Photo: Peter Doggers
When Magnus Carlsen was interviewed after his win against Nils Grandelius in the second round of the TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament, a surprising name showed up. Peter Lund. Peter Lund was the friend that helped Magnus by driving him to the local chess club. The also met over the board, and in the Asker club championship in the year 2000, Magnus played the Benoni defense.
Magnus has hardly played the Benoni since then – until facing the Swedish hope in the TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament. When Grandelius chose to open with 1.d4, Carlsen surprised everyone by opting for the Benoni defense.
Nils got a good position in the opening, but then he played 13.f4. According to Carlsen, this was a mistake; “Doubtful from a positional perspective” was Magnus’s opinion. Carlsen took over the initiative, but Nils fought on and he kept his balance, aided by some small tactical tricks.
However, keeping things balanced was time-consuming, and when the clock kept ticking, mistakes happened. In order to threaten world number one Carlsen, you have to play exact moves throughout the game. Towards the end of the game, Carlsen saw that the a-pawn would pave the way to victory, and at move 36, Grandelius was forced to resign.
Nils Grandelius is now the only player with two losses in a row. Many people probably thought that the same fate would come to Jiner Zhu. After he loss to Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the first round, she got in trouble against Jorden van Foreest. But suddenly, she managed to infiltrate Foreest’s position with both her rooks, and after a hard fight, she managed to secure a draw. A strong comeback!
The two other draws in this round were also hard fights.
Andy Woodward, who defeated Nils Grandelius in the first round, was down for the count twice against Nodirbek Abdusattorov, but made use of two mistakes by the Uzbek player, and managed to secure half a point. On his first ‘match point’ at move 53, Abdusattorov should have hid his king on h2, which would have given him a winning attack. His second mistake was taking a pawn with his rook at move 60.
These two missed opportunities mean that Abdusattorov has 1½ point, thereby sharing the lead with Magnus Carlsen, who he will play on Sunday. This will be a very exciting game – this meeting between the world’s number one and the world’s number four might decide the outcome of the tournament.
The game between Arjun Erigaisi and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus was also a tense battle – it got even more intense when both players ended up in serious time trouble. Erdogmus was the one having real time trouble, and he lost his advantage right before the time control. After 40 moves, Erdogmus was soon in time trouble again. On several occasions, he made a move with only seconds left on the clock in a complicated endgame, where both promoted one of their pawns to a queen. It ended in a number of checks and finally a draw by repetition.
Standings after round 2:
1) Magnus Carlsen, 1½p
1) Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 1½p
1) Andy Woodward, 1½p
4) Jorden van Foreest, 1p
4) Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, 1p
4) Arjun Erigaisi, 1p
7) Zhu Jiner, ½p
8) Nils Grandelius, 0p