BILBAO FINAL ROUND – Magnus Carlsen vs Vassily Ivanchuk

♕ ARTICLE: www.onlinechesslessons.net ♕ facebook.com ♕ twitter.com Carlsen desperately needed to win in round 9 to catch up to then-tournament leader Ivanchuk, and he opened with d4. Ivanchuk greeted this with the Nimzo-Indian, however I am skeptical of Ivanchuk’s subsequent choices in the opening that led to a very dynamically imbalanced position. Carlsen employed an unusual line against black’s queenside fianchetto, placing immediate pressure on f5 with 10. Bh3!? and preparing to blockade black’s light-squared bishop with a later d5. Carlsen continued to press, and after completing development Ivanchuk agreed to enter dangerous complications with 14. …exd5. Carlsen was able to seize the initiative and force Ivanchuk to consume massive amounts of time, resulting in dangerous time-trouble with a very difficult defense against the world’s #1 chess player. Ivanchuk almost managed to consolidate his position, however in desperate time-trouble (1 minute left to make 7 moves to reach the time control at move 40) Ivanchuk blundered with 33. …Ng7?? and promptly resigned. This was a fantastic game by Magnus Carlsen, accurately demonstrating the power of the initiative with an series of incredibly forcing moves. PGN: [Event "Bilbao Chess Masters"] [Site "Bilbao, Spain"] [Date "2011.10.10"] [Round "-"] [White "*GM_Carlsen"] [Black "*GM_Ivanchuk"] [Result "1-0"] [WhiteElo "2823"] [BlackElo "2765"] [Opening "Nimzo-Indian: three knights variation"] [ECO "E21"] [NIC “NI.26 …