The Week in Chess

The 8th Tal Memorial was won by Boris Gelfand who turns 45 tomorrow. Gelfand defeated Caruana, Nakamura and Morozevich drawing the remaining games although it's almost certain he also missed a winning chance on move 40 against Carlsen as well. Today Gelfand had black against a struggling Vladimir Kramnik and the players traded many pieces off and repeated on move 25. Gelfand finished on 6/9 half a point clear of Magnus Carlsen and looking back over the games this result was deserved as his play was the most consistant and convincing of all the players.

It will be interesting to see if Kramnik goes on to play in Geneva in a few days as he didn't look particularly well and his last place alone is one of his very worst results.

After Gelfand's quick draw Magnus Carlsen needed a win against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov to take first place on tie-break. That result was never on the cards and it was Carlsen that kept missing things and Mamedyarov who was really quite disappointed not to win this final round game. The excellent 14.Rb1 temporarily sacrificing a pawn was underestimated by Carlsen 16...Qf5? should have cost Carlsen the game with 17. Bb2! but only if you see to the end of 16...Bb6 18. Be4! Qxf2+ 19. Kh1 Nd7 20. Qxd7. As it was Mamedyarov kept a solid advantage with the more natural 17.Kg2. Later Carlsen wanted to play 20... Ne5 but thought 21. Rxe5 Bxe5 22. g4 forced 22... Qf6 when 22...Qxb1 is in fact playable. However the position remained difficult and Carlsen managed to exchange down to a draw. Carlsen admitted he was lucky to escape with a draw.

Carlsen was happy with his wins against Kramnik and Anand but didn't seem too impressed with any of his other games and although he pointed out he has scored +2 many times at the Tal Memorial and that he performed close to his rating you could see he was disatisfied with his games in general. For Carlsen he now has two events scheduled. A small exhibition to launch the Norwegian Chess Championships 28th-29th June and Sinquefield Cup in September.

Fabiano Caruana had similar things to say even though his final round draw against Dmitry Andreikin gave him third place on tie-break. He said he was worse in just about every game and today he felt he was seriously worse after missing 18...Nh5 was possible.

Sergey Karjakin against Viswanathan Anand was a theoretical draw in a Najdorf Poisoned Pawn Variation. Anand was quite amusing in detailing the game pointing out that black would never enter this variation without knowing it was a draw. Anand had reviewed the theory in the last few days and all that remained for him to do was to remember the details over the board. Anand confirmed this would be the last public chess he plays before the defence of his title against Carlsen in November. 6 tournaments in 6 months was a good idea but his 9th place here suggests he has a lot of work to do in his training to get back to something like his best.

Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Morozevich were both struggling going into the final round and the advantage swung around a bit out of a sharp uncompromising opening before 30.Bd3 after which Morozevich took the initiative and won the game.

It was announced that the organisers intend to broaden the activites for the audience for the 9th Tal Memorial next year.

Final Standings: 1 Gelfand 6pts, 2 Carlsen 5.5pts, 3 Caruana 5pts 4 Mamedyarov 5pts, 5 Andreikin 5pts, 6 Nakamura 4.5pts, 7 Karjakin 4pts, 8 Morozevich 3.5pts 9 Anand 3.5pts 10 Kramnik 3pts.

Next major event: http://www.genevachessmasters.ch/ 26th to 30th June 2013. Rapid with Kramnik, Polgar, Nakamura, Mamedyarov, Bacrot, Kosteniuk, Edouard, Pelletier.

Also after that: FIDE Grand Prix Beijing 3rd-17th July 2013, 46th Biel International Chess Festival 22nd July to 1st Aug 2013, 41st Sparkassen Chess-Meeting 2013