Watch Norway Chess 2022 #Day 1 Carlsen, Magnus - Wang, Hao 1/2-1/2

Watch Norway Chess 2022 #Day 1 Carlsen, Magnus - Wang, Hao 1/2-1/2

After Monday's fun and exciting blitz tournament, the real play started in this year's edition of Norway Chess on Tuesday.

With victories with the white pieces, GMs Viswanathan Anand and Wesley So won their respective games against GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Teimour Radjabov. The other games ended in draws, thus leaving Anand and So in the lead after the first round.

Let's introduce the ground rules for the tournament because, while it is a classical tournament, it also has a bunch of peculiar nuances.

The tournament is a round-robin event with armageddon.
1.Each player will have 120 minutes on the clock with an increment of 10 seconds after move 40.
2.If there is a draw in the classical game, then the players will move on to armageddon within 20 minutes after the draw.
3.White pieces will continue with White in Armageddon (with this, there will be a winner in each game because the black pieces will win if the game ends in a draw).
4.White has 10 minutes and black has 7 minutes with an increment of one second per move, starting from move 41.
5.Players will get the following points per round. Victory in the main game: three points, loss in the main game: zero points, draw in the main game and victory in the armageddon: one and a half points, and a draw in the main game and loss in the armageddon: one point.
Chess.com -reference
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get pgn file from link below
https://www.chess.com/news/view/2022-norway-chess-day-1

Carlsen-Wang Hao

It seemed the players were in agreement to quickly depart from mainstream opening theory when they went for 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 Nd7, although this particular setup has become quite common in the last few years.

GM Magnus Carlsen navigated the unusual opening rather better than GM Wang Hao and gained a solid advantage. However, a couple of imprecise moves by White and excellent defensive play by Black saw White's advantage vanish into clear, clean, and crisp Stavanger air.

In the armageddon game, Carlsen opted for the Catalan Opening, a weapon that has served him exceptionally well since the world championship match last year against GM Ian Nepomniachtchi.

The players followed one of Carlsen's online games against Nepomniachtchi, and the computer claimed that Black had equalized. Butr Black's position is strategically more complex to play, leaving White with some initiative.

This initiative eventually grew into something more tangible, and with Wang running increasingly more hopelessly into time trouble, the advantage grew. However, Carlsen, with much more time on his clock, played less than accurately, possibly in an attempt to confuse Wang. While it did not pay off initially, Carlsen received the reward just before Wang would start receiving the increment, allowing White a simple path to a won endgame.

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Regards
Systematic chess