Norway Chess 2013

The Norway Chess 2013 Super Tournament was one of the strongest super tournaments ever and was 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 nine

The fleet of chessmobiles reserved and painted especially for the tournament

The auditorium where the games were played

With the build up that had been accumulating over the last rounds, to report that Sergey Karjakin won the Norway Chess tournament seems almost the surprise, even though he led the tournament through and through. The reason is not a lack of confidence in Karjakin’s undeniable talent, which led him to not only become the youngest grandmaster in history, but probably also the youngest world championship second. No, the reason is that by the last round, no fewer than three other players could hope to steal first either straight out, or by taking it to the blitz playoffs in case of a tie: Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand, and Hikaru Nakamura. At the very least, this all promised great fighting chess for the last round, and not an epidemic of short draws as is common in large swiss tournaments.

For those who prefer the more relaxed atmosphere of the live commentary...

... there was a large spacious area with a great view from all angles.

The technical crew responsible for the filming and the broadcasts

The first game to end was Radjabov-Svidler, who played a Gruenfeld Exchange, and very little took place as both seemed content to play it out and draw. The next was a curious one: Aronian-Carlsen. The two played a Queens Gambit Declined in which the pieces came off quite quickly, and ended up in an endgame with rooks and opposite-colored bishops. A draw was agreed by repetition. For Carlsen it meant having to wait and see whether Karjakin lost, in which case there would be a tiebreak, otherwise he would need to be content with second place.

Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian comment on their game

That was the end of the quieter games. With Carlsen drawing, and Karjakin’s game undefined still, Vishy Anand had to believe he could pull out a surprise from behind by beating Wang Hao. Sadly for him, the day of surprises was not over, and an ugly blunder on move 14 due to an oversight sealed his fate on move 16. He tried to find some creative way to salvage the draw, but the Chinese player held fast and went on to win.

GM Daniel King analyzes Wang Hao-Anand 

This still left a chance for Hikaru Nakamura, though his was the most remote as he not only needed to win, but needed Karjakin to lose as well. Winning was the easier part of the equation as he played Jon Hammer, a player rated 150 Elo below him, but accidents can happen. The American made sure there were none, and he beat the Norwegian in a very high quality game, playing razor sharp from beginning to end.

Hikaru Nakamura came in third with 5.5/9

This left the last game still going, and the most important, Sergey Karjakin against Veselin Topalov. The two played a Sicilian Najdorf with Black’s kingside shattered, though not easily penetrated, and White’s advantage in space, also with little room to articulate anything. It seemed as if Karjakin was happy with the draw, which he made clear by shuffling his pieces as he waited for the Bulgarian to show something. Topalov should probably have not insisted as he began a dubious maneuver bringing his king to the queenside allowing White to start hoping for something. It was precisely when Sergey really had killer blows that he chose to repeat the position and accept the draw. One can perfectly well argue that he only needed a draw, and while true, the win was still there with little risk to him.

Sergey Karjakin drew Veselin Topalov for the biggest win of his career

Nevertheless, it concluded what was the greatest tournament result in Sergey Karjakin’s career, taking sole first ahead of the world number one, the world number two, and the world champion all at the same time. Fantastic.

For the organizers and home fans, it was a small disappointment to not have their star holding the trophy, but by all means the tournament was a great success and was well used to develop chess and visibility for the country.  

The venue made sure visitors had the opportunity to indulge in some chess

On the first rest day, the players visited a school to help promote the game
among the children.

Magnus Carlsen dressed the role

Replay all games

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Pictures by the official site

Final standings

Statistics Of the 45 games played in the nine rounds of the Norwegian Super-GM 2013 16 games = 35.6% were won by White 21 games = 46.6% were drawn 8 games = 17.8% were won by Black

Number of decisive games:

• eight: by Hammer (+1 –7 =1)
• seven: by Karjakin (+5 –2 =2)
• six: by Nakamura (+4 –2 =3); Wang Hao (+ 3 – 3 =3)
• five: by Anand (+3 –2 =4); Radjabov (+1 – 4 =4)
• four: by Carlsen (+3 –1 =5)
• three: by Svidler (+2 –1 =6); Aronian (+2 –1 =6)
• one: by Topalov (–1 =8)

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.