2017 Altibox Norway Chess June 5-17

[Barry Sandercock]

I don't think he had an advantage.

[Tim Harding]

I don't think he had an advantage.

Let's put it this way - and I didn't want to respond sooner as I was letting Stockfish8 spend a good long time on the position on my laptop.

Maybe Nakamura would have saved the game anyway but at least psychologically he had a let-off.

At the point Carlsen played the would-be prophylactic 28 Kh1?! the world champion was a pawn up and had two passed pawns although Black had an active QR which soon proved dangerous.
In the game Carlsen soon exchanged Black's passive rook and then had to defend precisely.
He could instead have exchanged the active rook by 28 Rc8+ Rxc8 29 Rxc8+Kg7 and only then 30 Kh1 (30 h4!? also comes into consideration) 30...f3 31 Bf1.

Instead of putting pressure on Nakamura he put pressure on himself, and gave Hikaru a clear route to a draw at move 34.

All games today were drawn.
Tomorrow is a rest day. Round 4 on Saturday lines up as follows:

Caruana (1.5) v Kramnik (2)
Nakamura (2) v MVL (1.5)
Aronian (1.5) v Carlsen (1.5)
So (1.5) v Karjakin (1.5)
Giri (1) v Anand (1)

[LawrenceCooper]

I don't think he had an advantage.

Let's put it this way - and I didn't want to respond sooner as I was letting Stockfish8 spend a good long time on the position on my laptop.

Maybe Nakamura would have saved the game anyway but at least psychologically he had a let-off.

At the point Carlsen played the would-be prophylactic 28 Kh1?! the world champion was a pawn up and had two passed pawns although Black had an active QR which soon proved dangerous.
In the game Carlsen soon exchanged Black's passive rook and then had to defend precisely.
He could instead have exchanged the active rook by 28 Rc8+ Rxc8 29 Rxc8+Kg7 and only then 30 Kh1 (30 h4!? also comes into consideration) 30...f3 31 Bf1.

Instead of putting pressure on Nakamura he put pressure on himself, and gave Hikaru a clear route to a draw at move 34.

In the analysis afterwards Magnus felt that 25 b5 was much better and couldn't understand why he hadn't played it. He sounded quite relieved that Hikaru had forced the draw with 34....Ng4.

[Tim Harding]

In the analysis afterwards Magnus felt that 25 b5 was much better and couldn't understand why he hadn't played it. He sounded quite relieved that Hikaru had forced the draw with 34....Ng4.

That cannot be the right move number; 25 b5 leaves the queen en prise.

I think Magnus only had about two minutes left when Hikaru played ...Ng4 (no increments), but the engine shows that objectively Black had nothing better and this was the one sure route to the half point that left Hikaru in the lead with the most dangerous opponent out of the way.

[LawrenceCooper]

In the analysis afterwards Magnus felt that 25 b5 was much better and couldn't understand why he hadn't played it. He sounded quite relieved that Hikaru had forced the draw with 34....Ng4.

That cannot be the right move number; 25 b5 leaves the queen en prise.

I think Magnus only had about two minutes left when Hikaru played ...Ng4 (no increments), but the engine shows that objectively Black had nothing better and this was the one sure route to the half point that left Hikaru in the lead with the most dangerous opponent out of the way.

Move 24 sorry, so that the rook on c4 stops black's play with f4.

[Chris Rice]

ChessBase report on round 3 which features a Danny King video commenting on the Carlsen-Nakamura game. Regarding the discussion above Danny looked at Carlsen's recommendation of 24 b5 with the logical continuation 24...Nc5 25 Rxc5 and concluded that while White does get a lot of comp after 25...dxc5 26 Qxe5 or 26 Rxc5 its objectively not winning but agrees that its a better practical choice than what Carlsen played.

Peter Doggers report seems to agree with this assessment as well. The report also mentions the players struggling with the time control. Personally I am not sure why there is not one classical standard time control these days at this level. I accept at my level in round 1 I will always be hunting around for an entry form to find out exactly what time control we're playing.

Peter Svidler's anaysis doesn't even mention 24 b5 and concludes that Nakamura's play was very, very good from the moment he played 24...f4.

[Barry Sandercock]

Is it a rest day today ? I can't find anything on the websites.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Yes, rest day today. Schedule is 3, rest, 3, rest, 3.

[Barry Sandercock]

Thanks, Christopher.

[Carl Hibbard]

The Magnus documentary seems to be on Netflix for those interested although I have not watched it yet.

[Paul Dargan]

Phew - after Qd8+ the black king appeared on e5, allowing Qd4 mate! - fortunately it was just the arbitr putting the king on a black sq

[Chris Rice]

On the rest day all the partipants competed in farming activities so if you want to see Carlsen with hedgecutters or Nakamura lamely trying to milk a cow check this three minute video out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbxr9Jq ... e=youtu.be

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Wow, thanks for that, Chris. Hilarious to watch.

[Kevin Thurlow]

A rather unusual rest day... what a brilliant idea.

[LawrenceCooper]

Nakamura 1 MVL 0, Aronian 1 Carlsen, 0 Giri 1 Anand 0 with more decisive results likely to follow.