Tal 01: Carlsen, Caruana and Mamedyarov strike!

The Eighth International Tal Memorial Chess Tournament is being held from June, 13 to 24, 2013, with a rest day on June 16. The rounds generally start at 15:00h (=3 p.m.) Moscow time, with the first round starting at 6 p.m. and the final round at 1 p.m. Accommodation is in the Ritz-Carlton, Moscow, Tverskaya str. 3, while the event takes place in the in New Technologies Center Digital October, Bersenevskaya Embankment 6, in Moscow. The tournament has ten invited players and is a round robin with time controls of one hour and 40 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 50 minutes for next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds for each move starting from move one. Full information on special rules, regulation, prize money, etc. can be found in our initial report.

Round one report

ex-World Women's Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk graced the tournament with her presence.

Andreikin, Dmitry - Morozevich, Alexander ½-½
Morozevich is as unpredictable as ever! He opted for the Dragon variation of the Sicilian, against which Andreikin used a variation that had some popularity about a decade ago but is not considered critical anymore. Despite winning a pawn soon after entering the rook endgame, White's advantage was very slim due to his bad queenside pawn structure and the off-place rook on the h-file. Moro held the draw without problems in a well played game.

Gelfand, Boris - Karjakin, Sergey ½-½
Gelfand's Catalan was neutralized too easily and Karjakin had no problems forcing a draw early in the game. Last year many grandmasters made the comment that Gelfand's repertoire with black didn't have any problems, but that his white openings simply had no kick to them. Gelfand will have to improve this variation if he wants to repeat it in the tournament.

Caruana simply outplayed the World Champion today, and continues to approach the 2800 mark.

Anand, Viswanathan - Caruana, Fabiano 0-1
Caruana played a very aggressive opening in the style of the Marshall attack of the Spanish by giving up his pawn on e5 for active play. Anand declined Caruana's first sacrficie, but then the Italian insisted and sacrificed his a-pawn to obtain the bishop pair and a very active position. Anand was forced to accept and Caruana had enough compensation for the full pawn. When Anand allowed him to recover the pawn, Black was simply better with well placed pieces and a strong bishop on b7 that had no counter. A series of bad moves allowed Caruana to win two pawns, and the game was basically over for the World Champion.

Nakamura was gracious to provide commentary after the game, despite it not going his way.

Nakamura, Hikaru - Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 0-1
Nakamura chose a relatively quiet variation against the Ragozin, but Mamedyarov was able to neutralize it and obtained a comfortable equality. The followup from the American was definitely not the best, and within a few moves he had very uncomfortable position. His position deteriorated to a point where after 18...Neg4! it was difficult to find a move for him. 19.h3? allowed Black to sacrifice a piece for a devastating attack, and Mamedyarov brought home the full point without missing a beat.

"Did you set the clocks right?!" - Being the arbiter of such a high profile tournament must be stressful.

Mamedyarov's Ragozin passed the test of fire, Carlsen is watchful of his opponent's openings.

Carlsen, Magnus - Kramnik, Vladimir 1-0
Continuing with the tradition of playing any opening he desires and then winning anyways, Carlsen chose the Trompowsky variation against Kramnik. The Russian's response was unorthodox to say the least and an unusual position arose, in which Black had the pair of bishops but an awkward pawn structure. The endgame which arose definitely favored White due to the superior pawn structure, but it all pointed towards Kramnik being able to hold it without an issue. Kramnik gave away one of his pawns to obtain counterplay with a passed pawn. This decision was fine, but was inexplicable was his giving up the h-pawn for White's f-pawn, which gave White two passed pawns, and on top of that trading rooks! Without the rook trade it would have been a lot of work for Carlsen to prove his advantage, but the way the game went it was a very easy win for the Norwegian who didn't forgive Kramnik's mistakes.

GM Daniel King provides video analysis of Carlsen vs Krmanik 

Some strange decisions by Kramnik allowed Carlsen to take the full point.

The spectators have a strong set of commentators, including Svidler and Grischuk!

The commentary room was completely full during the entire round.

The spectacular set-up set up for the spectators.

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All pictures by Etery Kublashvili

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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.