World Champion Magnus Carlsen scored an emphatic victory over World No.2 Vladimir Kramnik in the 7th round of the Norway Chess Tournament 2016. With this crucial win, Carlsen has taken a commanding one point lead over his nearest rivals.
The Carlsen-Kramnik battle took off with the Exchange Variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined. Although the queens were swapped off pretty early, the game followed an interesting course, eventually leading to a complicated queenless middlegame. Around the 20 moves mark, Kramnik lost his way and made a couple of grave errors. Carlsen duly capitalized on these errors and went on to win a very convincing game.
In the only other decisive game of the day, Levon Aronian overcame Pavel Eljanov. This was Aronian’s first win of the tournament after having drawn his first six games.
Results
| Carlsen | 1-0 | Kramnik |
| Aronian | 1-0 | Eljanov |
| Harikrishna | ½-½ | Vachier-Lagrave |
| Topalov | ½-½ | Giri |
| Grandelius | ½-½ | Li Chao |