Carlsen Cruise Control
Chess Talk w/ Aronian
The ICC Network
ICC RSS Feed

Carlsen Cruise Control

The recent candidates matches was certainly all the poorer without Magnus Carlsen - but the young Norwegian is back to what he does best of all by winning games, and at the midway point of the Kings Tournament, he not only leads the field but has also reclaimed the top spot on the live rating list.

Carlsen, who has been in cruise control throughout the tournament outplayed local hero Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu in round five to move to a +2 unbeaten score of 3.5/5 to establish a half point lead from his nearest rival. And the almost 2900 performance so far from Carlsen has yet again seen him replace world champion Vishy Anand at the top of the unofficiallive rating list.

Not far behind Carlsen though is Sergey Karjakin, who in round 5 hit Vassily Ivanchuk with a true bolt out of the blue with his spectacular sacrifice of 16...Bxh3!! - a game expertly annotated below by GM Alex Yermolinsky in his easy choice for Game of the Day for the round. And not to be ruled out in sole third place is Hikaru Nakamura, who again has added more points to his live ratings standings.

Carlsen, Karjakin and Nakamura look likely to be potential world championship rivals into the future - but for now, the trio look set to give us a portent of things to come with an exciting second half in prospect. Carlsen and Nakamura have already qualified for the Grand Slam Final later in the year in Bilbao/Sao Paulo - but can Karjakin join them?

ICC will have live commentary coverage on Chess.FM of the second half for you to find out, starting on Friday, 17 June at 8:30am ICC Server Time with our commentary team of GMs Joel Benjamin and Robert Hess. We will also have a GOTD service and the New in Chess trivia contest, where each round ICC members can win a 1-year subscription to New in Chess magazine and also ICC membership extensions of 1 and 3 months.

So now is a good time as any to join ICC for all the member benefits byclicking here.

Game of the Day

Rd	Date	Commentator	Game	WATCH	FREE
5	Wed, 15 June	GM Alex Yermolinsky	GM Vassily Ivanchuk GM Sergey Karjakin
4	Tue, 14 June	GM Larry Christiansen	GM Hikaru Nakamura GM Vassily Ivanchuk
3	Mon, 13 June	GM Larry Christiansen	GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu GM Vassily Ivanchuk
2	Sun, 12 June	GM Jon Ludvig Hammer	GM Hikaru Nakamura GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu
1	Sat, 11 June	GM Jon Ludvig Hammer	GM Vassily Ivanchuk GM Teimour Radjabov

Standings

N	Name	FED	FIDE	1		2		3		4		5		6		PTS	TPR
1	Carlsen, Magnus	NOR	2815	.		½	.	1	.	½	.	½	.	1	.	3½	2894
2	Karjakin, Sergey	RUS	2776	½	.	.		½	.	½	.	1	.	½	.	3	2825
3	Nakamura, Hikaru	USA	2774	0	.	½	.	.		½	.	½	.	1	.	2½	2754
4	Radjabov, Teimour	AZE	2744	½	.	½	.	½	.	.		0	.	½	.	2	2688
5	Ivanchuk, Vassily	UKR	2776	½	.	0	.	½	.	1	.	.		0	.	2	2681
6	Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter	ROU	2659	0	.	½	.	0	.	½	.	1	.	.		2	2705

Schedule

Rd	Date	HOST	Analyst
5	06/16	Rest day
6	06/17	GM Joel Benjamin	GM Robert Hess
7	06/18	GM Ronen Har-Zvi	tba
8	06/19	GM Ronen Har-Zvi	GM Alex Yermolinsky
-	06/20	GM Joel Benjamin	tba
9	06/21	Mig	GM Jan Gustafsson

Chess Talk on ICC

Janis Nisii
test

Levon Aronian



GM Levon Aronian	part 2	FREE PREVIEW	\|	Full show (Members-Only)
GM Levon Aronian	part 1	FREE PREVIEW	\|	Full show (Members-Only)

Replacing IM John Watson for now as guest host of Chess Talk will be international chess journalist Janis Nisii (Janis on ICC). Janis lives and works in Italy and has reported on several major elite tournaments for magazines such as New In Chess, Chess (UK), 64 (Russia), Europe Echecs (France), Jaque (Spain), Schach (Germany) and Torre & Cavallo (Italy).

This month her very special guest in a two-part Chess Talk special needs no introduction, as it is world No.3 and recent candidate Levon Aronian. Levon Aronian has led tiny chess mad Armenia to two Olympiad Golds in 2006 and 2008 and his most recent victory was winning the final Amber Tournament in Monte Carlo. A free 10 minute preview of the show is available for non-members above. To listen to the Levon Aronian two-part interview in full, join ICC today by clicking here.

The ICC Network

Like ICC!

ICC has now revamped its Facebook page - and we've had a great response from members and non-members looking to take part in the activities there, where we'll shortly be offering prizes and special membership offers.

On offer will be free Chess.FM video content and ICC membership extensions - and for non-members who have enjoyed in the past free ICC trials that have expired, look to our Facebook page for exclusive extra free trial times! We'll also have all the latest ICC news and tournament results as well as some fun caption competitions. And all coming soon as we continually update our Facebook page!

Go to Facebook now and click on our "like" button now - and what's not to be liked about ICC!

ICC RSS Feed

ICC has also made its Newsletter service available now on an RSS feed for you to get all the latest news on ICC online activities - get it now to keep in touch with ICC!

Subscribe to this feed