Altibox Norway R2: Four draws, Two leaders

Altibox Norway Chess has in only a matter of a few years grown to be one of the world’s biggest chess tournaments. Altibox Norway Chess has proven from the start to be a world-class event and is celebrating its 5th anniversary in 2017. This super-tournament had the aim of inviting the ten strongest chess players in the World, and they proclaim themselves as the strongest tournament in the World.

The events began with a 3+2 blitz tournament, won by Magnus Carlsen, to determine the pairing order.

The time control is 100 min for 40 moves + 50 min for 20 moves, + 15 min for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move 61. The prize fund for the main event is 249,000 euros.

Round Two

All Photos by Lennart Ootes for the Official Website

It was a day of small advantages in Norway, but most of them could not be converted. The games were of a very technical nature, without too many fireworks, but with plenty of interesting endgames and technical difficulties. It was not the type of chess that reminds us of people showering chess boards with gold coins, but it was a day of very high caliber. Kramnik emerges as the sole winner of round two, and ties Nakamura for the lead.

The victory will again be our starting spot, as Kramnik faced some intriguing preparation by Anand in the Spanish:

Vladimir checking out a pretty good game behind him: number four vs. number one in the World!

Long time rivals, long time friends. The players briefly discuss what happened after the game.

Vishy had a tough time today deciding when to regain his pawn.

All of the other games can be summarized in the same way: One side had considerable pressure, or even an extra pawn, but had no way of converting it for one of a multitude of reasons.

In the MVL-So game, the Frenchman had a tiny bit of pressure from the opening, but the symmetrical nature of the position was difficult to work with. The American even managed to win a pawn at some point, but his structure was shattered and the pair of bishops provided enough compensation. The draw was agreed in a position in which neither side could do much.

MVL isn't known for his quiet games, but today he had one

Giri traded into an endgame in which he was playing against Karjakin's isolated pawn. He even managed to win it at some point, but with the tremendously reduced amount of pawns and the superiority of the bishop over the knight, Karjakin never relented and defended his half point successfully.

Anish tried to come back with a win after yesterday's lost, but was unable to break Sergey's wall

Nakamura's dubious handling of the Nimzo-Indian left him in an inferior position. Aronian saw an opportunity to press for a long time, and again he managed to win a pawn. However, it was insufficient, as White's pieces were well placed and the amount of remaining pawns was too small. Nakamura was always slightly worse, but not much more than that.

Retaining the tournament lead, now shared with Vladimir Kramnik: Hikaru Nakamura

Last but certainly not least was the came between Caruana and Carlsen. In an Anti-Marshall White obtained nearly nothing from the opening, and further simplifications just reinforced the drawish tendencies of the position. Carlsen defends his first black of the event without any problems, while surely Caruana wanted to push his opponent harder than he was able to today.

Fabiano sporting his Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis jacket (more known as the Saint Louis Chess Club)

Replay games of the round

Pairings and results of Norway Chess 2017

Links

• Official tournament site
• All Blitz games in PGN or Replay them directly here (many analyzed)

You can use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.