Bryne: The venue shifted from Sandnes to Bryne for the fifth round of the Norway Super Chess tournament and this brought about a change in fortunes of both the Norwegians, top rated player Magnus Carlsen and the lowest rated player Jon Ludwig Hammer. Both scripted their first victories over Sergey Karjakin and Wang Hao respectively, much to the delight of the home spectators.
As for the others, it was a case of splitting the point well within the forty move mark. Reigning World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand easily equalized the Black pieces against Peter Svidler of Russia and the game fizzled into a draw after an interesting start.
Hikaru Nakamura drew against Veselin Topalov and Reimour Radjabov against Levon Aronian. Karjakin had sprinted to a stupendous 4/4 start and got a tad ambitious in an advantageous position against Carlsen but it backfired and the Norwegian pocketed the point with lot of fanfare.
Karjakin nevertheless maintains his sole leader status with 4 point and has now Carlsen and Nakamura following behind in second place with 3 points. Anand, Aronian and Svidler and Teimour Radjabov are clustered together with 2.5 points each.
Four more rounds remain in this 10 player Round Robin event.
There has been lot of focus on Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen in this event as they are slated to play the World Chess championship at Chennai later this year in November . Both players have been unable to produce their best form though Anand scored a brilliant victory over Topalov but then followed it with a loss against Nakamura. Carlsen on the other hand drew his four games and for a while was not in a comfortable position against Karjakin today.
The NIIT MindChampion Anand once again opted for the Sicilian Najdorf against Svidler and play focussed on the queenside. By the 20th turn all the pawns and pieces on the queenside had already exited the board.
The queens were exchanged next and with a rook and bishop along with identical number of pawns, peace was signed on the 30th turn.
Anand will take on Sergey Karjakin with the White pieces in the sixth round to be played on Tuesday night.