"It's embarrassing": 0.5/4 and Norway Chess Day 4
Magnus Carlsen starts out with 0.5/4, the worst in ten years. And there are still so many people out there who are throwing hatred at him. Really? Logic says not. (But he is back down below 2860. Blast it.)
Now:
-There's much more motivation for Carlsen after three losses.
-There's less of the likelihood for someone to finish with 6/9 or above, though this is not connected to the loss.
-He is playing in Norway. Analyse the past.
-All the tough opponents have become history
-There are people who have started off with 0.5/4 and ended up at the top (not sure if Magnus is one of them, but oh well)
-Svidler says Carlsen is affected by Rd.1 Has he looked at Judit Polgar's 1994 Linares performance? Plus, Carlsen is not that emotional (compare him to Naka, for example)
-Have I mentioned the fact that Carlsen does badly in Norway? I should mention it again.
Otherwise:
Caruana-MVL was a nice game, saved both their prides (though in different ways) and they did give some nice commentary. And Caruana breaks his losing streak with the Najdorf (inspired by MVL, of course). And he says he's going to try it again (!!), but we shall see.
Grischuk 1-0 JLH was nowhere near unexpected. This is in Norway, after all. (OK, so maybe someone thought JLH would win, but Grischuk did well today.)
Giri and Naka drawing comes as no surprise, though at one point things could have gone one way or the other. Naka was in the sole lead until...:
Aronian gave up in his fight against Topalov. He didn't start out right, some could say. Topalov 2nd in the live rankings and leading the tournament... (no, I do not believe in him winning the Candidates)
Does his throat problem truly work such wonders? (Well, eliminating Round 1, maybe not) And he is the only one to win with black so far (vs. MVL, obviously not vs. Magnus)
And speaking of Magnus, he says he doesn't want the day of rest because he wants to strike back ASAP. That's what I would want to do. Understandably, Alexander Grischuk will be...suffering, shall we say?
And the quote in the title is of course also the honesty of Magnus Carlsen.
