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Maybe the players at the Altibox Norway Chess tournament are a bit tired to see and to play the same openings again and again. However, the tournament in Stavanger offers more variety in openings than many a supertournament which might be partly due to the fact that some other players than the "usual suspects" were invited to play.
Round eight offered a particularly rich choice of rather unusual openings and unknown patters:
Aronian and Carlsen played a Reti, in which the World Champion who played with Black surprised the spectators with 10…Na5, a move that put the knight on the rim but avoided an exchange of knights and created a little threat. But the Norwegian had already used lots of time for his opening moves which suggests that he was not too happy with his position. At any rate, his unusual knight move brought Carlsen into trouble. He lost the game after an oversight in a bad position.
A disappointed Magnus Carlsen
Vladimir Kramnik, who played against Pentala Harikrishna, started with 1.Nf3 e6 2.g3 b5 and now found the novelty 3.e3. Well, it was almost a novelty because the move had in fact been played before though only once. In the opening Kramnik failed to get anything but at the beginning of the middlegame he gradually increased his pressure and finally liquidated into a better endgame which the Indian grandmaster could not hold.
Pavel Eljanov and Li Chao had a London System on the board and soon found themselves in a rarely played line which, however, once was tested in a correspondence game. In an equal position Li Chao made a risky winning attempt which entailed a queen sacrifice. For the queen he got a rook and two strong passed pawns. When Eljanov failed to find an adequate defense against Black's threats Li Chao was rewarded for his courage and won the game.
Anish Giri also openend with 1.Nf3 against Grandelius but wound up in a Semi-Slav. Black was slightly better after the opening and when Giri had the chance to force a draw by sacrificing a knight on f6, he quickly grabbed this chance.
But the Berlin Defense was also played - in the game between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Veselin Topalov. In the typical queenless middlegame Topalov developed a distinct initiative but after he missed a couple of good opportunities the game wound up in a draw.
| Br. | Tit | Name | Coun | ELO | Ergebnis | Titel | Name | Coun | ELO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GM | Maxime Vachier Lagrave |
|
2792 | ½ - ½ | GM | Veselin Topalov |
|
2780 |
| 2 | GM | Anish Giri |
|
2793 | ½ - ½ | GM | Nils Grandelius |
|
2646 |
| 3 | GM | Pavel Eljanov |
|
2765 | 0 - 1 | GM | Chao B Li |
|
2757 |
| 4 | GM | Levon Aronian |
|
2786 | 1 - 0 | GM | Magnus Carlsen |
|
2851 |
| 5 | GM | Vladimir Kramnik |
|
2801 | 1 - 0 | GM | Penteala Harikrishna |
|
2758 |
Aronian's win against Carlsen suddenly made the tournament exciting again. The Armenian now has the same number of points as Carlsen and is first on tie-break.
