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Saturday, November 28, 2009

Guardian Talks about Magnus and Me



Leonard Barden, in this week's Guardian article, titled "Magnus Carlsen's star continues to rise in Norway", talks about the World Blitz Championship, where I was able to beat him in one of our direct encounters. I post my game against Magnus below. Magnus resigned after he played 43. R3e2, since he saw that I can win a Rook by simply playing 43...Qxf2+.

Here is the text of his article. Go to the original page to see a nice position from the game Kramnik-Aronian.

Magnus Carlsen's World Blitz victory in Moscow has made the 19-year-old the darling of the Norwegian media. Carlsen scored 31/42 in the double-round event against the elite, with a rating performance close to 2900. He finished three points clear of world champion Vishy Anand, and six ahead of Sergey Karjakin in third.

Despite this impressive performance, it was one of Carlsen's few defeats which really put him on the front pages and raised his fame quotient in Oslo to a par with Bobby Fischer. In an early round he lost to the world woman champion Alexandra Kosteniuk after blundering a rook, briefly attempting to substitute another move, and resigning without shaking hands. Kosteniuk's other career is as a model, and it was her glamorous poses which accompanied the banner headlines. In fact she also beat Anand and Levon Aronian, full points against three of the world top five men.

Carlsen's recent training with Garry Kasparov included blitz sessions, after which he revealed that they had finished about even and that neither liked to lose 'especially him'. The Moscow event was the strongest ever official world blitz contest, and the only superior achievement was Fischer's famous win in the unofficial contest at Herceg Novi, Yugoslavia, in 1970. Bobby there scored 19/22, won by 4.5 points ahead of Mikhail Tal, and reportedly never took more than two and a half minutes of his allotted five for any game. He wiped out the Soviet contingent of three world champions and two challengers 8.5-1.5.

So Fischer rates best, but Carlsen has yet to peak. You can watch him in action against England's top GMs led by Nigel Short and Michael Adams between 7-15 December in the London Classic at Olympia which includes GM running commentaries and side events for spectators.



The PGN is as follows:
[Event "World Blitz Campionship 2009"]
[White "Carlsen, Magnus"]
[Black "Kosteniuk, Alexandra"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 Nxe4 4. Bd3 d5 5. dxe5 Nc5 6. Be2 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. Be3 Nc6 9. Nc3 Be6 10. Bb5 Nd7 11. Bf4 a6 12. Bxc6 bxc6 13. Nd4 Nb8 14. Qd3 Qd7 15. Qg3 Re8 16. Bh6 Bf8 17. Na4 Kh8 18. Be3 Qe7 19. f4 Bc8 20. Nb3 Nd7 21. Nac5 a5 22. a4 Ba6 23. Rfe1 Bc4 24. Nxd7 Qxd7 25. Nc5 Qf5 26. b3 Ba6 27. Qf2 Bc8 28. Bd4 h6 29. h3 Qg6 30. Kh2 Bf5 31. g4 Bxc5 32. Bxc5 Be4 33. f5 Qg5 34. Be3 Qe7 35. Bf4 Qb4 36. Re3 Qc5 37. Rc1 Rab8 38. h4 Rb4 39. f6 g6 40. c4 Reb8 41. Bxh6 Rxb3 42. Rce1 Rb2 43. R3e2 0-1

Posted by Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women's World Chess Champion

2 comments:

  1. Great game Alexandra. The gentleman thought that the backward pawn (c6) would be a hindrance, but it was beautiful how you handled that by finally opening the b file with both Rooks (41...Rxb3 and it was possible for you to either win a Rook or a Queen. The Queen couldn't handle protecting all of those Rooks and the King.) The initiative for the attack belonged to you, while your opponent had his Rooks still stuck behind his pawns in defensive positions. Beautiful play! :-)

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  2. Hello Alexandra. Congratulations for your victories against super GM Anand, Carlsen, Grishuk, Aronian. I must have dreamt, but no, here are the videos...
    Do you use female weapons to blind your rivals ?
    Indeed, Grishuk was out of his subject, on an other planet perhaps...
    And in your play against Carlsen, 40.c4 was not very good (!), but you saw how to exploit the position. Not very easy in blitz.
    Go on, Alexandra !
    François, Toulouse, France.

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