Magnus Carlsen conquers Casablanca Chess 2024
Fischer Random/Freestyle Chess - Won. Casablanca Chess - Conquered. Magnus Carlsen is synonymous with winning chess tournaments. Be it in any format - Classical, Rapid or Blitz, or the ultimate chess tournament - FIDE World Cup, as it has all three formats. Now, Carlsen is winning variants too. "Anything that has to do with chess, I usually want to be reckoned with", said the World no.1. It is clear that the world's best played player only distanced himself from the Classical format but certainly not from chess. He scored an unbeaten 4.5/6 to win Casablanca Chess 2024. Hikaru Nakamura finished second 3.5/6, followed by Vishy Anand 3/6 and Bassem Amin 1/6. Magnus will be seen in action next at Norway Chess 2024, starting in less than a week. Photo: Sagar Shah
"Anything that has to do with chess, I usually want to be reckoned with"
"I feel like I played reasonably well with one exception. I sort of lost control against Bassem and that could have gone either way like I did not play well in a phase there but I am happy with the way I played the last game. I think I played quite dynamically. Obviously, towards the end if I needed to win the game I could have pressed harder and you know done what the position required there - was to go for the attack and not to play safe and try to make a draw. Of course, it's a strange situation to be in before the last game that I have a one point lead. I end up playing white but I know the position is going to be very unclear. It doesn't really matter that much but I am happy." - Magnus Carlsen on his play after winning Casablanca Chess 2024.
The position voted by the fans for Round 4 was a game between Aleksander Alekhine and Max Euwe from World Championship 1935, Game 3. The game had to be played after 8...c5. Let's take a look at the starting position:
Round 4
Bassem - Nakamura
In the above complex double rook and knight endgame, White played the obvious 30.Re2? which is losing after Rxa3 31.Ng5+ Kf6 32.h4 exf4 33.gxf4 h6 34.Rf7+ Kg6 35.h5+ Kxh5 and Black won the game in the next few moves. What White needed to do was 30.Ng5+ Kf6 31.h3 Rd2+ 32.Kg1 Nf2 33.Nxh7+ Kg6 34.Nf8+ Kh5 35.Rh7+ Rh6 36.g4+ fxg4 37.hxg4+ Nxg4 38.Rxh6+ Nxh6 39.fxe5 and White is out of the woods.
In the fifth round, fans voted for a position from the game between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov from World Championship 1987, Game 24. The game had to be continued after 8...Nbd7. Let's take a look at the starting position:
Round 5
Magnus Carlsen (NOR) defeated Bassem Amin (EGY) after the latter made a series of inaccuracies and missed all his opportunities to make a comeback.
The final round position was from once again from the Women's World Championship match between Xie Jun and Alisa Galliamova 1999. The game had to be played after 14...f5. Let's take a look at the starting position:
Round 6
Anand - Bassem
23...Qf2?? is a blunder. Find out the winning continuation for White which Anand played.
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Time control
The time control is 15 minutes with a 10-second increment. No draw offers will be permitted.
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