| May-01-06 | | euripides: Carlsen generated powerful piece activity from move 27-45 and seemed to be winning. van Wely's knight got stalemated twice (moves 39 and 42) and he had to shed his queen's side pawns to save it. If 45...Rxc7 White can play 46 f3+ Kf5 47 Rb1 and if 47...Ra7 he has 48 Rb4 ! (not 48 Nb2/6 Rb7) and with pawns on one side, once the knight is safe, Black may not have enough to win. So Carlsen goes in for an elaborate bishop sacrifice, which comes very close to winning. It will be interesting to see whether he missed a clear win at some stage. |
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| May-01-06 | | Jim Bartle: Fascinating game, great stuff. Hard to argue with calling it a draw in the final position... |
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| May-01-06 | | Confuse: wow carlsen really pushed mr. wely here. very close game, and i thought that pond wouldnt make it to the end! gg |
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| May-01-06 | | MoonlitKnight: If 85.Kh7?? then Kf7 wins. Actually my friend Odin B. Vea had exactly the same position in one of his games in Oslo Open this easter. The funny thing is that Magnus Carlsen and I were watching as he played it out until the bitter end, and we were both laughing at it. Now Magnus did the same thing himself! :-) |
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| May-01-06 | | acirce: <If 45...Rxc7 White can play 46 f3+ Kf5 47 Rb1 and if 47...Ra7 he has 48 Rb4 ! (not 48 Nb2/6 Rb7) and with pawns on one side, once the knight is safe, Black may not have enough to win.> Better is 47..Rc2+ 48.Kh3 Rf2 49.Rb3 f6 (threatening ..g5 etc, hxg5 fxg5 with the same thing) and White has no good reply. So that's at least one clear win. I wonder if Carlsen thought 45..e4?! would win flashier and quicker but simply missed 49.Kg1. Instead of 55..f4, 55..Rc2+ 56.Kh3 e2 was suggested, but I figure White can simply give away his knight (!): 57.Rg3+ Ke4 58.Re3+ Kxd5 59.Re8 
click for larger viewI wonder if Black can win this curious position. With king cut off, I doubt it even though he's up two pawns. 59..f4 60.Rxe2! Marching the king to d1 is too slow, 59..Kd4 60.Kg3 Kd3 61.Kf3. He can play 59..Rc3+ 60.Kh2 (60.Kg2?? f4!) 60..Rc4 61.Rxe2 Rxh4+ 62.Kg3 but only to reach what I think is a theoretically drawn R+f+h vs R endgame. And after 58.Nxe3 I think it should be a draw with best play. Very well defended by van Wely in any case. Surely 28.Rc1? was a slip though. Maybe he had thought 31.Rd1 was possible on 30..Nd2. |
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| May-01-06 | | euripides: <I wonder if Carlsen thought 45..e4?! would win flashier and quicker but simply missed 49.Kg1.> actually, I wondered exactly the same thing when kibitzing during the game. Then I saw 48 Rb4 and thought Carlsen probably had a deep reason for his play :-) Glad to hear there was a win after Rxc7. |
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| May-01-06 | | Montreal1666: <Better is 47..Rc2+ 48.Kh3> There is a mistake here. 47)...Rc2 is not a check. And 48)Kh3 is not possible. |
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| May-01-06 | | euripides: <montreal> the line is <45...Rxc7 46 f3+ Kf5 47 Rb1> Rc2+. |
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| May-01-06 | | euripides: After <45...Rxc7 46 f3+ Kf5 47 Rb1 Rc2+> White might try 48 Kh1. It looks awful but I haven't seen a forced win. But Black also has <45...Rxc7 46 f3+ Kf5 47 Rb1> Rc4 48 Nb6 Rc2+ 49 Kh1/3 Rf2 and White can choose between 50 f4, when both e4 and exf4 look excellent for Black, 50 Rb3 Bxb6 51 Rxb6 Rxf3, and 50 Nd5 Rxf3 - all of which look good for Black. Anyway the position after 45...Rxc7 looks extremely bad for White. |
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| May-01-06 | | Montreal1666: <euripides> Ok, Thanks |
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| May-02-06 | | Idling: i can't understand why it ended in a draw. were they running out of time? |
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| May-02-06 | | TheBB: Well, it ended in a draw because the final position is king vs king... |
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May-02-06
 | | WannaBe: They both should have realized it was drawn long before... surprised they actually played out to K vs. K ending. |
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| May-02-06 | | aw1988: Inertia. |
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May-02-06
 | | tamar: 85 Kh7 would actually have been a clever trick had Van Wely thought of it. If Magnus plays 85...Kf7 
click for larger view Qe5 wins |
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| Nov-17-21 | | Messiah: I don't get the pun - is it good? |
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Nov-17-21
 | | al wazir: <Messiah: I don't get the pun - is it good?> No, as usual (sigh). If the game had been played in Casablanca it would be semi-clever. But it wasn't. |
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Nov-17-21
 | | Teyss: <Messiah> I think it is. Loek is pronounced "Look" in Dutch, Black's King is very active, then Wely's saves the day and Carlsen was 16. Now, if it had been played in Casablanca as suggested by <al wazir> or if the opening had been a KID it would have been sublime.
That out of the way, let's loek at the game. |
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| Nov-17-21 | | Morphy number 4: I think they used to call him "King Loek" in the Netherlands, hence the pun. |
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| Nov-17-21 | | Granny O Doul: It would work ok were the colors reversed, since Black's king was the one attacking. |
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| Nov-17-21 | | Cheapo by the Dozen: In defense of the pun:
A lot of time did go by. |
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| Nov-17-21 | | Cheapo by the Dozen: Trivia: Supposedly "Here's looking at you, kid" was either an ad lib or close to it, having started as something Bogart said to Bergman during poker games. |
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| Dec-28-23 | | SkySports: Van Wely comments this game in the last 10 minutes of this video: https://www.chess.com/lessons/loeks... |
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Kibitzing
