The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen scored his first win against Fabiano Caruana in 19 classical games including an entire world championship match and that took him into the lead of the 8th Altibox Norway Chess tournament going into the first rest day. Carlsen didn't get a huge amount out of the opening which was a solid Nimzo-Indian variation. Caruana's 11...Qd7 is less common than 11...Qe7 but previously all the games had been drawn and it seems that Caruana had come close to equalising but Carlsen kept some practical chances. However then things started to go wrong for Caruana, 25...c3 was not necessarily wrong but after this Caruana thought for a long time on the following move, then 29...Kd7 probably placed the King on the wrong square and after 30...Rc6? Caruana was objectively losing and Carlsen brought home the full point in an exceedingly convincing manner.

Levon Aronian offered a draw on move 30 against Alireza Firouzja taking the tie into the Armageddon tie-break. Firouzja played his solid Caro-Kann and although it looked like there might be pawn storms as the kings were on opposite wings instead the game went on positional grounds and was levelish when the game was agreed drawn. In the Armageddon tie-break Firouzja started with only five minutes instead of seven because the arbiter said he arrived late. A clearly still furious Firouzja called him a liar after the game saying that he was told 18:45 a time he arrived by and that incidentally was the time the commentators thought the start time should be. Firouzja came up with a new move in the same Caro-Kann but was so far behind on the clock he quickly fell into a poor position. Aronian became very nervous in a winning position and then the whole game went into a furious pace played on increment, the moves were lost but Aronian resigned when Firouzja took the last pawn.

The battle of the tailenders between Aryan Tari and Jan-Krzysztof Duda was a fairly 2.Nc3 Grand Prix Sicilian. Tari said he had decided to go "all in" and eventually emerged with an edge but allowed his opponent off with a draw. In the Armageddon tie-break first Duda was winning but as time ticked down Tari turned it around to a win.

Rest day 9th Oct.

Round 4 Standings: 1st Carlsen 9pts 2nd Aronian 8pts, 3rd-4th Firouzja, Caruana 7pts, 5 Tari 1.5pts 6 Duda 1pt

Round 5 pairings 4pm 10th Oct 2020 Duda-Carlsen, Firouzja-Tari, Caruana-Aronian.