Carlsen-Erigaisi at the Tata Steel Blitz

Carlsen was on fire, then he got burned.

As we await the World Championship, starting in a week and a half or so, the Tata Steel Chess India tournament in Kolkota is a nice appetizer. Magnus Carlsen is the headliner in a very strong field that includes Arjun Erigaisi, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Wesley So, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Santosh Vidit - just to name players who are or have been Candidates and/or in the world’s top six.

The event has two stages: first a rapid round-robin, and then a double round-robin in blitz. Carlsen had a great run in the rapid, winning six in a row after drawing the first two games. He finished with a draw and won that stage by two points ahead of Pragg and So. Then, today, in the first blitz round-robin, he started with an undefeated six out of seven. Then, this happened (you can find the game with my notes, here):

Carlsen drew his last game and still managed to end the first blitz round-robin with a fine score of 6.5/9, half a point better than Pragg and a point ahead of Erigaisi and Daniil Dubov. But what will people probably end up remembering (thanks in part to posts like this - sorry)? It’s a bit like my post on Von Bardeleben, except that in Carlsen’s case we have dozens and dozens of games and countless successes that will drown out this slip on the banana peel - just not for this tournament.