| Carlsen Takes Corus; Nakamura Ties for 4th |
| January 31, 2010 | |
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Magnus Carlsen finished in clear first in the Corus super-tournament (January 15-31, Wijk Aan Zee) with 8.5/13, half a point ahead of Shirov and Kramnik. In the final round, Carlsen had to fight hard for his draw against Italian-American Fabiano Caruana. Although Carlsen achieved a strong opening, Nh3 was an admission that his calculations had not worked out as intended. 4120 GM Alexei Shirov, who had led for much of the event had a wild Sicilian against GM Lenier Dominguez but in time pressure (he had just a couple of seconds in the final position), Shirov took a draw in a winning position. 31.b4! would leave Black with no way to protect his back rank. 4118 Meanwhile US Champion Hikaru Nakamura finished strong with a long endgame win over GM Sergey Tiviakov. This put Nakamura at plus two and in a tie for 4th with World Champion Vishy Anand-not a bad guy to hang out on the crosstable with. Congrats! 4121 GM Ray Robson unfortunately finished his "Corus C" tournament with a loss, ending in a tie for 5th. On the bright side, GM Varuzhan Akobian, who had been struggling all event, finished with his first win of the event over GM David Howell. If only the tournament was another two weeks long... 4119 See GM Rogers' in-depth CLO report, The Hare and the Tortoise: GM Rogers on Corus, and look for his wrap-up in an upcoming issue of Chess Life Magazine. Chessclub.com, chessdom, chessbase, chessvibes also feature news from this event. |