London 2009 Round 1, December 8th
The game against Kramnik today was quite important as we’re ranked one and two in this tournament. A couple of hundred spectators followed the games in the auditorium. I played 1.c4 and the English opening. The ambition was to obtain a complicated position but not necessarily an advantage out of the opening. Kramnik seems slightly uncomfortable in the kind of position that arose. I won a pawn after a tense middle game, but black had considerable compensation. At this point he made several inaccuracies and around the first time control his position went from being difficult to being lost. He resigned a few moves after the time control in face of mate or big material losses. That evens our internal score in classical chess (two victories each) and I’ve got a wonderful start to this tournament! 7th ranked
Luke McShane won a marathon endgame against Nigel Short while the other two games ended with draw. I commented on the game for a large audience and press after the game. I’m impressed by the interest in the tournament so far. Wednesday I’m playing white against co-leader McShane.
Magnus Carlsen, London December 8th 2009.
2009-12-09 01:02:28
http://www.arcticsec.no/index.php?button=blog&main_image=35
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London Chess Classics, December 7th 2009 |
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It has been two weeks since Tal Memorial and the Blitz World Championship. A new challenge is just around the corner with the London Chess Classics tournament starting tomorrow. My opponents are Kramnik, Russia, Nakamura, USA, Ni Hua from China as well as the top four ranked English players Short, Adams, McShane and Howell. Last week Kasparov visited Oslo for a few days. We had a good training session preparing for the London tournament. It is my first visit to London and England and it feels good to be here. Today there was a press conference and I’ve given some interviews. This afternoon I got the chance to play tennis with 1987 Wimbledon winner Pat Cash. Great fun and interesting to pick up some good advice. For the third time in a row in classical tournaments I picked start number one in the drawing of lots, resulting in four white games and three with the black pieces. Tuesday I’ll play white against second ranked Vladimir Kramnik in round 1, just like in Moscow in November. I’m happy to hear the blog has attracted readers from across the world, only last week Arctic got some nice feedback from American Samoa! Magnus Carlsen |
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2009-12-07 23:58:37 |
Thanks Susan.