Carlsen beats Ponomariov in round 8 Tal Memorial
13 November 2009, 20.57 CET | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
In the only decisive encounter of the Tal Memorial’s 8th round, Magnus Carlsen won his first game, and we might as well add: in Tal style. A devastating sacrifice on e6 in a Sicilian decided his game against Ponomariov at an early stage. With four draws in the other games, Kramnik is still half a point ahead of Anand and Ivanchuk. Tomorrow is already the last round, again at 13:00 CET.
The Tal Memorial takes place November 4-18 in Moscow, Russia. The category 21 round-robin has Viswanathan Anand (India, 2788), Levon Aronian (Armenia, 2786), Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2801), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2772), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2752), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2758), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2739) Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2750), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2754) and Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine, 2739).
The first four rounds of the round-robin are held in hotel “National” on November 5, 6, 7 and 8. Rounds 5-9 take place in the Main Department Store GUM on Red Square. The time control is the classic 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour and then 15 minutes plus 30 seconds increment to finish the game. The rounds begin daily at 15:00 Moscow time which is 13:00 CET.
Round 8
Top seed Magnus Carlsen seemed fully recovered today and played like a young Mikhail Tal. He “thought it was time to switch opening moves,” as he explained during the post-game press conference (very much done in Corus style, with a demoboard in the press room – you can still watch it here!). “Forgive me my ignorance,” Carlsen continued, “but I didn’t know the move 10…Ne5 at all.” So much for everyone who thought that the very interesting novelty 11.Qe1 was strong preparation by the Carlsen/Kasparov team…
Carlsen allowed Ponomariov to take one of his bishops, because he considered the more natural 14.Bf2 d5 to be fine for Black. “And I wanted to line up my knights to take on e6 some day,” he said with a smile. Ponomariov then should have played the normal 15…Be7, when Black in fact threatens 16…e5 and is absolutely fine. “I wouldn’t recommend the way I played with White,” Carlsen admitted. However, the way Ponomariov neglected his development couldn’t be recommended either, and the move 20…d5 was already desperation. Carlsen is still not feeling 100%, but “it helps to win games,” he ended the press conference.
The draw in Kramnik-Leko was quite spectacular but unfortunately it was all theory for no less than 26 moves. Immediately after they left an old Yusupov-Sax game, the two liquidated to a queen ending that was about equal, and so it makes you wonder whether the two friends were up to a real fight today.
Gelfand might be the oldest participant but he’s in excellent shape and therefore difficult to beat, especially with the black pieces. And so Anand played it safe today, and drew in a Catalan, just like his neigbour in the standings, Ivanchuk. The Ukrainian however had to show some endgame technique to keep a difficult rook ending against Aronian. Instructive material, which was explained very clearly by our live commentator GM Dimitri Reinderman.
The game between Morozevich and Svidler had the same result and was even played out till bare kings. On move 19 Morozevich went for a long and forced line that led to a QR-QR ending with five pawns each. In the second phase of the game both players seemed to be playing for a win, which made it a fascinating struggle between the two top GMs from Russia. Because nobody faltered, the point was split in the end.
Tomorrow the last round starts at the same time: 13:00 CET. Naturally all eyes will be focused on Ivanchuk-Kramnik, and Anand-Aronian. Our live coverage will be done all the way from Sydney, Australia, by GM Ian Rogers. Free free to tune in!
Games round 8 [GM Dimitri Reinderman]
Game viewer by ChessTempo
Tal Memorial 2009 | Round 8 Standings
Tal Memorial 2009 | Schedule and results
Following an excellent idea of Georg in the comments, we write something about Mikhail Tal every day.
There haven’t been many occasions for Dutch chess fans to see Mikhail Tal play, let alone to see him play really great chess. He won Wijk aan Zee in 1973, the year I was born, but in his other tournaments in The Netherlands, he mostly seems to have been out of form. It’s strange to realize that there aren’t many Dutch chess players of my generation and younger who could have seen him play in real life, since he played here for the last time in 1988, beating Jan Timman 3.5-2.5 in the KRO training match in Hilversum.
I haven’t seen Tal play at the board either, but I have seen him in real life once. In 1988, when I had just joined my first chess club in Amsterdam, I visited the Wijk aan Zee tournament on a Saturday with my dad. We arrived some time in the afternoon, and when I entered the playing hall and looked around, someone came up to me and said I was standing in front of a former World Champion. I turned around and looked at whom I later learned was Mikhail Tal.
But frustratingly, I don’t recall anything of him except the fact that he appeared rather short. Apparently, his famous penetrating eyes didn’t make an impression on me! (I have seen Max Euwe once, too, in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam – he died in 1981 so I must have been really young – but I don’t recall anything of him either. Evidently, I don’t have a good memory for faces of former World Champions.)
It turned out Tal had already finished his game with Karpov, a short draw typical for his tournament, which he finished with 11 draws out of 13 games. Later that year, he did considerably better at the World Blitz Championship in Saint John: he won it ahead of the best players in the world. The old Tal was back, at age 51.
Tal,M-Gurevich,D
World Blitz Ch (01) 1988
Here Tal blitzed out the fantastic 24.Nxe6!! Rxe6 25.Bxf5! and of course went on to win the game.
Arne Moll
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+6 -0 =4 and +1 -0 =7 means +7 -0 =11 for Carlsen in two category 21 tournaments before the last round tomorrow. Impressive results with little time between the events, and if he beats Leko he will reach #1 on the live rating list. It’s been a while since he lost a game now, and he couldn’t have played much stronger fields, the lowest rated opponent he has faced in these events was 2736…
Congratulations Magnus! We were all waiting for a long draws to see you win at last
The moves of Kramnik-Leko up to move 31 have already been mentioned by Yusupov in 1994 in his anlysis of Yusupov-Sax (Source: Dvoretsky, Yusupov; Opening Preparation, p52-57): “and the queen ending is probably drawn”.
Kramnik 2.1 ?
I can’t see Carlsen’s explanation’s video. It’s my fault or the link is not correct? I don’t understand a single russian’s world. Can anyone be nice and help me? I wanna see Carlsen analizing that tremendous game.
Carlsen also said that Ponomariov normally plays 6.-e5 (prophylaxis against Nf4!?
) rather than 6.-e6. If he wanted to avoid “Carlsparov’s” specific preparation, it apparently backfired – as he wasn’t that familiar with the resulting position himself.
BTW, starting tomorrow (when there will be a new live video) the full link will be http://video.russiachess.org/browse/13 . And Carlsen’s press conference starts around 16:20 – no need to watch the entire six hours!
@gg: The full list of Carlsen’s supertournament performances this year is:
Corus +2=10-1
Linares +3=9-2
MTel +3=6-1
Dortmund +2=7-1
Nanjing +6=4-0
Tal Memorial +1=7-0
There is some progress (recently he avoided losing), but overall Nanjing is, at least for the time being, an outlier. It may be the effect of working with Kasparov, plus the – apparently transient – psychological effect that this cooperation was announced just before the tournament?
as usual my poor blind eyes fail to see to merit of white’s position in the Tal blitz combo above after 24.Nxe6!! Rxe6 25.Bxf5! gxf5 26. Qxh5 Rf8. Is white really better? Maybe white plays Re3-g3-g6 or something? I guess black is kinda tied up huh?
@jazzkoo, I think the beauty of this combination is in the fact that it doesn;t win by force. The line you mention is indeed what Gurevich played. After 27.Re3 White just has long-term chances against the black king, which is especially annoying in a blitz game!
Thanks, Thomas. It was really worth watching Carlsen’s analisis. He is looking more confident than ever. You can realize it because he smiles in a different way than before. He even speaks more fluently. He is just, obviously, growing up. And you can see it when you watch him.
It’s interesting when you think about that: he is only 18: he will be capable of playing a lot stronger than now, and he will enjoy his chess even more. Maybe in two or three years, at most, he will be a completely different player. He will be too strong. That’s what i think. Kasparov’s eye is not bad at all. No. Not bad at all.
“Nanjing is, at least for the time being, an outlier”
These things tend to even out with time. He could have avoided the losing mistakes against Shirov in Mtel and Kramnik in Dortmund, and instead drawn a couple of winning positions in Nanjing. Now he got all the good stuff in one event and all the bad stuff in others. Like blundering away the Linares title against Radjabov, and Corus against Karjakin, both from winning positions he would have converted easily in Nanjing. Also hard to play so much, A-T-K usually prepare many months for every tournament nowadays while Carlsen’s and Aronian’s results might suffer slightly from their being much more active.
But there’s always some player that has things going his way more than usual in a tournament. Karjakin scored 2 points from 3 lost positions and won Corus but has performed more expected results in all his other events. Aronian and Radjabov tried to blitz Grischuk from better positions in Linares but both lost and Grischuk won the title. Here Pono and Gelfand missed advantageous continuations against Kramnik and the latter almost scored 2 points from games where it might have been 0.5 another time. But the best players tend to have things going their way more than others in such positions, as Carlsen showed against Wang Yue in Nanjing.
gg wrote “These things tend to even out with time…”
-A very good and true analyze!
+1
Well….. It seems to be another + tournament for Carlsen. And maybe with no losses. Pretty good after playing with the flu for a few days…. People can say what they want, but I think he would have been more agressive and won another game or two if he was a 100%. In a game like chess you will lose a lot of stamina and consentration when the fever kicks in. Anywho…. I think his performances this year will prove to be the start of something big. To become #1 tends to take time…..
Not to sure what i think of the Kasparov business though. Is it just me or has Carlsen become more predictable. I used to think that one of his strengths was that he could play so well instinctively from any position. I guess he proved that he still can today after facing the unexpected move from Pono!! I just hope that Kasparov won`t erase the player he used to be with his training regime……
why didn’t you post the video with magnus analysing in the press conference?
Because we didn’t film it.
it’s interesting with the fear Kasparov strikes in the chess elites. Carlsen would probably have had a harder time in many games if people didn’t know Kasparov was helping him. Sure, he might have surprised some of them sometimes, but if he wasn’t playing at his best that might not lead to victory. And, if the others used their main weapons more, it would be harder for him to get easy draws with black, like e.g. against Ivanchuk. Even the win now was partly because Ponomariov went to a position he wasn’t sure about rather than risk walking into a difficult novelty.