R8: Aronian & Carlsen score again
23 March 2008 11:21 PM | Last modified: 23:23
Only twice a 2-0 score was seen at this Amber tournament so far, and both times it was Magnus Carlsen who did it. Today Mamedyarov was his victim. Aronian is clear favorite now, after beating Anand 1½-½ today.
Two of today’s blindfold games were of quite a high level: Aronian-Anand and Carlsen-Mamedyarov. After some original and slightly provocative opening play, Aronian had managed to provoked some weakening moves by Anand and because of the excellent manoeuvre Rc1-c3-e3 the Armenian could just play actively with his king on e1. Carlsen punished Mamedyarov’s Rxb2 with surgical precision - have you ever seen it before that a rook on b2 is forced to go to h1 with check?
“Compensating” for these superb games, the biggest blunder so far of the tournament was played in Van Wely-Leko. But should we call it a blunder really? Loek had read 13…Nxc6 instead of 13…Bxc6 on his screen, which explains everything. Ivanchuk-Kramnik was a draw in a Petroff, where Kramnik could have offered the draw a bit earlier.
Topalov still feels quite comfortable in the Caro-Kann and drew with it against Karjakin. With strong play Gelfand had reached a winning position against Morozevich but then lost track in timetrouble. Winning, but not easy to find, was 33.Re7! Rxb6 34.Qf4 Qh5 (the move to stop looking at this line, you’d say, but…) 35.Qc7! Ra6 (35…Rb5 36.Re8 f6 37.Qxc6) 36.Re8 and White will win back the piece.
Anand hadn’t prepared anything special (or anything at all) against Aronian’s Marshall and so before we knew it that game had ended in a draw. Carlsen beat Mamedyarov again, and this time it was mainly because of Shakh’s poor play, Ljubojevic said. Still, I personally liked 19…g4 with 20…Qg5 a lot. Magnus himself was pleased with the way he got is winning positions today. “Calculating went very well today.”
Against Van Wely’s Najdorf, Leko tried a modest line that was also played in Polgar-Anand, Corus 2008. The Hungarian was better at some point but the game was draw. Gelfand blundered terribly with 24..Rc8 (the ugly 24…f6 at least holds) although Morozevich called 23…Qd7 “stupid” and said Black should have castled there.
Topalov beat Karjakin in a complicated game where he “almost screwed up in the ending”. Ivanchuk played a great game against Kramnik and should have won. 24…Rxg2 was a nice move but 24…Nf6 was perhaps more easy. After 50…Rg3? (better is 50…h5) White was actually winning. After the game Kramnik thought he should have played 51.Rg8 Rxg4+ 52.Kc5 h5 53.Rg7+ Kh6 54.Rag8 Be4 (the reason why he refrained from it in the game) 55.Rxf7, but a very nice, deadly shot after the game continuation is 57.g5!! which wins immediately because mate in three is threatened.
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also Anand complained already that he misread a move by Karjakin in the last round. Maybe they should just display the moves in larger letters! Such a thing should not decide a game …
Go Levon Go Go, U r the CHAMP
There has been a huge fuss about Carlsen being the next World championship but Aronian has just dominated these last months. He shared first in the Chorus tournement. In Melody he beat Kramnik, Topalov, Anand, Ivanchuk and more. He is beating all the strong players like for instance he beat Kramnik twice in their last 3 games(1 was a draw). Aronian is going to be the next world champ, not Carlsen.
Good point, Bob. Just wanna add that the only significant tournament Aronian has played and not won recently is the Morelia/Linares…which he won last year. When asked about the tournament favorite, Anand himself said that Aronian is favorite at the last few tournaments. The betting companies have realized who the dominant power has been in the recent tournaments, so they have been adjusting stakes.
Bob, there is the tiny issue of age difference. Carlsen is 17, Aronian is 25 (and no, Aronian is no late starter, he was U12 World Champion ahead of the likes of Bacrot, Ponomariov, Grischuk, and Vallejo).
Besides, both Carlsen and Anand had a higher combined Corus/Linares score than Aronian. Carlsen also did better in the Fide World Cup (though since they played different opponents you can’t really do a fair comparison).
If Kramnik and Anand retired from chess tomorrow, Aronian would have a decent shot at becoming WC. But they’re not, so he doesn’t.
Aronian has done well for some time now yes, but he didnt do that well in the world championship. I got the impression that when there was some extremely serious analysis of everyones play and opening repertuires involved, he fell short of especially kramnik and anand…what im saying is that the way it seems to me is that the world championship is a lot different than these tournaments, it is in a way much more serious, you get your play taken apart to atoms. Aronian did say in an interview then that maybe he needed to change his play a bit in the WC…
and I guess the same goes for Carlsen. I think both aronian and Carlsen are very practical players, which works out very well in these tournaments, but when you are talking about a WC, and especially about a 12 game match, it is quite a different thing.
I think that because of this, if Kramnik and anand resigned tomorrow, the obvious favorites for the WC title would rather be people like topalov, and Leko if he is in shape, and some others maybe…not counting out aronian and carlsen, but also not putting all my money on them. but it is much more reasonable to say that “aronian will win amber”, or “carlsen will win linares”.
xtra and GG you both make a great point. GG But Aronian has beeten Anand and Kramnik and Topalov and Carlsen so there is a high chance of him being a WC. aronian can play normal chess too, not just bliindfold and rapid as we saw in chorus. Xtra, to tell you the truth I dont think Leko has much of a chance even though he beat Kramnik. He is too passive and he doesnt take risks. Well Aronians got at least 14 years of chess ahead of him. Topalov is my favourite player. He always startes out strong but then struggles and falls in the ranking. Magnus’s 2-0’s are quite impressive.
Bob. What are you talking about. Aronain has yet to meet Kramnik in this years Amber Melody. You say Aronain has already beat Kramnik = Not True.
Aronian has lost the last 2 games (rated) against Kramnik. Mexico and Corus.
Dear Bob, Aronian is an extremely strong player for sure. But something is still missing in his play. Look at how he was defeated by Anand in WC, and also with Kramnik it is the other way around. Kramnik is dominating in their classical games. Aronian has not score any win yet.
About the Round 8 video: IGM DANAILOV??? Has FIDE given him the grandmaster title because he single-handedly won game 5 in the Elista match?
Aronian still plays for fun.
When he stops playing for fun and starts playing seriously, it will be impossible to beat him and he will become world champion.
Congratulations to Levon for his good play in Amber Melody tournament and thanks to him for his great games.
His games give great pleasure to the chess fans world-wide.
but maybe it is his style playing in a “fun” way, and playing in other ways will make him weaker, because you have to do your own thing too…just like leko is too solid often, it is both a strength and a weakness, and if he plays more daring he might not be at his best. so I dont think its as easy as saying that Aronian can just “grow up” a bit and then become WC, he has to do both what makes chess fun for him and what makes him play his best game, to be at his best. it could be he can simply adapt but it could also be that he would have to sacrifice something else and end up worse.
true all of you but didn’t aronian beat kramnik in Chorus??
No, Kramnik beat Aronian in Corus 2008.
@ ~~~~
(great name btw) just my error, corrected now
It must be fun playing for fun the way Aronian plays for fun. Imagine if you didn’t know who he was and you just happened to end up sitting across the chess board from him at a random park and you’re under the impression that this guy just plays for fun. After he had his fun playing for fun you’d probably run home to mama in tears.
> bob on 24 March 2008 7:59 PM
> true all of you but didn’t aronian beat kramnik in Chorus??
Not quite. Aronian did put up quite a fight against Kramnik in Corus, but he eventually lost on time.
Carlsen, however, _did_ beat Kramnik. With the black pieces.
See http://www.coruschess.com/crosstable.php?year=2008&group=1
Hey Guys… guess the link below will be helpful for those of you, who were involved in discussion on the overall record of Aronian - Kramnik rapid chess matches
Aronian - Kramnik Rapid Chess Match (6 games) in Yerevan, Armenia 2007
Aronian beat Kramnik 4 to 2
http://www.aroniankramnik2007.am
André: Aronian did put up quite a fight against Kramnik in Corus, but he eventually lost on time.
No, in time trouble he lost an endgame that was a theoretical draw.