Drama Continues For Carlsen; Topalov In Sole Lead

Norway is in shock as GM Magnus Carlsen lost yet another game to remain in last place at the Norway Chess tournament. GM Vishy Anand played well and won a good game in a Breyer Ruy Lopez.

GM Veselin Topalov, who beat GM Levon Aronian in round four, is the sole leader going into the rest day. It was a bad day for the home crowd as GM Jon Ludvig Hammer also lost, to GM Alexander Grischuk.

Not only Norway, but the whole chess world is in shock about Carlsen's terrible start at the Norway Chess tournament. The world champion has been so incredibly stable in recent years that his bad series of four games is...incredible.

One has to go back 10 years to find the last tournament where Carlsen had such a bad start. This was at Gausdal 2005, as Tarjei Svensen mentioned on Twitter, when Magnus was only 14 years old.

Today the world champ went down against his opponent in both of his world title matches, GM Vishy Anand. The game was a Breyer Ruy Lopez, which came on the board after a transposition because White went 6.d3 in this Ruy Lopez!

Anand: “It took us half an hour each. If we had just played the Breyer, it would have taken us two minutes!”

Carlsen played a rare setup, allowed Ng4-h6+ and then had to trade that knight for his fianchettoed bishop — Eduard Gufeld would have considered that a major crime. It wasn't that crazy, because a few moves later Black got some counterplay on the queenside.

Anand thought that 26...f6 was inaccurate, and he was very happy with his move 29.Qd1 which cleared the second rank for his other rook. He got a strong attack, and when Carlsen missed 33...Bc8 the Indian could liquidate to an ending that seemed close to winning to him. And it was.

You feel for @MagnusCarlsen but then again chess is a cruel game where even the world no.1 is not forgiven

— Abhijeet Gupta (@iam_abhijeet) June 19, 2015

Fine game by Anand and a mini-crisis for Magnus, but playing at home always brings considerable extra responsibilities and pressure.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) June 19, 2015

Chess is not a stadium sport where adrenaline from cheering home crowd helps you. Adds distractions, emotional tension, not good for chess.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) June 19, 2015

Yes, Magnus losing the first round game on time by error was already a serious blow to his stability. And no time to recover.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) June 19, 2015

Asked about Magnus's bad start, Anand said: “You have to see in the context of this first game. He played an excellent game and if he'd won that he'd be a different person.”

Here's our video that includes an interview with Anand:

Anand won the game despite feeling quite chilly in the abbey — because that was where the round took place, in a monastery! Located on the island of Mosterøy in Rennesøy, the Utstein Abbey was built in the 13th century and these days serves as venue for concerts, seminars and conventions.

The Utstein Monastery was founded under a 13th c. king named Magnus. After 1945 it was restored by an architect named Fischer. #NorwayChess

— Olimpiu G. Urcan (@OlimpiuUrcan) June 19, 2015

The players came by ferry, and were than taken from a small harbor to the monastery in the many special Volkswagen Minis with tournament logos. Carlsen had come to the island in his own, brand-new Tesla — although it was his father Henrik who was driving, because the champ doesn't have a driver's license yet.

The players seemed to be enjoying the change of scenery and delivered another great round of chess. During tomorrow's rest day the tournament leader is GM Veselin Topalov, who beat GM Levon Aronian.

The Armenian really seems to be in a bit of a slump lately, and again things went wrong in a Ragozin — although this time things only got critical deep in the endgame.

Annotations by GM Dejan Bojkov.

The round started with a draw between GM Fabiano Caruana and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. One expert in the press room joked that, by adding half a point, Caruana significantly improved his score against the Najdorf.

And indeed, the Italian has a terrible score in classical games against that opening if we look at the years 2012-2015: only 5.0/16!

Caruana scored 5.0/16 (2605 TPR) in classical games against the Najdorf in 2012-2015. pic.twitter.com/7TkyXbZYtO

— ChessVibes (@ChessVibes) June 19, 2015

One recent loss was against the same opponent, in Wijk aan Zee this year, but Caruana wouldn't be Caruana if he'd steer away from main lines. This time around it was an interesting game where he won a pawn, but Black got enough compensation.

GM Anish Giri and GM Hikaru Nakamura played a very theoretical game; an Archangelsk Ruy Lopez that deviated from Shankland-Sevian, St. Louis 2015 only on move 22. It was Giri who was slightly better in the ending, but Nakamura is playing quite solidly so far in Norway and also in this game he did well.

GM Alexander Grischuk defeated GM Jon Ludvig Hammer in an English Opening after an interesting experiment: putting the king's knight on h3. Hammer's response with ...g5 was similar to lines in the Sicilian, and then Grischuk duly moved his knight back to g1!

It was a rather provocative setup, and when Grischuk continued by trading his g2-bishop for a knight on c6, the phrase don't try this at home came to mind. Hammer decided to trade all light pieces and then the pawn structure of both players was damaged.

In the resulting double-rook ending Grischuk was a pawn up, and converted the point with good technique.

Norway Chess 2015 | Pairings & Results

2015 Norway Chess | Round 4 Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	Pts	SB
1	Topalov,V	2798	3133		½					1	1		1	3.5/4
2	Nakamura,H	2802	2954	½		½		1				1		3.0/4
3	Giri,A	2773	2904		½		½		1				½	2.5/4	5.00
4	Anand,V	2804	2897			½		½	½				1	2.5/4	3.75
5	Caruana,F	2805	2802		0		½			½			1	2.0/4	2.75
6	Grischuk,A	2781	2759			0	½				½	1		2.0/4	2.75
7	Vachier-Lagrave,M	2723	2765	0				½			1	½		2.0/4	2.50
8	Aronian,L	2780	2554	0					½	0		½		1.0/4	1.50
9	Hammer,JL	2677	2581		0				0	½	½			1.0/4	1.50
10	Carlsen,M	2876	2457	0		½	0	0						0.5/4

The Norway Chess tournament runs June 15-26 in the Stavanger region. | Games via TWIC