In the life of the leader of the world ranking list, the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, there is only one height left unconquered. Surprisingly, but true: the Scandinavian, who won everywhere and many times, never won the World Cup!
Now it is closer than ever. Magnus has already reached the semifinals of the tournament in Baku. He is funny that at the same time he immediately declares that he will not use the privilege of being the winner of the tournament and will not play in the Candidates. But the tournament itself wants to win: after a difficult start and a slip in the match with Vincent Kaymer, the former world champion continues to climb to the top: in the matches with Vassily Ivanchuk and Gukesh Dommaraja, we again saw a powerful player. behind the board, who is called the strongest in history.
The start of the tournament was tough for Magnus:
“What am I doing here?” Magnus Carlsen freaks out at the Chess World Cup
In the semifinals, Nijat Abasov, the “master of the field”, will play against Magnus. And if the Scandinavian wins, it will go to the winner of the Fabiano Caruana – Rameshbabu Pragnanandha pairing. It seems that it is not complicated at all. Take it and win! However, throughout his career, Magnus was plagued by mystical failures in knockout tournaments. In some draws of the tournament, the Norwegian deliberately did not participate and returned to storm the Cup only when he realized that this was the last peak that he had not taken.
Magnus’s first flat tire
In 2004, the still very young 13-year-old prodigy Magnus Carlsen, according to the quota of the President of the International Chess Federation Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, took part in the FIDE world knockout championship. In the first round, one of the tournament favorites fell to him: Levon Aronian, now a representative of Team USA, and later an Armenian grandmaster. Magnus was not shy at all, he was playing on equal terms with a formidable opponent: draw, draw, draw, and then…
Magnus Carlsen (Norway) — Levon Aronian (Armenia)
World Championship by Eliminations – 2004. Tripoli, Libya
76.Rh8?? 76.Ke4 f5+ 77.Kf4 easily held the draw: the black king cannot advance without losing one of the pawns. Now Aronian is running with his king.
76… Ke5 77.Re8+ Kd4 78.Rd8+ Kc3 79.Kh8 Rd2 80.Kg3 Kd3 81.Kf3 Kc2 82.Kg3 Kd1and Magnus resigned due to the fact that Black’s king inevitably falls on g1, and the capture on h2 loses: the f6-pawn decides the outcome of the matter in a pawn ending.
Young Carlsen trembled
A year later, when the chess world came together after a long split, at the Khanty-Mansiysk World Cup Magnus already had a lot going for him and reached the 1/8 final of the tournament, a victory that opened the way to the Chess Matches. Candidates.
One of the strongest Russian grandmasters of the early 2000s, Evgeny Bareev (now playing for Canada) battled Carlsen. Bareev had a rough time with the young genius, but Magnus was knocked out again.
Magnus Carlsen (Norway) — Evgeny Bareev (Russia)
World Cup – 2005. Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia
The queen with pawns should easily defeat Black’s mismatched pieces. One can accurately calculate 43.Qf7 Bc7+ 44.Ka6 with a nice win 44…Ra2+ 45.Qxa2 Nxa2 46.g7 – White gets a new queen. However, 43.Kb6 Nd5+ 44.Kc6 she won easily, and the king was running away and there was no need to count! Norwegian youth couldn’t take it.
43.Qf8+?? Kb7 44.Qf7+ The queen loses 44.Qxf4 Ra2+ 45.Kb4 Nd5+, but the stronger piece must still be abandoned due to the mating square.
44…Bc7+ 45.Qxc7+ Kxc7 46.h5 Rg2 White resigned. It was a hard blow, but fortunately for Magnus, there were as many as 16 candidates that year, there were many tickets, and in the game for places 9 to 16, Carlsen managed to qualify by winning a couple of matches.
fell asleep and flew
Two more years passed, and 16-year-old Magnus was already seriously fighting for victory at the World Cup. In the semifinals, Carlsen faced Gata Kamsky, the brightest child prodigy of the early 1990s, who at one point sensationally left chess, and then returned to it no less unexpectedly. At the time of the tournament, the ratings of Carlsen and Kamsky were equal – 2714 each, but if Gata was to aggressively win the competition, then her young rival from Norway was terribly exhausted from the fight for the cup and at some point simply . .. fell asleep on the table during the game! The outcome of the battle was predictable.
Gata Kamsky (United States) – Magnus Carlsen (Norway)
World Cup – 2007. Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia
23…Rd8? Black is bad, but he could still play 23…Ne7 24.e6 (24.Nxc7 Rc8) 24…Rxe6 25.Rxe6 fxe6 26.Nxc7 Rc8 27.Nxe6 Rc2 with minimal chances of salvation.
24.Nf4 Rh6 25.g5 – the tower is captured, and soon Magnus surrendered.
The Norwegian remembered this terrible defeat for a long time. Having broken the bar of 2800 for 2009 and entering the Candidates tournaments according to the ranking, Carlsen ignored the World Cups of 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015, the first two deliberately, the next two, already from the height of the throne of championship. . Furthermore, the Norwegian publicly stated that fighting in chess has nothing to do with identifying the strongest, he has a great element of chance, which is why he even managed to change the FIDE Candidates matches to the Candidates Tournament. . Without any knockouts and in a free-for-all system, each with each!
Returned. and lost
In light of Magnus’ special “love” for knockout tournaments, the news that the Norwegian will participate in a knockout tournament in Tbilisi in 2017 came as a big surprise to everyone. Apparently having lowered his rating to almost 2800 after a sky-high 2882 and having mixed feelings after the toughest match against Sergey Karjakin in 2016, Carlsen decided whether or not he was. However, the blow of fate awaited him again, moreover, in the third round.
Magnus Carlsen (Norway) – Bu Xiangzhi (China)
World Cup – 2017. Tbilisi, Georgia
Far from the strongest of the Chinese grandmasters, but a strong “seven hundred” player and a player of the national team was not afraid of the favorite and sacrificed a piece to him. And it hits the mark! Magnus did not expect this twist and did not understand the complications.
21.С:d5? After 21.Re2! Rxe2 22.Qxe2 Rf6 23.Bxd5 cxd5 24.Nh2 Rg6+ 25.Kh1 White defended, and after the exchange on d5 the queen on d1 is no longer protected.
21…c:d5 22.Re3 No 22.Re2 Qg4+! 23.Kf2 g5but the other move of the rook is no better.
22…Rxe3 23.Bxe3 g5! 24.Kf2 Does not save 24.fxg5 f4 25.Qc2+ Rf5 26.Bc1 f3however, even here after 24…g:f4 Bu Xiangchi’s attack reached its target.
Last try – and again failure!
Frustrated, Carlsen missed the 2019 tournament: in 2018-2020, the champion went on a unique unbeaten streak of 125 games, which could easily be interrupted if he enters the World Cup. And in 2021, Magnus nevertheless decided to deal with the tournament that didn’t come his way! Until the semifinals in Sochi, everything was going well, but suddenly the Norwegian went bad with white against future tournament winner Jan-Krzysztof Duda.
Magnus Carlsen (Norway) – Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland)
World Cup 2021. Sochi, Russia
Magnus managed to get out of trouble, and 62.Bd4 Bc7 (62… Bd2? 63.Kb6) 63.Bc3 guaranteed a draw, but then the incomprehensible
62.Bc1?? Bc3! Why did the white bishop ruff black?
63.b6 d4 64.Rc4 Kd7 65.Be3 – the king cannot advance 65.Kd5 d3
65…Bb2 66.Bxd4 Bxa3 67.Be3 Bb2 68.Kb4 a3 – soon Duda coldly collected all the weak white pawns and advanced to the final, leaving Magnus behind.
Will Carlsen win the World Cup?
Most of the time, at the World Cups, Magnus Carlsen was not inferior to the main favorites or his direct competitors, but simply to strong, simulated, but not stellar practices, which, most likely, he simply underestimated. In the same Sochi, after losing to Duda, the Norwegian literally smashed Vladimir Fedoseev in the match for third place, but it was too late.
Of course, Carlsen is now the favorite in Baku, and even Caruana shouldn’t be able to resist his power if Magnus plays his entire team. But won’t the world ranking list leader stumble upon other young, still underrated players of the lucky four?
