Magnus Carlsen rises above the mediocrity at stuttering Tal Memorial
Leonard Barden
guardian.co.uk
Friday 25 November 2011 17.55 EST
The world's top four grandmasters have gone head to head this week at the Tal Memorial in Moscow, and will do so again on 3-12 December in the London Classic at Olympia, where England's top trio will also compete. World No1 Magnus Carlsen, world champion Vishy Anand, Levon Aronian and Vlad Kramnik all have 2800+ ratings so the month's play could clarify who is top dog.
Going into Friday's final round, Moscow has proved a damp squib. It is the strongest 10-player event in chess history, a planned tribute to the legendary attacking genius Mikhail Tal, but its standout feature is the excessive draw count, 80% after eight rounds. All six games among the 2800+ quartet have been halved.
It is true that several draws have been sharp fights where a decisive chance was missed. In particular Carlsen drew against Kramnik in a position where the Norwegian overlooked a subtle winning finesse.
Aronian took a clear lead in round eight, but Carlsen is strong in closing rounds and joined him on Friday by beating Hikaru Nakamura of the US. Final leading scores were Aronian and Carlsen 5.5/9, Vasily Ivanchuk, Sergey Karjakin and Ian Nepomniachtchi 5, Peter Svidler and Anand 4.5.
Anand? Not for the first time in the past year, the champion's play was tepid and uninspired and he drew every game. At age 41, the Indian is banking his energies for his title defence against Boris Gelfand next year.
The London Classic organisers will be worried by the inconclusive Moscow results. Will there be another draw epidemic at Olympia? I don't think so. First, the 2800+ quartet will really try to beat the Englishmen, particularly David Howell who is in poor form. Second, the Classic will use football scoring, three points for a win.
Carlsen is world No1, yet once again he could not dominate his rivals in the way that Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov often did. The Norwegian, who will be 21 next week, stays at the top because of two great strengths.
He has superb stamina, honed by football and skiing, and can grind on for 70 or 80 moves with little or no advantage until he induces a blunder. And he has steely nerves which left him unfazed by the wild complications of this week's game.
More here.
