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 three

For the third straight round, three of the games in the Norway Chess tournament ended in decisive results, continuing its remarkable bloodthirstiness. Though more than one game stood out, not to mention the results, there was one that turned heads just a bit more than the others: the brilliant win by World Champion Vishy Anand over Veselin Topalov.

Peter Svidler and Levon Aronian

This first game to end was the relatively uneventful draw between Peter Svidler and Levon Aronian. The two players went for the Four Knights variation of the English, which both are not only experienced in but have played from both sides of the board many times. Neither seemed particularly inspired  this day, and it pettered into a draw after 31 moves.

The second draw of the day was quite another story. Hikaru Nakamura decided to face Magnus Carlsen with the Vienna, which has become an irregular, though not unheard of guest in elite play.  Karjakin, Ivanchuk, Mamedyarov, and Morozevich are but a few of the names who have employed it in the last years. Still, it soon deviated from the usual grandmaster choices, and by move nine only one game from 1975 was to be found in the databases.

Nakamura and Carlsen played a Vienna in which the Norwegian gave a pawn for activity

After 10.f5 Carlsen recognized that energetic measures needed to be taken, and he showed himself up to the task with the pawn sacrifice 10…b5. When asked about it in the press conference after the game, he pshawed it as just being the move that fit the position’s needs. The engines claimed Black could have gotten an advantage after 27…Qe5, but neither player could see any concrete reason for it and shrugged it off. As the position simplified, the draw became increasingly clear and they shook hands before the time control.

The press conference with Nakamura and Carlsen after their fascinating game

The game that had everyone both on the edge of their seat and trying to figure out what was going on (unless resorting to an engine) was Anand-Topalov. The two played a Najdorf, an opening that suits both their styles, and this seemed to inspire the World Champion as he played an inspired game punctuated by several lovely moves such as 32.Qh1! and the flashy 35.Be6!

It was a great game that has Anand's fans clamouring for more

GM Gilberto Milos annotates Anand-Topalov:

Vishy Anand analyzes his win over Veselin Topalov. There has been strange talk about Anand leaving after being offended. Judge for yourself.

If yesterday, Vishy Anand was described as the moral victor, today he was the material one. Veselin Topalov cannot be happy with his loss, but he can take comfort that at least he participated in a memorable game. An excellent start for the World Champion, and one that will allow him to sleep well during the rest day on Saturday.

GM Daniel King provides video analysis of Anand vs Topalov 

Sergey Karjakin continued his incredible opening as he won his third straight game, this time against Wang Hao. Hao has been a tough opponent for Karjakin, leading their classical games by one point, so it was far from clear what would happen.  The opening was a Sicilian Richter Rauzer, following a game played by Karjakin in 2007. Wang Hao responded badly and oddly against White’s novelty, the normal looking 20.Kb1, and soon found himself worse. The question of the win seemed a nebulous affair until the Chinese player finally slipped for good with 36…f5? and capitulated a few moves later.

Sergey Karjakin said that if anyone had told him he would start the super tournament
with 3.0/3 he would have thought they were joking.

Teimour Radjabov was the last to win, at the expense of Jon Hammer, who has been struggling to compete with the cream of the crop. It was a Gruenfeld in which d4 took its own sweet time appearing on the board, but by the time it did, the Norwegian was already worse. He never quite recovered his balance and the Azeri scored his first win.

Playchess makes it easy to follow all the games at once and not miss a thing. If you have two screens you can open the board with live commentary on the other monitor (or TV).

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Pictures by the official site

Standings after three rounds

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.