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Magnus Carlsen`s Blog

Moscow, Nov.10th 2009, Tal Memorial Round 5

I had more of a fighting spirit today and faced the Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk. A veteran by many considered a real chess genius with his eccentricity, extreme passion for chess and unparalleled creativity. He has not been able to dominate chess as predicted by many after winning Linares (the Wimbledon of chess) in style already 20 years ago. His performances have varied between brilliant tournament victories, miserable collapses and occasional periods of lack of inspiration resulting in many short draws. Today he arrived at the playing hall, and played our entire game with a mouth mask (probably to protect against me), and frankly it happened to the considerable amusement of the other players. He went on to play a not very ambitious opening. At some point my position looked slightly promising, but he seemingly pulled himself together to find the right moves to keep the balance. It all petered out into an equal and fairly symmetric ending and a draw was agreed. The only player managing to win today was reigning World Champion Vishy Anand who beat Peter Leko, Hungary to share the lead with Kramnik at 3.5 out of 5. I’m at 2.5 and look forward to playing white against Anand tomorrow! Magnus Carlsen

2010-03-09 10:08:59