Leonard Barden, in this week's Guardian article, titled "Magnus Carlsen's star continues to rise in Norway", talks about the World Blitz Championship, where I was able to beat him in one of our direct encounters. I post my game against Magnus below. Magnus resigned after he played 43. R3e2, since he saw that I can win a Rook by simply playing 43...Qxf2+.
Magnus Carlsen's World Blitz victory in Moscow has made the 19-year-old the darling of the Norwegian media. Carlsen scored 31/42 in the double-round event against the elite, with a rating performance close to 2900. He finished three points clear of world champion Vishy Anand, and six ahead of Sergey Karjakin in third.
Despite this impressive performance, it was one of Carlsen's few defeats which really put him on the front pages and raised his fame quotient in Oslo to a par with Bobby Fischer. In an early round he lost to the world woman champion Alexandra Kosteniuk after blundering a rook, briefly attempting to substitute another move, and resigning without shaking hands. Kosteniuk's other career is as a model, and it was her glamorous poses which accompanied the banner headlines. In fact she also beat Anand and Levon Aronian, full points against three of the world top five men.
Carlsen's recent training with Garry Kasparov included blitz sessions, after which he revealed that they had finished about even and that neither liked to lose 'especially him'. The Moscow event was the strongest ever official world blitz contest, and the only superior achievement was Fischer's famous win in the unofficial contest at Herceg Novi, Yugoslavia, in 1970. Bobby there scored 19/22, won by 4.5 points ahead of Mikhail Tal, and reportedly never took more than two and a half minutes of his allotted five for any game. He wiped out the Soviet contingent of three world champions and two challengers 8.5-1.5.
So Fischer rates best, but Carlsen has yet to peak. You can watch him in action against England's top GMs led by Nigel Short and Michael Adams between 7-15 December in the London Classic at Olympia which includes GM running commentaries and side events for spectators.
Great game Alexandra. The gentleman thought that the backward pawn (c6) would be a hindrance, but it was beautiful how you handled that by finally opening the b file with both Rooks (41...Rxb3 and it was possible for you to either win a Rook or a Queen. The Queen couldn't handle protecting all of those Rooks and the King.) The initiative for the attack belonged to you, while your opponent had his Rooks still stuck behind his pawns in defensive positions. Beautiful play! :-)
ReplyDeleteHello Alexandra. Congratulations for your victories against super GM Anand, Carlsen, Grishuk, Aronian. I must have dreamt, but no, here are the videos...
ReplyDeleteDo you use female weapons to blind your rivals ?
Indeed, Grishuk was out of his subject, on an other planet perhaps...
And in your play against Carlsen, 40.c4 was not very good (!), but you saw how to exploit the position. Not very easy in blitz.
Go on, Alexandra !
François, Toulouse, France.