The Chess Mind

As usual, we begin our Biel update with the results since the last post on the event:

Round 6 Results:

Radjabov - Avrukh 1-0
Motylev - Polgar 0-1
Onischuk - Bu Xiangzhi 1/2-1/2
Grischuk - Carlsen 1/2-1/2
Pelletier - van Wely 1/2-1/2

Round 7 Results:

van Wely - Radjabov 0-1
Carlsen - Pelletier 0-1
Bu Xiangzhi - Grischuk 1/2-1/2
Polgar - Onischuk 1/2-1/2
Avrukh - Motylev 1/2-1/2

Standings after Round 7:

1-2. Carlsen, Radjabov 4.5
3-4. Onischuk, Polgar 4
5-8. Bu Xiangzhi, Pelletier, Grischuk, Avrukh 3.5
9. Motylev 2.5
10. van Wely 1.5

After starting with five draws, Teimour Radjabov is playing like the top seed he is with back to back wins. The last one, in a King's Indian against Loek van Wely, a player who always goes for the most testing, principled lines, was a real donnybrook. Naturally, I've included it in the link, below.

Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen was guilty of one of the most extraordinary blunders I've ever seen in top level chess. In this position, against Yannick Pelletier



he uncorked the amazing 16.Bxh7??, losing the bishop for two pawns and no compensation after the patently obvious 16...f5 followed by 17...Kg7. Of course, Pelletier won and with relative ease, though there was at least a cute finish where he needed to overcome Carlsen's rambling rook.

(Steve Giddins, in the ChessBase report, calls this "eerily similar" to Fischer's famous 29...Bxh2 blunder against Spassky in game 1 of their 1972 match, but I disagree. The only similarity is that the players involved were strong and a bishop wrongly took an h-pawn. But there the similarities end: the event and board situations were disanalogous, the nature of the trap was different, and the depth of calculation required was very different.)

Pairings for Rounds 8 and 9:

Round 8:

Radjabov - Motylev
Onischuk - Avrukh
Grischuk - Polgar
Pelletier - Bu Xiangzhi
van Wely - Carlsen

Round 9:

Carlsen - Radjabov
Bu Xiangzhi - van Wely
Polgar - Pelletier
Avrukh - Grischuk
Motylev - Onischuk

Games here.