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 seven results

Commentary by GM Dorian Rogozenco

Round seven of the Kings' Tournament in Medias, Romania

Tian Hongwei, Deputy Director General of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Chess
Association, ceremonially executes the first move for Magnus Carlsen in round seven

Carlsen vs Ivanchuk under way

In the seventh round Magnus Carlsen retook the lead by beating Vassily Ivanchuk with the white pieces. The Norwegian didn’t get much out of the opening in the Ragozin Variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined, but kept on fighting, slowly improving his position. After the exchange of queens Carlsen nicely outplayed his strong opponent in the endgame. Especially impressive was the way he created more and more weaknesses in Black’s camp, first by advancing his pawns on the kingside, and then switching to the queenside.

Note that you can also replay GM Rogozenco's analysis on a full page with diagrams

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Karjakin-Radjabov saw another Schliemann Gambit, where the Azerbaijani grandmaster showed his excellent home preparation and confidently achieved a draw. It must be said that the Schliemann is holding very well so far – in no game did White succeed to show an opening advantage against it. Does it mean that the Schliemann will become popular in the near future on the top level? The answer very much seems to be “yes”.

GM Dorian Rogozenco analysing with Teimour Radjabov and Sergey Karjakin

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Spanish journalist Leontxo Garcia opening the game Nisipeanu vs Nakamura

Nisipeanu got a pleasant advantage on the White side against Nakamura’s Sicilian Najdorf, but then let it quickly slip away. In an equal position White forced the repetition of moves in order to secure the draw.

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Note that you can also replay GM Rogozenco's analysis on a full page with diagrams

Thus after seven rounds Carlsen is leading the tournament with five points. Half a point behind him is Karjakin, with Nakamura in the third place with 3.5 points. The Norwegian prodigy has been doing what he does best, and seems to find every single possible way to give his opponent problems to solve and ways to go wrong, however slightly.

All photos by Ionut Anisca

Standings after seven rounds

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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