|

|

|

Magnus Carlsen`s Blog

Amber blindfold and rapid, round 8

0.5-1.5 against Kramnik today, and another day with absolutely awful play. In the blindfold game I sacrificed a pawn in the opening, for which I had reasonable compensation. I then proceeded to misplay position completely, and use up all my time. After he played a bit inaccurately, I had some chances again, but I did not take them, and lost like a complete idiot. In the rapid game I got quite a decent position from the opening, and had quite a reasonable position until I missed a simple tactic, and got a completely lost position. However, I had decided not to give up too easily that day, and fought on. He could not find an immediate knockout, and used up all of his time. On move 42 I could actually have made a draw with Qxd6, while my move, Rc1 was a serious blunder due to his simple response Re4, which led to a totally winning endgame with two pawns up for him. I once again seriously considered resigning, but decided to make a few more moves, and with great reward! He started to play inaccurately, and by move 55 the win was not quite automatic anymore. Five moves later I regained one pawn, and suddenly the endgame was now drawish. He fought for another 30 moves, but the endgame with knight and two pawns against bishop was quite an easy draw. At the endgame I could even sacrifice my bishop for one of his pawns, resulting in a theoretically drawn endgame. Tomorrow is a free day, which I apparently desperately need right now, to regain my composure. Fortunately Ivanchuk could only make two draws against Dominguez today, and is just one point ahead of me, with 6 games to go. My opponent on tuesday is the Cuban Dominguez. Dominguez is a very good player indeed, but his dismal score so far in the tournament(last place so far, with now wins) and my excellent previous record against him (+5=5 in classiscal games) certainly gives me grounds for optimism. Magnus Carlsen, Nice, March 21th

2010-03-21 21:11:49