After 3...d5! Black may have little trouble gaining equality.

5...Bb4 transposes into a Nimzoindian defence. Instead of this 5...d5 may be adequate but 5...c5! which transposes into the famous game Bogoljubov vs Botvinnik, 1936 may be better still.

9 Ne1 frees White's f pawn. This suggests 9...f5 so that on 10 f3 Nf6 will not obstruct Black's f pawn. One alternative to this is 9...Qh4 10 f3 Ng5.

After 10...Nf6 Black's knight has lost two moves which is to say that White has gained two moves. How valuable is this time? One answer - or one part of an answer - is that if both players continue to develop, a few moves from now a single tempo may decide whether an attack succeeds barely and wins or fails barely and loses.

Instead of 11...Ne8, 11...Nc6 seems necessary if we assume that d5 has now become possible for White. 11...Ne8 does not answer the threat.

12 d5! makes use of one valuable tempo. If Black's queen's knight were at c6 at this point, it could go to a5 in order to attack White's c4 pawn. Moreover if Black can't play ...Na5 that means that his queen's bishop will be out of play as well.

After 12...d6 White has a very dangerous threat although it will be carried out gradually and not suddenly: White threatens to throw his pawns forward and overwhelm Black.

Moreover Carlsen excels in the prosecution of gradual attacks, as Lasker might have done, as Carlsen has shown more than once.

Black needs to find an answer to the threat if he can. One answer is to play 13...f5 without delay, before White can prevent this move.

After 14 Ne3 White has already prevented ...f5 for the moment. Now White will advance gradually his pawns and pieces and overwhelm Black if Black does not find an answer to the threat.

The sequel to the choice of 18 exd5!! suggests that it opens the e file but in return it avoids freeing Black's c pawn or Black's queen's bishop or giving Black a target on e4.

Instead of 19...Nf8 at once, 19...Kh8 clears the square g8 for the N on f6

At the end Black has still not managed to free his queen's bishop.

< 9...c5 ?! > ..f5 is normal, to restrain white's center expansion, which of course ..c5 does not do.

see the Opening Explorer

<EhsanBalani: Bangladesh's fifth GM looks like a patzer against MC!>

A critical mistake on black's ninth provides a nice lesson on center restraint or the lack thereof. After..

< 18.ed5 > black's Qside pawns are fixed, and white is completely free to begin expansion on the K side! Black thereafter does a lot of back-peddling.

< 22. ..Bc8 > Now, if only black had time for Qb7-a8 and Nb8 he would have ALL his pieces on the back rank. What a novel defense! < NOT > LOL

< 31.f6! > Better than Bxe5, which increases black's resistence on the kingside.

If Carlsen wanted to showboat with his first move, a better choice would be something like 1.g4 or 1.b4. Unlike those moves 1.e3 doesn't have much of an independent character. It's just a quiet path to some other opening destination.

It's interesting to see who has made use of 1.e3 in the past. It seems to be split up among "I'll play anything" types like Blackburne and Tartakower, what Kasparov calls "left-handed" masters like Nimzowitsch and Elijah Williams, and positional endgame specialists like Eliskases. Of course those categories overlap, and I think Carlsen fits into all three to varying degrees.