Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Mistakes GM-Size

The Altibox Norway Chess Tournament is a closed super tournament held in Norway every year in the time period of May to June. The best world chess players take place.

The format consists of a Round-Robin with a pool of 10 players playing classical chess.

But in order to create more excitement for spectators and put more pressure on the players, organizers introduced a new format in the 2019 edition which mixed classical and blitz.

In that edition, if players drew in regular games, then they played an Armageddon game, having the same colour as in the classical game. If Black, with less time on the clock, holds a draw, he wins this Armageddon. Time control for regular games was 2 hours plus 10-second increment only after move 40.

In round 9 Fabiano Caruana played an exciting classical game against Magnus Carlsen.

The following diagram shows what appeared on the board after Caruana’s 49.Re1. Both players were suffering time trouble in a complicated position. Carlsen had 2:43 on his clock while Caruana had 6:46

Such conditions are good opportunities for mistakes and in fact, both players made them.

Both players made inaccuracies under time pressure, although to be honest, to find the best moves was a hard task, even for GMs.

Stay safe and check regularly the website World Health Organization for updates about COVID-19.