Grenke Chess Classic, Round 1: Carlsen Wins, Leads
Round 1 of the Grenke Chess Classic is in the books, and the most important game was a memorable one. With Black against German prodigy Vincent Keymer, Magnus Carlsen felt compelled to take some extra risks to guarantee that he could play for a win. He succeeded, but it took a very long time - 81 moves - and he was probably losing (and at least in very big trouble) early on. A Keymer miscalculation or two let Carlsen escape his early woes and start grinding with an extra pawn, and it was bearing fruit until a very big error on move 56.
This allowed Keymer to reach an objectively equal position, if one where he still had to work hard to prove the draw. At first he handled the situation properly, but on move 67 committed a fatal error. A drawing line was available, and it's likely that he calculated it, too. My guess is that he assumed the position would be lost and didn't bother to check; had he done so, he would have discovered that it draws pretty easily. Missing - or rejecting - this opportunity, he found himself in a lost position, and Carlsen took home the full point without giving Keymer another chance to survive.
The other four games were drawn, and without anything especially interesting taking place. Levon Aronian had a nice edge early on against Arkadij Naiditsch, but quickly let it slip.
The other three games were less eventful, with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's "game" with Viswanathan Anand being rather pitiful. (It was drawn in 20 moves, by repetition, following numerous predecessors.) Unless MVL was sick or only reached the tournament at the last minute due to some logistics problems, it's a pretty lame performance. (If something was wrong, then never mind!)
Peter Svidler decided to test Fabiano Caruana's Sveshnikov (Caruana has been playing this quite a bit lately; if you can't beat 'em, join 'em), and at least as a practical matter failed to achieve anything. Caruana enjoyed the easier play and could have pressed with 31...Kf7 instead of liquidating to a dead drawn ending with opposite-colored bishops.
Finally, the game between Georg Meier and Francisco Vallejo featured an unusual opening, and while Meier obtained an advantage early on the slow 17.Bf1 let it slip. (17.Nb3 was better.) A repetition soon followed, and the game was drawn on move 25.
The games, with my notes to Keymer-Carlsen, are here. Here are the round 2 pairings:
- Vallejo (.5) - Carlsen (1)
- Anand (.5) - Keymer (0)
- Caruana (.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (.5)
- Naiditsch (.5) - Svidler (.5)
- Meier (.5) - Aronian (.5)