Saturday 27 March 2010

Grischuk - Blindfold Master

The Melody Amber tournament in Nice finished in a tie for first between Magnus Carlsen and Vasily Ivanchuk. While Ivanchuk was the only player to go through the event undefeated, Carlsen lost 6 games, although his 11.5/12 against the bottom 6 finishers made up for this.
However the player who proved best at the blindfold section was last minute replacement Alexander Grischuk. Filling in for Alexander Morozevich, Grischuk scored 8/11, losing only one game to Lev Aronian. His last round game against Carlsen helped decide the final standings, as well as showing one of the occasional pitfalls of blindfold chess. On move 25 Carlsen simply lost track of the White queen and played the losing capture on e4!

Grischuk,A (2756) - Carlsen,Magnus (2813) [E70]
19th Amber Blindfold Nice FRA (11), 25.03.2010

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Bg5 0-0 6.Qd2 Na6 7.Bd3 e5 8.d5 Qe8 9.Nge2 Nh5 10.f3 f5 11.0-0-0 Nc5 12.Bc2 Bd7 13.Rde1 fxe4 14.Nxe4 Nxe4 15.fxe4 b5 16.cxb5 Rf2 17.Rhg1 Nf4 18.Qe3 Rxg2 19.Nxf4 exf4 20.Bxf4 Rxg1 21.Rxg1 Qe7 22.Bd3 Rf8 23.Rf1 Qh4 24.Bg3 Rxf1+ 25.Bxf1 (D) 25...Qxe4?? 26.Qxe4 1-0

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