082. Disreputable Magnus

White: The_Thinker95 - friendly game, ChessWorld.net, 2023

I see it's been getting on a year since I last posted here. That's because I've been feeling fed up with chess. That's meant I've not wanted to play league games. I've still had to play but, because I didn't want to, I played quite badly and, because I played badly, I've kept blundering, which has meant I've wanted to play even less. Sigh.

Here's an example. Suspecting preparation (rightly), I deviated from my complicated book line (14...Rf8) in favour of the simpler 14...0-0-0! (the idea of CCIM Nikolaos Ntirlis, and recently endorsed by IM Robert Ris), was rewarded with a winning move (20...Nc3!), which I missed, reached a winning position anyway, only to surrender it (23...Bf3??) for a forced mate that wasn't (25 Rg7!), and then was just a piece down. Sigh.

That was in the Ulvestad Variation by the way, which is where the post title comes in. The 16th World Champion and prime candidate GOAT, GM Magnus Carlsen, has just played a game with 5...b5. (My thanks to GM Ferdinand Hellers for the heads up.) Okay, Magnus had played it at least twice before, but there (after 6 Bf1) he went for 6...h6 and 6...Nd4, which are now both known to be dodgy. On this occasion he was ready with the correct (!) 6...Nxd5 (which I first wrote about in 2019).

The result: GM Dommaraju Gukesh (surprise winner of the 2024 Candidates tournament) spent the entire game defending as White and eventually went wrong (27 Nf3??), only for Magnus uncharacteristically to miss his chance (30...Bd3+ 31 Ke1 Qb6) and have to concede a draw. Sigh.

Those games were both in the 8 d4 exd4 9 0-0 Be7 main line by the way. The one below (against a friendly occasional sparring partner on ChessWorld.net) was with 8 d3 Be7 9 Nf3 f6!? (Ris prefers 9...0-0 here). I'd played it all before up to move 18 (where my then opponent overstepped the time limit) and had continued up to 22...Rxe4 in my book,

where I wrote “and Black should be okay, having regained the pawn.” I was duly okay, but it's always nice to play things out.

As for the Ulvestad, I guess it's watch this space. Thanks to Magnus, the variation should now be getting some serious scrutiny. Or perhaps I should say: it's all Magnus' fault.