Norway 06: Tournament wide open!

The Unibet Norway Chess Tournament will take place in Stavanger, Norway from June 2nd to June 13th. The tournament features some of the best players in the world and has a massive rating average of 2774.

Round Six

Norwegian television channel VGTV closely follows the action and has their own set-up

Today the round was played at Aarbakke fabrikkhall - a factory!
Tomorrow they return to Stavanger

Agdestein, Simen ½-½ Caruana, Fabiano
Perhaps trying to beat his opponent instead of aiming for a solid draw, Caruana used an unusual side-system. This left him ina clearly worse position after barely 10 moves of chess. However Agdestein missed a resourceful exchange sacrifice from Caruana that actually put black on the driver's seat! Black's advantage was minimal, however, and with a timely pawn sacrifice Agdestein mustered enough resources to hold the draw.

Caruana came for the win but didn't quite get there

Topalov, Veselin 1-0 Kramnik, Vladimir
Kramnik came up with an interesting opening idea, but he was unable to follow it with any consistency. His exchange sacrifice was maybe not bad, but it definitely let White have all the chances in the position. A blunder in move 26 in an already difficult position sealed the Russian's fat as Topalov cruised to victory with accurate moves.

Topalov beats his nemesis again

No resignation handshake from Kramnik, but he does keep a tie for first at least

Daniel King shows the game Topalov vs Kramnik

Grischuk, Alexander ½-½ Svidler, Peter
Although the game was packed with action, somehow every time something interesting happened over the board pieces got traded off until eventually there was not enough material to do anything. The opposite colored bishop plus rooks endgame was an obvious draw.

A battle! But both players held their own and it fizzled to a draw.

Karjakin, Sergey ½-½ Carlsen, Magnus
The following was the only important moment of this Berlin:

Carlsen is in +1, though before the tournament it would have been
hard to guess that would involve five out of six draws.

Aronian, Levon ½-½ Giri, Anish
An isolated queen's pawn! But not an IQP that went Aronian's way. He was worse out of the opening and sensing the danger he wisely traded off into an endgame where he was down a pawn, but the opposite colored bishops combined with his activity gave him no real losing chances.

Aronian is "tied for last" with Topalov and Svidler at 2.5/6.
That also puts him only a point away from the leaders!
Half glass full, half empty?

Standings

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Schedule of Events

Pairings

Links Official tournament site Blitz games in PGN 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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.