Grand Slam Final - Round 2

The game of the round once again featured the Norwegian wunderkind Magnus Carlsen who took the fight to Vassily Ivanchuk (pictured) by playing the Dragon, which seems to be finding a regular place in his repertoire.  Kudos to Carlsen!

The Dragon is usually a race to see who can checkmate first and the players didn't disappoint, with Magnus playing the thematic exchange sac at c3 on move 17 to break up the white queenside pawns to get at the castled king.  Ivanchuk responded with a bishop sac on f7 and a quick push of the e-pawn into the heart of black's position.

Carlsen threaded his way through the tactical melee and found a way to force a draw by perpetual check.  Knife-edge stuff from these two entertainers!

The game between Anand and Radjabov started promisingly, with Radjabov playing the Sveshnikov, but the game drifted into calmer waters and a dead drawn opposite-coloured bishop ending resulted.

The Topalov vs Aronian game was more entertaining, especially Aronian's novel scheme of development for his King's rook on moves 20 and 21.  However, it was precisely the void left by the inventive rook that Topalov exploited to engineer a perpetual check and end the game soon after.

So no wins today, but the players are certainly doing their best to live up to the tournament hype so far!

Magnus and Chucky sweat it out in the Aquarium!  Pic from the official site.