Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, has added yet another tournament to his extensive list of victories. Although he must have been annoyed to incur a rare loss against Hikaru Nakamura in the first round, Carlsen then scythed through the field to emerge ahead by a substantial margin. Bilbao was one of those events where the organisers chose to award three points for a win, one for a draw and nothing for a loss. The final scores were: Carlsen 17, Nakamura 12, So and Wei Yi 11, Karjakin 9 and Giri 7.
The fact that Sergey Karjakin, who has qualified to challenge Magnus Carlsen for his world title, and Anish Giri, who went through the Candidates tournament without a single loss, should have ended up in the bottom two slots, is a powerful indicator of the overall strength of this competition.
Last week I published Carlsen’s win against Karjakin while this week I show how he overcame the normally super-solid Giri.
Carlsen-Giri: Bilbao Masters 2016; London System
1 d4 d5 2 Bf4 Seemingly unpretentious. Indeed, allowing Black to develop his own queen’s bishop on f5 without repercussions indicates an entire absence of ambition by White in this opening. However, as is well known, Carlsen rarely strives for any kind of theoretical advantage in the opening stages. 2 … Bf5 3 e3 e6 4 Bd3 Bxd3 5 Qxd3 This position, with the early trade of bishops, would usually be regarded as sterile. Carlsen, though, in the style of his role model Emanuel Lasker finds ways to maintain the tension. 5 … c6 6 Nd2 Nf6 7 Ngf3 Be7 8 0-0 0-0 9 h3 Nbd7 10 a4 c5 11 a5 c4 12 Qe2 b5 13 axb6 axb6 14 Ne5 Nxe5 15 dxe5 Carlsen starts to take risks.
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