Month: June 2015

The Norway Chess Super-Tournament 2015 commenced with a bang as the first round produced a lot of drama and excitement. Giri, Vachier-Lagrave and Nakamura (all playing White) were right on the money as they convincingly beat Grischuk, Aronian and Hammer respectively. On the other hand, Caruana’s excellent opening preparation allowed him an easy draw against Vishy.

However, the most dramatic game of the day was undoubtedly Carlsen-Topalov. Carlsen had dominated the game throughout and it seemed as if he was coasting away to victory. But due to lack of knowledge about the time-control in use, Magnus forfeited the game on time in a comprehensively winning position. Later, it turned out that the Arbiter had announced the details of the time-control before the round but Carlsen was late in reaching for the same.

Thus, after just 1 round, 4 players jointly lead this 9-round tournament.

Round 1 Results:

With Maxime Vachier-Lagrave having lost more than 30 classical rating points in the last month, hardly anybody would have fancied his chances at the ‘Norway Chess Super-Tournament’ before yesterday’s blitz began. However, MVL made a strong statement before the start of the main event as he won the blitz section quite impressively.

MVL scored a total of 6.5/9, half a point clear of second-placed Nakamura. The third place was shared by Carlsen, Giri and Anand with a total of 5.5 points each.

Final Standings:

The 3rd edition of the annual Norway Chess Super-Tournament is all set to commence from today onwards. The tournament will begin with a blitz event which will be played today and its standings will determine the pairings for the main event to be played from tomorrow onwards. Both the events – Blitz and Classical – will be contested by 10 players over 9 rounds in an all-play-all format.

List of Players:

Official Website:  http://2015.norwaychess.com/