LCC R4: Carlsen and Aronian both win in style 04.12.2012– It was a fitting way of finally overtaking Garry Kasparov's record, as Magnus Carlsen and Gawain Jones played a wild game. Jones sacrificed his queen for play, but Carlsen held fast and is now at 2857.4. Levon Aronian scored the next win, over Luke McShane in a thrilling endgame as he fought past four connected passed pawns. Illustrated report with realtime postgame analysis.
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The 2012 London Chess Classic is taking place in the Olympia
Conference Centre from Saturday, December 1st until Monday, December 10th.
Games start each day in general at 14:00h London time, except for round four
(16:00h) and the final round (12:00h). Time controls are classical forty moves
in two hours, then twenty moves in one hour and thirty minutes for the rest
of the game. A win is counted as three points, a draw as one, and a loss zero.
Tiebreaks: 1) number of wins, 2) number of wins with black, 3) result of the
individual game between the tied players. In the unlikely event that there is
still a tie then: 4) 2 x 15'+2" games, and if necessary 5) Armageddon game:
6'+2" vs 5'+2" with draw odds for black. If there is a tie involving
more than two players then the Rapid games will be conducted as a double round
all play all.
Round four
By Alejandro Ramirez
Round 4:
Tuesday, Dec. 4th, 2012, 16:00h
Hikaru Nakamura
½-½
Michael Adams
Magnus Carlsen
1-0
Gawain Jones
Vishy Anand
½-½
Vladimir Kramnik
Luke McShane
0-1
Levon Aronian
Judit Polgar (bye) – assisting
commentary
In another incredibly entertaining round, we had some of the craziest material
imbalances seen at top level chess! Nothing creates excitement over the
board like material imbalance.
A young fan was given the honor of playing the first move, and played 1.d4
for Magnus.
Carlsen then retracted the move before starting and chose 1.e4 instead.
Carlsen-Jones 1-0: In a Maroczy bind structure, things got
interesting when Jones sacrificed a queen for a knight and a bishop and positional
compensation. However, with very accurate play and some seemingly awkward
moves, Carlsen slowly but surely got himself out of the bind and the ensuing
material advantage was just too much.
It was a thrilling game he played against Gawain Jones, a fitting stepping
stone into
history as he established the highest Live Rating as well, beating Kasparov's
unpublished
record.
Records are meant to be broken, and Magnus Carlsen has now reached a Live
Rating
of 2857.4
Gawain Jones played fearlessly, sacrificing his queen for active play, a
choice that
Carlsen acknowledged he took as a serious move, and by no means dismissed it.
Nakamura-Adams ½-½: Nakamura tried and tried
and tried to push an unpushable position. Despite having the pair of bishops,
it was simply not sufficient and Adams held a draw.
A similar story for Hikaru Nakamura as he watched his young fan open with
1.e4, but
he too then decided 1.d4 was going to be his choice.
Anand-Kramnik½-½: Definitely
the low point of the round. Kramnik neutralized Anand who goes 17 straight
classical games without victory and was forced to agree to a boring draw.
McShane-Aronian 1-0: This game saw an incredibly complex material
balance. In a fantastic endgame White had a Rook and Knight and four(!) passed
pawns against Black’s Queen and Bishop. However, there were also a-pawns
for both players, and after Aronian won his opponent’s he had the edge
with his now passed a-pawn. Although it looked scary for both sides, at the
very end Black’s two queens proved to be too much for White’s pieces
and some cool maneuvering led directly to checkmate. Awesome game!
By far the longest game of the round, this game had the audience at the
edge until
the end. Aronian had a nice advantage, but no end of technical difficulties
to solve, as
the Englishman pushed his four passed pawns forward.
Magnus Carlsen analysing on Playchess immediately after his game against...
... British GM Gawain Jones
Daniel King: Highlights of round four
Andrew Martin: Game of the Day
Replay all the games of the round
Standings (London scoring)
Standings (traditional scoring)
Pictures by Pascal Simon and Jeroen van den Belt for ChessBase
Live video coverage and commentary
The on-demand video coverage with commentary can be seen here
Pairings and results
Round
1: Saturday, Dec. 1st, 2012, 14:00h
Luke McShane
0-1
Magnus Carlsen
Levon Aronian
0-1
Hikaru Nakamura
Vladimir Kramnik
1-0
Judit Polgar
Gawain Jones
0-1
Michael Adams
Vishy Anand (bye) – assisting
commentary
Round
2: Sunday, Dec. 2nd, 2012, 14:00h
Judit Polgar
½-½
Gawain Jones
Hikaru Nakamura
0-1
Vladimir Kramnik
Magnus Carlsen
1-0
Levon Aronian
Vishy Anand
½-½
Luke McShane
Michael Adams (bye) –
assisting commentary
Round
3: Monday, Dec. 3rd, 2012, 14:00h
Levon Aronian
½-½
Vishy Anand
Vladimir Kramnik
½-½
Magnus Carlsen
Gawain Jones
½-½
Hikaru Nakamura
Michael Adams
1-0
Judit Polgar
Luke McShane (bye) – assisting
commentary
Round
4: Tuesday, Dec. 4th, 2012, 16:00h
Hikaru Nakamura
½-½
Michael Adams
Magnus Carlsen
1-0
Gawain Jones
Vishy Anand
½-½
Vladimir Kramnik
Luke McShane
0-1
Levon Aronian
Judit Polgar (bye) – assisting
commentary
Wednesday,
Dec. 5th, 2012Rest day
Round
5: Thursday, Dec. 6th, 2012, 14:00h
Vladimir Kramnik
Luke McShane
Gawain Jones
Vishy Anand
Michael Adams
Magnus Carlsen
Judit Polgar
Hikaru Nakamura
Levon Aronian (bye) –
assisting commentary
Round
6: Friday, Dec. 7th, 2012, 14:00h
Magnus Carlsen
Judit Polgar
Vishy Anand
Michael Adams
Luke McShane
Gawain Jones
Levon Aronian
Vladimir Kramnik
Hikaru Nakamura (bye) –
assisting commentary
Round
7: Saturday, Dec. 8th, 2012, 14:00h
Gawain Jones
Levon Aronian
Michael Adams
Luke McShane
Judit Polgar
Vishy Anand
Hikaru Nakamura
Magnus Carlsen
Vladimir Kramnik (bye) –
assisting commentary
Round
8: Sunday, Dec. 9th, 2012, 14:00h
Vishy Anand
Hikaru Nakamura
Luke McShane
Judit Polgar
Levon Aronian
Michael Adams
Vladimir Kramnik
Gawain Jones
Magnus Carlsen (bye) –
assisting commentary
Round
9: Monday, Dec. 10th, 2012, 13:00h
Michael Adams
Vladimir Kramnik
Judit Polgar
Levon Aronian
Hikaru Nakamura
Luke McShane
Magnus Carlsen
Vishy Anand
Gawain Jones (bye) – assisting
commentary
The games – except for rounds four and nine – start at 2 p.m.
or 14:00h British time = 15:00h CET, 17:00h Moscow, 7:30 p.m. Chennai, 22:00h
Beijing, 01:00 a.m. Melbourne, 03:00 a.m. Auckland, 6 a.m. San José,
9 a.m. New York. You can check your location here.
Naturally the games will be covered live on the official web site (below) and
on Playchess. The games of round four begin two hours later, those of the final
round two hours earlier.
The games will be broadcast live on the official
web site and on the chess server Playchess.com.
If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client and get
immediate access. Or you can get our latest Fritz
13 program, which includes six months free premium membership to Playchess.