Norway Chess Super Tournament 2013 Round 5: Karjakin Loses to Carlsen, but Leads

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hi everyone, 

The fifth round started relatively quiet, as the games Svidler-Anand, Nakamura-Topalov and Radjabov-Aronian all were drawn before 40 moves and without too many exciting moments. But then the round suddenly accelerated, as the games left were two very entertaining and interesting attacking battles. The remaining home spectators spontaneously applauded when the last game finished, as Norway after winning none out of eight games in the first four rounds had won two out of two games! Magnus Carlsen looked like the world’s top rated chess player again when he by firework tactics decided the games against the former tournament leader Sergey Karjakin, true enough after the Russian as white first had a better position. After Carlsen left the scene Jon Ludvig Hammer, by far the lowest rated player in this tournament, created his great moment as he following a mutual time trouble drama and safely won the endgame against Hao Wang. (The full report by Hans Olav Lahlum is available at the official website.)

Here is also a personal note by Hans Olav Lahlum who has given us great coverage of the Norway Chess Super Tournament 2013. 

As agreed with the tournament organizer and the president of the Norwegian Chess Federation long time ago, I would be arbiter only for the first half of this tournament. In accordance with that agreement, and of course without any kind of controversies, I have already left this tournament and this city when you are reading this my fifth and final round report. I was happy to accept writing the first five round reports in between my arbiter working, when the excellent and hardworking president of our chess federation asked me to do so a few days before the start of tournament. And I feel today happy and somewhat relieved now having finished this work. Writing round reports from an intensive super tournament of course is a very interesting possibility, but also a demanding challenge for an almost retired chess player at my low international level. If the results have disappointed some of my readers I can only apologize to you, and then say to myself what a former leader of the political opposition so much more than a long time ago said to a former prime minister in Norway: “You did the best you were able to do. That is both your judgment and your excuse.”
I was most happy yesterday to learn that my chess friend Hans Arild Runde has agreed to write reports about the four final rounds, and wish him all the best of luck with this work. Also of course best of luck to another chess friend, Arild Rimestad, who will take over my duties as deputy arbiter for the rest of the tournament.
I plan to return both as arbiter and round report writer first during the Norwegian Championships at Lillehammer in June-July, and then during the Oslo Chess International 28.09-06.10 (if interested to be a participant, you can find much more information about that tournament on www.bergensjakk.no/oslointernational/).
Meanwhile: Many thanks for now to my wonderful arbiter colleagues Anémone Kulczak and Karl-Johan Rist, and of course also to all the ten players for producing so many interesting and exciting games. In my very last lines for now, I feel that we all owe numerous thanks to the organizer for making this historic super tournament in Norway possible! I much hope there will be another one in 2014 or 2015, with or without a World Champion from Norway in the field – and if so I will be most happy to return.

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