Norway Chess 2013 and EICC in Legnica 2013

In the first super tournament on Norwegian ground reached it´s last third part.
The middle of the tournament was very interesting and the number of high quality games is very high.
At the same time, an army of strong Grandmasters are fighting for their place in The World Cup in European Individual Chess Championship in Polish town of Legnica.

Norway Chess 2013

In the fourth round I was deeply impressed by performance of Sergei Karjakin who won with black pieces against World number two, Levon Aronian.
It that moment he had 4 out of 4, and as Norwegian star Magnus Carlsen played only four draws, everybody could assume that the fight for the first place is practically over.
In the same round Nakamura won against Anand with black pieces, in the game filled by energy, and most probably the best game in the tournament so far.

In the following fifth round, Krajakin played against Carlsen with White pieces.
He got an advantage and in that moment only two results was possible. However, Karjakin did not find the way to stabilise his extra pawn, and started to play very strange moves (Kh2).
It did not took long for Carlsen and we could see the real twist.
By confident play Carlsen gave the tournament a new life.

Today, Karjakin was black against World Champion, Anand, but in the long battle he survived, so the most critical moment for him is over.
On the contrary, we can see that Carlsen is in a full gear.

This is the position which he reached today against Radjabov.
There is no doubt that with the best play this position should be a draw, but then why bother and play chess at all, because from the beginning with the best play it is only a draw?!
Well, maybe someone can be tricked by reduced material, and false simplicity of the position, and of course false evaluation of the chess engines.
White is of course better, and it is only the question of degree.
If we add that exactly in this type of the positions Carlsen managing to develop his full potential, then we can imagine that Radjavom faced the real problems here.
At the end Carlsen won, and he is only half a point behind Karjakin.
He have a game against Hammer, and without writing off somebody, it is a real advantage in the last three rounds.
So far I think that Nakamura and Svidler played really good chess.
Aronian is on his high level, and has a chances to fight for the first place.

Other details can be seen in the table:

After round 6:

	Players		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	A	B	C
1	KARJAKIN Sergey	RUS		0		1	½			1	1	1	4,5	11	4	2
2	CARLSEN Magnus	NOR	1		½		½	½	½	1			4	13	2	1
3	NAKAMURA Hikaru	USA		½		0	1	½	½		1		3,5	9,75	2	1
4	ARONIAN Levon	ARM	0		1		½	½		½		1	3,5	9,25	2	0
5	ANAND Viswanathan	IND	½	½	0	½		½	1				3	10	1	0
6	SVIDLER Peter	RUS		½	½	½	½				0	1	3	8,5	1	0
7	TOPALOV Veselin	BUL		½	½		0			½	½	½	2,5	6,75	0	0
8	RADJABOV Teimour	AZE	0	0		½			½		½	1	2,5	5,5	1	0
9	WANG Hao	CHN	0		0			1	½	½		0	2	5,5	1	0
10	HAMMER Jon Ludvig	NOR	0			0		0	½	0	1		1,5	3,25	1	0

EICC in Legnica Poland 2013

In Legnica, players are approaching last two rounds.

We can already conclude that the players on the first three places practically secured their places in The World Cup.

GM Nils Grandelius lost all chances for such thing.

In today´s game against GM Tomashevsky, he lost with Black pieces and his chances vanished.

Nils Grandelius "....I was unlucky today. I can be satisfied with my game, but I lost because I missed Qd4. This was actually an old analyse of him....."

I can not to not notice complete domination of the players from former eastern block.
In the first 30 players, only two names are not from it.
Vallejo Pons and Ragger Markus are only exceptions.
GM Moiseenko is still leading, with only two followers, and 16 players with a whole point behind him.
Here is the table after 9 rounds with a players who scored 6,5 or more points:

Rank after Round 9

Rk.			Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	Rp	K	rtg+/-
1		GM	MOISEENKO Alexander	UKR	2698	7.5	2627	47.0	47.5	6	2775	10	18.1
2		GM	ALEKSEEV Evgeny	RUS	2700	7.0	2631	48.0	52.0	5	2835	10	14.7
3		GM	LUPULESCU Constantin	ROU	2634	7.0	2605	46.0	50.5	5	2801	10	19.1
4		GM	KOROBOV Anton	UKR	2705	6.5	2620	45.5	48.5	5	2772	10	8.0
5		GM	LYSYJ Igor	RUS	2641	6.5	2617	45.5	49.5	4	2761	10	14.5
6		GM	BELIAVSKY Alexander G	SLO	2628	6.5	2613	45.5	49.5	4	2755	10	15.7
7		GM	VALLEJO PONS Francisco	ESP	2695	6.5	2607	46.0	50.5	4	2758	10	7.6
8		GM	MOVSESIAN Sergei	ARM	2693	6.5	2604	42.5	45.5	4	2756	10	7.4
9		GM	ARESHCHENKO Alexander	UKR	2709	6.5	2603	47.0	51.0	5	2757	10	5.9
10		GM	DREEV Aleksey	RUS	2654	6.5	2599	45.0	49.5	4	2747	10	11.1
11		GM	BALOGH Csaba	HUN	2644	6.5	2577	43.0	47.0	4	2718	10	7.6
12		GM	NAVARA David	CZE	2697	6.5	2577	41.5	45.0	4	2733	10	4.6
13		IM	KOVALEV Vladislav	BLR	2523	6.5	2571	42.5	45.0	5	2673	10	21.1
14		GM	HRACEK Zbynek	CZE	2628	6.5	2569	43.0	47.5	4	2714	10	10.9
15		GM	LAZNICKA Viktor	CZE	2679	6.5	2559	42.5	46.5	4	2715	10	4.6
16		GM	ZHIGALKO Andrey	BLR	2603	6.5	2557	40.0	43.0	5	2699	10	12.3
17		GM	ISTRATESCU Andrei	FRA	2651	6.5	2541	40.5	44.5	4	2694	10	5.4
18		GM	MELKUMYAN Hrant	ARM	2622	6.5	2527	40.5	44.5	5	2675	10	6.8
19		GM	MAMEDOV Nidjat	AZE	2602	6.5	2470	37.5	41.5	6	2620	10	3.1

...and the pairings for the first 10 boards:

Pairings/Results

Round 10 on 2013/05/15 at 15:00

Bo.	No.			Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg		No.
1	13		GM	MOISEENKO Alexander	2698	7½		6½	GM	KOROBOV Anton	2705		7
2	54		GM	LUPULESCU Constantin	2634	7		7	GM	ALEKSEEV Evgeny	2700		11
3	5		GM	ARESHCHENKO Alexander	2709	6½		6½	GM	BELIAVSKY Alexander G	2628		56
4	14		GM	NAVARA David	2697	6½		6½	GM	LYSYJ Igor	2641		46
5	45		GM	BALOGH Csaba	2644	6½		6½	GM	VALLEJO PONS Francisco	2695		16
6	57		GM	HRACEK Zbynek	2628	6½		6½	GM	MOVSESIAN Sergei	2693		17
7	20		GM	LAZNICKA Viktor	2679	6½		6½	IM	KOVALEV Vladislav	2523		135
8	35		GM	DREEV Aleksey	2654	6½		6½	GM	MELKUMYAN Hrant	2622		62
9	78		GM	MAMEDOV Nidjat	2602	6½		6½	GM	ISTRATESCU Andrei	2651		39
10	8		GM	ELJANOV Pavel	2702	6		6½	GM	ZHIGALKO Andrey	2603		77