfand, Boris - Karjakin, Sergey ½-½ 39 E06 Catalan
Andreikin, Dmitry - Morozevich, Alexander ½-½ 48 B76 Sicilian Modern Dragon
Anand, Viswanathan - Caruana, Fabiano 0-1 48 C88 Ruy Lopez Closed
Nakamura, Hikaru - Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 0-1 31 D38 QGD Ragozin

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