Magnus Carlsen has won the 4th London Chess Classic. This victory was secured before his draw with Vishy Anand, as Kramnik was unable to make anything of his position against Mickey Adams. Round 9 saw surprisingly insipid play from the former World Champion, who essayed a line of his favourite Berlin Defence that left Black without any aggressive options. A draw was agreed on move 38.
Carlsen might have been doing fairly poorly against Vishy Anand out of the opening (Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik had differing perspectives), but the Norwegian managed to turn the tables on his opponent after 28…c5. Despite being a pawn up for much of the middlegame he was unable to obtain a serious advantage, and a draw was eventually agreed after a perpetual. Nakamura – McShane capped off a frustrating tournament for the UK number one. Despite having some problems in the opening, he came up with an interesting exchange sacrifice that compelled the commentary room to suggest that he could play for a win. Unfortunately he simply blundered a piece on move 32, and had to resign. Polgar – Aronian was an uninspiring draw; Aronian’s Marshall led to mass exchanges and a theoretically drawn rook and pawn ending soon followed.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Nakamura was so close to winning this one. Carlsen is lucky to pull this out.