Magnus Carlsen has got off to a dire start with three defeats at the $1m Grand Tour in Stavanger. The world champion lost his first round to Veselin Topalov with the white pieces at move 60 in a winning position through misunderstanding the time limit, then saw his previously impregnable Berlin Wall demolished by his principal rival, Fabiano Caruana. This early double disaster in an event of only nine rounds is a massive boost to his main rivals and means that the 24-year-old Norwegian’s negative record of never winning a top tournament in his homeland is likely to continue.
In Friday’s fourth round Carlsen lost yet again, this time to India’s Vishy Anand, and is now 10th and last with 0.5/4.
Saturday is a rest day but round five (of nine) should be fun to watch free and live online from 3pm on Sunday. The Grand Tour continues at St Louis, US, in August and has its finale at London’s Kensington Olympia in December.
Carlsen in round one had assumed a 30-minutes add-on at move 60 but under new rules for the tour there are only per move increments after move 40. All this was explained in the player contracts but it was not emphasised and the all-time No1 missed its significance. The organisers have since issued an apology.
Still stunned by defeat, Carlsen aimed for a draw in round two with the ultra-solid Berlin Wall against Caruana. It was a risky choice since in recent tournaments the Italo-American has been trying hard to rebut the Berlin and, sure enough, Caruana’s prepared line struck gold when Carlsen failed to spot a key tactic and subsided into a lost endgame.
There was controversy beforehand in the omission from the tournament of Sergey Karjakin, Carlsen’s long-time Russian contemporary and rival who was first at Stavanger 2013 and 2014. Karjakin narrowly missed the Grand Tour selection of nine players based on rating and then, for the 10th-player wild card for which he was the obvious choice, he was offered only a place in a qualifier. Karjakin, who is a Russian government supporter and has worn a Vladimir Putin T-shirt, refused and the wild card went instead to Norway’s No2, Jon-Ludvig Hammer.
A new feature at Stavanger is the ‘confession box’. While waiting for the opponent to move, a player can speak alone to the camera, Big Brother style, and tell of his hopes and fears. Carlsen was the first visitor. This nice gimmick still raises the question of the different standard applied when Wesley So was defaulted for writing similar self-help messages in the US championship.
Carlsen is not the only player with a clock problem at Stavanger. Russia’s world No8, Alex Grischuk, has a long-standing addiction to time pressure, in the tradition of the past greats Samuel Reshevsky and David Bronstein. The bizarre extra for Grischuk is that he is also a poker expert but he has been unable to switch his quick decision-making skills from the card table to the chessboard. He once admitted in an interview: “My time management is obviously awful. It is a pathology that cannot be cured.”
Holland’s Anish Giri knew of the weakness so chose a mazy opening, and was rewarded when Grischuk left himself barely half an hour for 26 moves in a worse position. Black’s 7...Qc7 is dubious since the knight needs that square, while 14...d6? (Qb7) weakens the dark squares round the black king. Giri’s 23 Bxg7 (23 Ng5!) was inexact, but Grischuk missed the last chance of 26...Qa5! and lost after a vain attempt to set up a fortress against White’s queen invasion.
Anish Giri v Alex Grischuk
1 Nf3 c5 2 e4 Nc6 3 Bb5 g6 4 Bxc6 bxc6 5 O-O Bg7 6 Re1 Rb8 7 h3 Qc7?! 8 c3 Nf6 9 e5 Nd5 10 c4 Nb4 11 d4 cxd4 12 a3 Na6 13 Qxd4 O-O 14 c5 d6?15 cxd6 exd6 16 exd6 Qb6 17 Qh4 Nc5 18 Be3 Qxb2 19 Nbd2 Nd7 20 Rab1 Qxa3 21 Rxb8 Nxb8 22 Bh6 Nd7 23 Bxg7? Kxg7 24 Qd4+ Kg8 25 Ne4 Re8 26 Kh2 a5? 27 Nfg5 Rf8 28 Nf6+ Nxf6 29 Qxf6 Qa2 30 Re7 Bf5 31 Nxf7 Qxf7 32 Rxf7 Rxf7 33 Qd8+ Kg7 34 Qxa5 Bd7 35 Qc5 Rf5 36 Qa7 Rf7 37 g4 Kf6 38 f4 Kg7 39 Kg3 Kg8 40 Qe3 Kg7 41 h4 Kg8 42 Qe5 1-0
3395 (by Pal Benko, Black moves first) 1 Kb2 Rd5 2 Kc3 Rc5+ 3 Kd4 Nb3 mate.
