Norway Chess: Carlsen wins opening blitz

When Magnus Carlsen plays in a tournament he is always a favorite to win. But in the three previous editions of the Norway Chess tournament he finished second twice and in 2015 he even finished seventh. However, judging from his play in the opening blitz Carlsen seems determined to do better this time. He seemed to enjoy playing and playing well. Carlsen won against one opponent after the next, gaining point after point. Only Nils Grandelius managed to draw against the number one in the world.

Before the final round Carlsen was on 7.5/8 and seemed to get a bit careless. But castling queenside in a Ruy Lopez turned out to be too dangerous.

Final standings

All games

The blitz tournament was not just played for the fun of it - it decided the pairings. The top five in the blitz tournament will have five games with White and four games with Black.

Schedule of the Altibox Norway Chess tournament 2016

All ordinary rounds start at 4pm CET

There will be a blitz match and rapid chess Friday April 29 after Round 9 if two players share first place.
If there are more than 2 players sharing first place a new match will take place Saturday 30.  

Live Broadcast

Watch it live on Playchess!

When the games are running, clicking on the above link will take you to our live broadcast. It is free and open to all – as a Premium Account member you have access to the Live Book, Chat, chess engine analysis – all in your browser, on a notebook, tablet or even your smartphone. And the Let's Check function will show you what the most powerful computers in the world think of the current position, as each move is being played.

In the live broadcast below, on the side of each board is an evaluation meter, showing you which side is better. The small "x" button on the top right of each board will remove it from the broadcast. If you remove two games you will have four larger boards. Removing four will give you two even larger boards, and removing five will give you just one very large board. Refresh the page (Ctrl-R) to return to the six most popular boards.

You can also click the "+" and "–" icons at the bottom right of the broadcast window to increase and decrease the number of boards. There are other functions: you can download PGNs of the running games and even start an engine by clicking the robot button (third from left). Note that you can view moves and statistics in the opening (with the Live Book switched on) and even analyse on the boards while the games are being broadcast, by moving pieces and using the engine – best in multiple line mode. Is there a better way to follow the games?

Commentary schedule on playchess.com

Links Official tournament site You can use ChessBase 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.