Amber 2011 R7: Carlsen defeats Kramnik 2-0, trails Aronian by half point

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

The updates from Round 7 of the jubilee edition of the Amber Blind & Rapid 2011 are here.
As usually happens, it's excitement, super-strong games and interesting results in top-level chess. Magnus Carlsen is not ready to let Levon Aronian run away with this. No wonder then, he beat Vladimir Kramnik 2-0 in the seventh round to narrow the distance to half a point behind leader Levon Aronian.

It's another thing that the Carlsen-Kramnik game lasted for almost two hours and was a 91-move battle! There was a power outage too.

The € 1,000 Game of the Day Prize was awarded for the third time in a row to Vasily Ivanchuk, this time for his rapid win over Alexander Grischuk.

Saturday, March 19, Round 7
14.30	Blindfold	Giri 1-0 Topalov	Carlsen 0-1 Kramnik	Gashimov ½-½ Karjakin
16.00		Aronian 1-0 Gelfand	Ivanchuk ½-½ Grischuk	Nakamura ½-½ Anand
17.45	Rapid	Topalov ½-½ Giri	Kramnik 0-1 Carlsen	Karjakin ½-½ Gashimov
19.15		Gelfand ½-½ Aronian	Grischuk 0-1 Ivanchuk	Anand ½-½ Nakamura

The 20th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament is taking place at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort in Monaco, from March 11 to 24, 2011. Every day four sessions are played, two blindfold and two rapid. The first session starts at 14.30h, the fourth session finishes around 20.00h. The rate of play is 25 minutes per game per player. With every move made in the blindfold games 20 seconds is added to the clock, with every move made in the rapid games 10 seconds is added.

Standings after the seventh round

Blindfold		Rapid		Combined
1. Aronian 5½ 2. Anand 4 Carlsen 4 Grischuk 4 3. Gashimov 3½ Gelfand 3½ Karjakin 3½ 4. Topalov 3½ Ivanchuk 3 Nakamura 3 Giri 2½ 5. Kramnik 2		1. Carlsen 5½ 2. Aronian 4½ 3. Anand 4 Ivanchuk 4 4. Grischuk 3½ Topalov 3½ 5. Gashimov 3 Gelfand 3 Karjakin 3 Kramnik 3 Nakamura 3 6. Giri 2		1. Aronian 10 2. Carlsen 9½ 3. Anand 8 4. Grischuk 7½ 5. Ivanchuk 7 Topalov 7 6. Gashimov 6½ Gelfand 6½ Karjakin 6½ 7. Nakamura 6 8. Kramnik 5 9. Giri 4½

You can find detailed report on each of the games at the official website.

And, a super video!



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