Norway Chess 2013

The Norway Chess 2013 Super Tournament is one of the strongest super tournaments ever and is held from May 7th to 18th 2013 in several different locations in the Stavanger-region of Norway: Quality Residence Hotel, Sandnes (six rounds); Stavanger Konserthus, Stavanger (one round); Fabrikkhallen til Aarbakke AS, Bryne (one round); Flor & Fjære, Sør-Hidle (one round).

Tourney structure: nine-round round robin Time control: 100 minutes/40 moves + 50 minutes/20 moves + 15 minutes + 30 seconds/move starting with the first move Game start: daily 15:00 (server time), last round 12:00 Rest day: 11th May and 16th May Rules & Tiebreak Rules: The “Sofia rules” will apply. A tie for first place will be decided by a blitz match.

Round one

It was a remarkable opening to a tournament bringing together so many top players. As a rule, when gathering such strong competitors, there is always a risk of the battles seeming more like two rams clashing their great horns into a stalemate, but to the delight of the spectators, it was not so.

One could perfectly well cite their combativity as the reason, but there may be other reasons involved as well. Magnus Carlsen will want to ‘wow’ his home fans, assert his undisputed number one status, and of course get in a few digs for his upcoming title challenge against Anand.

Magnus Carlsen nearly let adrenaline get the better of him

Topalov will want to put behind his period of decadence for good, and show his recent win at Zug was not a one off, but a renaissance. Their game showed that spirit, and despite the queens coming off by move nine, they duked it out until move 51. Magnus pressed as he usually does, and very nearly overpressed himself into trouble, but managed to get a grip on his adrenaline and staved off disaster in time. Topalov later explained that his goal this time was to avoid blundering as he had done in the past.

Despite a brilliant win at Zug, Topalov modestly said his goal
had been to not blunder.

Vishy Anand and Levon Aronian fought a good game after a very offbeat Ruy Lopez led to a fairly calm middlegame with both trying to get the other to err, but it was not to be and they drew in 33 moves.

Aronian and Anand during the press conference after their game

The first player to strike blood was Sergey Karjakin, fresh from his victory in the Blitz tournament the previous day, against Teimour Radjabov. The Azeri player has been seeing his Elo in freefall since the Candidates, and has already lost over 50 points in the last couple of months. The opening round at Norway was inauspicious to say the least as he went astray in the opening, a Sicilian Rossolimo with 3…g6, allowing Karjakin to get a protected passed pawn in the center and a strong queenside attack to boot. The Russian built on this and by move 30 was up a pawn, which he duly converted.

When will the sandman come save him from this nightmare?

Hikaru Nakamura scored a nice win against Wang Hao, to continue his run of good form after a second place at the FIDE Grand Prix in Zug. They played a Petroff following the fighting 5.Nc3 line which has led to many a lively tussle, but the Chinese player did not seem to be at his sharpest, and the American soon obtained a significant advantage. By move 27 he was up two pieces for the rook, and that was all he needed to start with a win.

Wang Hao was not at his best in round one

Peter Svidler was playing the second local hero, Jon Hammer, who is also the lowest rated player of the tournament, and as a result had the obligation to win since short of a miracle, Hammer is the participant wearing a big fat bullseye on his back.

For Jon Hammer, it is a singular opportunity to gain experience playing the world's
best, while for the others it is an obligation to score a point against him.

It was hard work as the six-time Russian champion found a very well-prepared opponent in the Gruenfeld, so much so that he quipped, “There was only one Grünfeld expert here today and it wasn't me!”. It took all his savvy to create chances for his opponent to go astray in the endgame, but eventually his perseverance was rewarded and he won a pawn and then the game.

Svidler's rule was to apply pressure until it hurts

Tomorrow is the most anticipated game of the tournament: Carlsen-Anand, and live commentator GM Simen Agdestein remarked this was where the world championship started.

Replay all games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

GM Daniel King provides video analysis of Nakamura vs. Wang Hao 

Playchess commentary schedule

Pairings and results of Norway Chess 2013

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.