Medias Kings Rd6: Karjakin wins to share lead with Carlsen

ROMGAZ and the Chess Club Society "Elisabeta Polihroniade” of Bucharest are staging a double round robin tournament with six top GMs: the world's second highest ranked player, Magnus Carlsen of Norway; Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk, currently the world's number five; Sergey Karjakin, former child prodigy and youngest GM of all time; top US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, clear winner of this year's Wijk aan Zee tournament; Teimour Radjabov, one of Azerbaijan's top GMs, and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, the best Romanian player. The competition is taking place from June 11th to 22nd 2011 in Medias, Romania.

Round six results

With Carlsen making moves to run away with the tournament, one question was whether anyone would (or could) challenge him for it. Round six helped settle that question, with fellow boy wonder, Sergey Karjakin, outlasting Romanian Nisipeanu in an epic endgame battle. With his victory, and draws by the others, he moved up to shared first with Magnus, and both enjoying 2850+ performances.

Once again, Liviu played his pet Schliemann, and Sergey came well-prepared for the opening battle. After 32 moves, the position had simplified into a double-rook endgame in which the ex-Ukrainian had an extra pawn, but the two rooks and vulnerable king meant conversion would be very difficult. Karjakin’s technique proved sufficient, and after 66 moves, Nisipeanu finally surrendered.

Carlsen chose to play the Ruy Lopez Breyer against Nakamura as Black, and in reply, the American opted for a very rare 11.c4, which rarely sees the light of day in top GM play, though some of the illustrious players to have essayed it include Fischer in his 1992 match against Spassky. After probing and minor maneuvering, Carlsen emerged with a slight space advantage, including a swap of his bad bishop, but neither player could see a way out of the locked position, and shook hands.

Standings after six rounds

Free day football in Medias

The teams: locals in red, visitors in blue (click to enlarge)

Magnus Carlsen leads the attack, Dorian Rogozenco (right) races to the defence

Magnus and Motylev (Alexander, second of Karjakin) in blue, Dorian in red

Our own Pascal Simon, ChessBase media expert, in action

The home team on the attack – recognize who is keeping the goal?

Right, it is Vassily Ivanchuk, the world's number five player (in chess, of course)

The man in blue, in full action, is Faik Gasanov (actually Hasanov), chief arbiter of
the Medias Kings' Tournament. Faik, we ask you to note, turned 70 in April.

Schedule and results

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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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