The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen got back in contention beating outright leader Sergey Karjakin in the fifth round of the Norway Chess tournament. Carlsen was quite criticial of his own play saying that it was only when Karjakin got rightly ambitious did he find chances. Carlsen thought after 25.bxc5 he would have to trade queens in return for his e-pawn and play for a draw. Karjakin played 33.Ng6? very quickly and must somehow have overlooked Carlsen's powerful attack. 37.e5 was a final blunder after which there was no chance.

Jon Ludvig Hammer also won beating Wang Hao in a very wild game in mutural time pressure. Hammer had to survive a vicious looking attack. Wang blundered with 33...Nf4? (33...c5) 36.Qxf6 wins on the spot and the game was again in the balance but 40...Ng5? (40...Ke7 or even better c5 put things in doubt). After the time control Hammer finished things easily.

Peter Svidler admitted that 15 minutes before the game he refuted his own planned variation against Viswanthan Anand and had to play something less incisive and Anand equalised very quickly and impressively.

Hikaru Nakamura looked to be heading towards a favourable ending against Veselin Topalov before playing the inaccurate 19.a3 (19.Rhe1!) allowing 19...Na7 swapping the light squared bishop and allowing black to more or less equalise.

Teimour Radjabov made no progress against Levon Aronian's Slav in an Exchange Variation. Post-game suggestions surrounded the correct timing of Ne5 by white but black should be fine.

Sorry no time for detail analysis today.

Round 5 Standings: Karjakin 4pts, Carlsen, Nakamura 3pts, Aronian, Anand, Svidler, Rajdabov 2.5pts, Topalov 2pts, Wang, Hammer 1.5pts.

Round 6: Carlsen-Rajdabov, Topalov-Wang, Anand-Karjakin, Aronian-Hammer, Nakamura-Svidler.