I promised that there was room for surprises and boy was I right!
Let’s start off with the two relatively inconsequential games. Tomaschevsky played solidly against Grischuk and the game was drawn shortly after the time control. Grischuk might have had the better game but a draw was probably, on balance, a fair result.
Kramnik and Morozevich both had an outside chance of finishing joint top if they won, so both played aggressively, with the position being unbalanced – as we discussed yesterday, this gives good chances for both sides to get more than a draw out of the position – Kramnik got a passed pawn (where there are no opposition pawns that can either block its progress or that are on adjacent files to take it if it gets too close) and Morozevich got a few threats on the slightly uncomfortable White king. In the end, as Kramnik pushed for a win, his opponent’s decision to counter-attack, rather than defend meant that Kramnik had to concede that half a point was better than none. As in poker, attack is so often the best form of defence in chess.
Radjabov was half a point away from the leader Caruana and so needed a win against Hikaru Nakamura, who has struggled a bit in this tournament by his high standards. Radjabov played the Sicilian Defence, which tends to be one of the more dynamic replies to 1.e4. The downside is that it has been analysed to an almost exhaustive depth and these guys know just about every nook and cranny there is to know. Nakamura chose to reply by playing the Rossolimo Variation, which is solid, but can lead to slightly boring positions. I say this as a player of this variation myself (admittedly not as well as Nakamura!), but the pay-off for stopping Black getting strong counter-play is that it can sometimes be difficult for White to create the openings he might otherwise get in a more familiar Sicilian variation. Such was the case, here and the players were shaking hands by the time control.
Luke McShane v Magnus Carlsen saw the only other person who could stop Caruana winning the title take on the ‘plucky Brit’ (it is nearly Wimbledon, after all!) These two have a bit of history, as McShane can be a bit of a giant killer and Carlsen has fallen to Luke’s sword in a major competition in London. Magnus was imperious today, though, and was in no mood to allow Luke to get an attack going. He picked holes in our boy’s position and forced exchanges, so that McShane had fewer pieces to attack with. This meant that he didn’t have what he needed to force checkmate and his pieces were left a little out of position. As he was forced to retreat, Carlsen strode forward with gusto and the game was over by the time that the fortieth move was made.
This gave Carlsen a total of 5.5 points. Only Caruana could catch – and overtake – him. He was up against the World number 2, Lev Aronian. Aronian hasn’t found top gear for the…well, he hasn’t found top gear! We are so used to seeing him play more like Luke McShane and barely draw a game, winning more than he loses. This time, he has drawn some pretty stodgy games and five draws from eight is pretty un-Aronian, especially where he only won one of the other three.
Aronian had a surprise for Caruana, who played one of the sharpest responses to Aronian’s 1.d4, the Gruenfeld Defence. The general idea is that Black allows White a big pawn centre, but then attacks it, using it as a target. In this game, Aronian had prepared well for the intricacies of the opening and left Caruana with a difficult decision: does he take the two pawns that Aronian had offered, knowing that the space that would be created would be better for White than Black (and, therefore, he would have a storm to weather), or does he decide not to take the pawns and keep the position more level? The commentators believe his choice to do the latter was the wrong one and he had better chances if he took the pawns.
Instead, Aronian crept forward, planting a defended bishop in the middle of the board that couldn’t be shifted by am opposing pawn (this is known as an “outpost”). This was a mighty prelate and, with no sign of an attack from Black, Aronian was able to push the pawns forward towards the leader’s king with the heavy artillery (the queen and the two rooks) lurking menacingly behind. Caruana had one moment where he was able to force a bit of counterplay, but Aronian did his calculations correctly and cruised to a well-deserved victory.
All this meant that the top seed and World number 1, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen snatched the tournament from Caruana’s grasp. A result that would have been considered predictable at the start of the tournament, but seemed only ‘possible’ this morning.
It’s been a fun tournament, full of twists and turns and it seemed only fitting that it should end with another.
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8262 gives you all the final details and the last round’s games.
Round 9: Monday, June 18, 2012 Levon Aronian 1-0 Fabiano Caruana
Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Teimour Radjabov
Ev. Tomashevsky ½-½ Alexander Grischuk
Luke McShane 0-1 Magnus Carlsen
Vladimir Kramnik ½-½ Alex. Morozevich
I hope you have enjoyed the coverage and, above all, the games.
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