Magnus Carlsen vs Levon Aronian, Spanish Game: Berlin Defense. Rio Gambit Accepted C67
2018 Altibox Norway, Round 3, 05/30/18
Magnus faced Levon Aronian in round 3 of the Altibox Norway tournament. The elite portion of the event brought less excitement than expected so far, with only two decisive games in the first 3 rounds. The game Magnus won against Caruana in round 1 and this game. The prelude to the World Championship match is looking rather one-sided at the moment, but Caruana has shown that he is capable of performing above Magnus’s capabilities as well. We will have to wait until November.
Levon has had a rough year so far. He scored horribly at the candidates tournament and had no achievements since. In this game he played as if he deserved to do that badly. Magnus avoided the Berlin endgame and the queen exchange and went for a theoretical but less known line. After a couple of moves of main line theory Levon erred and gave Carlsen a free hand in the attack, which was exploited ferociously and swiftly.
Standings after round 3:
Magnus Carlsen 2.5/3
Hikaru Nakamura 1.5/3
Wesley So 1.5/3
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 1.5/3
Viswanathan Anand 1.5/3
Sergey Karjakin 1.5/3
Ding Liren 1.5/3
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 1.5/3
Levon Aronian 1/3
Fabiano Caruana 1/3
Game moves:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Nxe4 5.Re1 Nd6 6.Nxe5 Be7
7.Bf1 Nxe5 8.Rxe5 O-O 9.d4 Bf6 10.Re1 Nf5 11.d5 Re8 12.Rxe8+
Qxe8 13.Qd3 d6 14.Nd2 Bg5 15.Nf3 Bxc1 16.Rxc1 Bd7 17.Re1 Qd8
18.Qc4 g6 19.h3 Ng7 20.Re3 a5 21.a4 Ne8 22.Qd4 Ng7 23.g4 c6
24.c4 Ne8 25.Qf4 Kg7 26.Rb3 Rb8 27.Ng5 Nf6 28.Rf3 h6 29.Ne4
Nxe4 30.Qxf7+ Kh8 31.Qxg6 1-0