Norway Chess, Round 1
Firouzja beats Carlsen; bloodthirsty attacks in Armageddon.
We’ve been spoiled this year seeing Magnus Carlsen playing in multiple events with a slow time control. It may not be his cup of tea, but for the most part things have gone well for him and his rating has gone up. For the most part…but first, a quick overview of the event.
It’s a six-player round robin with an unusual scoring system, albeit one that has been customary at this tournament. If a player wins the classical game he - or she, in the concurrent women’s event - gets 3 points and the loser the usual zero. If the game is drawn both players get a point and then there’s a bid Armageddon game. White gets 10 minutes, Black the amount of the bid and draw odds. If White wins he (or she) gets an extra half point; otherwise, it’s Black who picks up the extra half-point.
Back to Carlsen, who had Black against Alireza Firouzja. Firouzja had to drop out of his last tournament after injuring his ankle, and here too he’s in a cast with his leg propped up on a second chair. Despite this he put Carlsen under pressure all game, and in serious mutual time trouble the world’s #1 finally cracked. A great start for Firouzja, who is alone in first and as the other two classical games finished in draws.
The first one to finish was Praggnanandhaa R. vs. Wesley So. Pragg had some advantage coming out of the opening but didn’t manage to keep it, and they split the point after 32 moves thanks to a repetition. In the Armageddon game, Pragg played more aggressively and crushed So with a powerful kingside attack. So managed to avoid mate at the cost of a very lost ending his opponent had no trouble winning.
Speaking of endings, Dommaraju Gukesh contested a very, very long game - 144 moves - with Vincent Keymer. First he had excellent winning chances, and then a queen ending arose that Keymer should have won. It’s easy to say that, however, and another thing to do it. Gukesh survived by a hair, finally ending the torture by appeal to the 50-move rule. In the Armageddon game, however, it was short and sweet, as Keymer missed a beautiful blow and lost a miniature.