Norway Chess, Round 7
Carlsen still leads by a hair.
There have been many decisive classical games in the 2024 edition of the Norway Chess tournament, but the pairings for today’s round - the colors-reversed version of round 2 - seems destined for draws. The pairings resulted in three draws the first time around, and that was repeated today.
That was true of the marquee match between the players who are #1 and #2 in the world in classical chess, #1 and #2 in blitz chess, and #1 and #2 in the tournament to boot: Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, respectively. Carlsen entered the round a point ahead of Nakamura, but with the white pieces Nakamura had a good opportunity to cut into Carlsen’s lead. He didn’t achieve anything in the opening of the classical game, and acceded to a draw by repetition in just 20 moves. In the Armageddon game, by contrast, he uncorked a nice new idea in an Exchange Queen’s Gambit, obtaining first an edge and then a winning position when Carlsen missed a tactic. Nakamura also had a huge lead on the clock, but Carlsen defended actively and brilliantly and finally induced an error. By the end of the game Carlsen had achieved a drawn position, but couldn’t survive even with the one-second increment and lost on time. Nakamura now trails by just half a point with three rounds remaining.
Had Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu won his classical game with Ding Liren he’d have caught up to Nakamura, half a point out of first. With Ding having lost four games in a row and Pragg having White it seemed a plausible outcome, but Ding - whose one match victory in the event came when he won in Armageddon against Pragg in round 2 - played well and achieved a winning advantage. Fortunately for Pragg, Ding made three poor moves in a row and offered a draw, letting White off the hook. The Armageddon game was similar in that once again Ding outplayed his opponent, despite having the black pieces, and again achieved a winning advantage. It didn’t last, though, as a blunder on move 21 immediately flipped the evaluation. Pragg found the winning idea and Ding resigned a move later. This blunder wasn’t so egregious - it wasn’t a repetition of what he did against Carlsen the round before, overlooking a beginner’s book mate in two - but it’s still the sort of error a 2700-2800 player in reasonable form rarely makes.
Finally, while the first two matches saw reversals from their round 2 outcomes, the third match, Fabiano Caruana vs. Alireza Firouzja, had the same result. Caruana misplayed a piece sac in the classical game, but managed to save the game. He played more stably in game 2, but in the end had to scrap to save the draw with White, which in Armageddon is as good as a loss.
The standings are Carlsen 13, Nakamura 12.5, Pragg 11, Firouzja 9.5, Caruana 7.5, Ding 3.5. Here are the games, with my comments (including to the Armageddon battles).