Magnus Carlsen played a game packed with pawn sacrifices to defeat Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in classical chess and take the sole lead with three rounds of Norway Chess 2022 to go. All the other matches went to Armageddon, with Anish Giri quipping “I’m too old for these quick Armageddon games” as he lost to 52-year-old Vishy Anand, who is just one point behind Magnus. There were also wins for Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Veselin Topalov.
Magnus Carlsen is suddenly right on course to win a 4th Norway Chess title in a row | photo: Lennart Ootes, Norway Chess
You can replay all the games from Norway Chess 2022 using the selector below.
And here’s the day’s live commentary from Jan Gustafsson and Jovanka Houska.
Magnus Carlsen was the only player to pick a full three points for a classical win in Round 6
Magnus Carlsen and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov shake hands before their game | photo: Lennart Ootes, Norway Chess
The World Champion began his day by replying to Elon Musk.
The role of Norwegian final boss is one Magnus has to live up to every time he sits down at the chessboard, and in Round 6 he did.
The opening he chose had echoes of the recent World Championship match, with Magnus going for a gambit line of the Catalan which had been played by both his inventive young seconds Daniil Dubov and Jorden van Foreest.
His head coach, Peter Heine Nielsen, was giving little away when he joined the live commentary, but Magnus himself later revealed in the confessional that he was in his home preparation.
17.Nd5! cxd5! 18.Qxc2 d4! was the line he’d prepared, but he said here he chose 19.Bd2 instead of the planned 19.Bf4.
The game continued to be well-played by both sides, with Magnus happy with another, temporary, pawn sacrifice.
23.e5! Bxe5 24.Rfe1 Bg7 25.b4! Na4 26.Rxc8 Rxc8 27.Qb3 and Magnus was winning back the pawn. He commented:
I didn’t do anything too special. I think e5 was a nice practical decision and made it a bit difficult for him. After that I think we both made some minor mistakes, but I always had, I think, serious winning chances and I was never panicking at all about all the pawns being on the same flank and everything, because I thought with little time it’s going to be very, very hard to defend, and he couldn’t quite keep his nerves, so it went fairly easily.
Magnus pointed to just one moment where he let things slip.
I can tell you what decision made me unhappy, which was the point where I played 43.Qf3 and allowed him an immediate draw with 43…Qa3, which he didn’t see.
The point is that after 43…Qa3! the a5-bishop has to move, and then 44…Ne3+! wins the d3-bishop. After e.g. 45.fxe3 Qxd3 there would be absolutely nothing to play for.
Magnus had to work hard, but it paid off | photo: Lennart Ootes, Norway Chess
Instead Shakh played 43…Qe5 and the game went on, but not for long. Norway Chess has a very unusual classical time control where there’s no added time at move 40 and only a 10-second rather than a 30-second increment, and Shakh made the fateful blunder 46…Qb3? when his clock was down to just 21 seconds.
47.Bxg6+!, winning a pawn, was quickly spotted by Vishy Anand, who was just about to leave the live commentary. At first he thought Shakhriyar had calculated a drawing line, but it gradually became clear that it was simply a blunder, as the Azerbaijan star confirmed afterwards.
After 47…Kxg6 48.Qxd6+ Kh7 Magnus found the most precise 49.Qd7! and then had a choise of how to win the game. He could have traded down into an endgame, but instead picked up more pawns before Shakh resigned on move 56.
Magnus is up to 2870.4 on the live rating list, still some way short of his record 2889.2, but 64.4 points clear of 2nd placed Ding Liren on 2806.
Vishy Anand has become "super-fast" again according to Anish Giri | photo: Lennart Ootes, Norway Chess
Magnus was asked about how Vishy Anand, who beat him the day before, was playing.
He's very impressive, but I hope to be ahead of him in the standings at the end!
Vishy’s Round 6 clash with Anish Giri was yet more evidence that the Indian 5-time World Champion is in top form, since even his miscalculations were impressively calculated! He’d missed one detail in a line he saw with 12.Nxd5! for Anish, after 15…Bxa2.
Vishy had spotted that after 16.Qa4 he had the remarkable 16…0-0! 17.Qxa2 Qxd3 and the b-pawn was worth a piece. What the computer showed him afterwards, however, was that Giri had a shot of his own, 16.Bxb4!, when 16…Nxb4? would lose to 17.Qa4+. “It would have been quite a move to face at the board”, said Vishy, but even then objectively White is only slightly better.
The other controversial moment in the game was on move 15.
Vishy here went for 15…Bxf3!?, which puzzled the commentators and which Anish described as, “a pretty desperate decision, not necessary”. As Vishy explained, however, he’d actually almost calculated everything perfectly, with 16.Bxf3 Nd4 17.Be4 Rxc1 18.Bxc1 Qd6! 19.Bd2.
Here he pointed out 19…Qe6! with the point that 20.e3 can be met by 20…Nb3! and the knight is perfectly placed to support the a5 pawn-push, while 21.b5 would allow 21…Nc5.
Instead after 19…Rc8!? 20.e3 Nb5 21.h5! Anish was pressing, with Vishy summing up the missed chance:
That was the little finesse. After that there was some grovelling!
Vishy said he wasn’t too worried, however, while Anish regretted his time management that left him “no more time to nurture a small plus”. The game ended in a draw by repetition on move 35.
The Armageddon saw Anish open with 1.b3, but the promotion of his friend Adhiban’s Chessable course didn’t entirely go to plan. First, he was worse in around 6 moves…
…and then Vishy, needing only a draw with the black pieces, kept complete control and simply shuffled the pieces around instead of going for various kills that he saw on the board. The strategy worked to perfection.
Anish continued the anti-promotion afterwards:
I played a terrible opening, I played 1.b3, and there was no coming back from that!
He quipped on Twitter.
In the post-game interview Anish talked about how Vishy is living his career again, in reverse.
He was slowing down… and now he’s going backwards. He’s speeding up! He was getting slower and slower and slower, until at some point he reached the peak of slowness, he was a slow player at some point, and then it went the other way. He became faster, faster and faster, and now he’s super-fast again. He’s playing like… I never played the young Vishy, but something like Ian Nepomniachtchi plays. He plays just very fast and relies on calculation and prep, and it’s a way to play, just to play very quickly, and it’s one of the more unpleasant styles to face.
Vishy made the Armageddon look easy | photo: Lennart Ootes, Norway Chess
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave takes a time-out | photo: Lennart Ootes, Norway Chess
MVL is now up to a share for 4th place after winning a second match in a row in Armageddon. The classical game against Wang Hao was little to write home about, though Maxime did find a teachable moment.
If Wang Hao had played 13.Bd3 then Maxime’s intended reply was of course the traditional exchange sacrifice 13…Rxc3!, which seems to give Black at least equality. Instead Wang Hao defended the c3-knight with 13.Bb6+ Ke8 14.Ba5 and the game soon fizzled out into a draw by repetition.
“If you don’t practice blitz games for a long time you get rusty”, said Wang Hao, who has now lost all four Armageddons he’s played in Stavanger. He was already in a relatively hopeless position for a must-win game when he blundered with 32.Qb4? and allowed Maxime the crunching 32…Re2!
The threat is mate on g2, but if the knight moves the queen will take the rook on d1. There was nothing to do but resign.
The players were all smiles at the end of their match | photo: Lennart Ootes, Norway Chess
The classical game in this clash felt like one of those draws where the players delay their decisions to make it look like a full-blooded clash, since it featured a known drawing variation and not a single new move was played in the three hours it lasted. Veselin pleaded ignorance afterwards, however, which is possible given his break from top-level chess!
Of the Armageddon he commented, “somehow I decided that playing normally I would probably lose on time, so my plan was to go for a complicated position”. It worked, though Jan Gustafsson was puzzled by the opening choices of both players.
When Teimour missed the chance to capture on g5 he got into a much worse position and only avoided defeat since Veselin decided to give a mercy draw at the end — still meaning that he’d won in Armageddon.
Things would eventually go Wesley So's way | photo: Lennart Ootes, Norway Chess
This was a frustrating day at the office for Wesley So against the lowest-rated player in the event.
I’m a bit disappointed, because I was pushing, and the secret to this tournament is either you make a quick draw and then you go to Armageddon right away and get some rest, or you push hard and hope for victory after all. I need to win a game or two in classical to fight for first.
Wesley didn’t manage either task in the classical game, with his attempts to unbalance things in a drawish ending only leading to an 81-move draw.
The Armageddon was altogether more fun, with the drama concentrated into the space of a few moves. Wesley said he’d “totally missed” 14…0-0-0!?, “which was very annoying”, but after 15.h3 Bf5 the US Champion misevaluated the position.
He commented:
I kind of have no choice but to sacrifice the queen because otherwise Ne5 comes and I just get crushed… it was a total bluff!
The computer in fact says White is close to winning after 16.Qf4!, but Wesley went for 16.dxc6??! The extremely cool response here is just to play 16…bxc6!!, since it turns out the white queen can go nowhere due to the threat of checkmate with Rd1+.
Instead Aryan quickly went for the immediate 16…Rxd2, but even after 17.cxb7+ Kb8 18.Bxd2 Aryan had everything in his own hands.
Wesley admitted, “he also had 18…Be4! and it’s almost impossible for Black to lose”. In that case we would have seen Black win all four of the day's Armageddons after White had been crushing so far in Stavanger, but instead after 18…a6? 19.Re1 the queen sacrifice had worked out perfectly and Wesley never let his advantage slip as he ground out a win.
That leaves Wesley 1.5 points behind Vishy Anand and 2.5 points behind Magnus with three rounds to go.
Wesley has a tough match with Black against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in Round 7, especially given their surprising lifetime score of 5 wins to 1 in Maxime's favour.
Vishy Anand is White against Teimour Radjabov while Magnus has Black against his compatriot Aryan Tari. A win will boost Magnus’ tournament winning chances, but is also essential if he wants to avoid taking a ratings hit. As you can see, his current score against Aryan is 5 wins to 0, with only 2 draws.
Don’t miss the Norway Chess commentary from Jan Gustafsson and Jovanka Houska from 17:00 CEST!
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