The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen took the lead in the GRENKE Classic after a win against Michael Adams in round 2. An English led to a fairly novel pawn structure, 15.a4 was a clever move that tested Adams. Carlsen thought he didn't play the next phase the best (17.Rc1 might have been a better idea than 17.Qb3). Adams seemed to have solved many of his problems after 21...c5 but as Adams put it "I was running a bit short of time and I just played horribly." 30.Be1 was tricky to which the correct response was 30...g6 which required detailed calculation. 30...Qe8 was a step in the wrong direction and after 35...Qa8? (35...Bxa5) Carlsen was just winning.

It looked like Viswanathan Anand would be the first player to win after Arkadij Naiditsch "misplayed horribly the opening and got a very bad position". After Anand's 17.Ne5 commentators already thought he had very good winning chances. 26.Ke5 seems to have been slightly inaccurate (26.f3 seems the right move in hindsight). 26...Rb8 activated Naidtisch's second rook and just had enough activity to hold the game.

Etienne Bacrot seemed to get a fantastic King's Indian after just 14 moves against Fabiano Caruana. Carlsen, Nielsen amongst others suggested shutting down white's Queenside play with 14...a5 instead of 14...g5 which can't be bad but was sharper. It seems Bacrot overestimated his position as a whole and soon Caruana was the one with the advantage. Then time trouble intervened and Caruana lost control, was saved on move 40 by Rh8 when he was a pawn up and the game finished in a draw.

Bottom seed David Baramidze didn't get anything out of the opening with white against Levon Aronian's Berlin Defence but the position just became a dull draw. Aronian's repertoire as black vs 1.e4 is limited (Baramidze doesn't usually play it but Aronian is such a sitting target he knew what to prepare for) and studied by almost everyone with an interest in 1...e5, he probably needs something else for occasions like this. It seemed to me that Aronian looked thoroughly fed up in the press conference. Aronian lost more rating points in this game and now he's only in the top 10 by a fraction of a point.

Round 3 Pairings Wednesday 4th Feb 2015 Bacrot-Anand, Aronian-Caruana, Adams-Baramidze, Naiditsch-Carlsen

Round 2 Standings: 1st Carlsen 1.5pts, 2nd= Aronian, Caruana, Anand, Bacrot, Baramadze, Naiditsch 1pt 8th Adams 0.5pt