Carlsen Shows His Class in Brazil
Magnus Carlsen showed his class on the first two days of the “Festa da Uva” chess festival in Caxias do Sul, Brazil. On Thursday the World Champion won a four-player double round robin with five wins and one draw. On Saturday he won the knockout phase, beating Rodriguez Vila 1.5-0.5 in the semi-final and Gilberto Milos 2-0 in the final.
As you know, Magnus Carlsen is in Brazil this week. On Thursday, March 6th in the morning the Norwegian started with a blindfold simul against four visually impaired chess players. He won the match 3.5-0.5, allowing a draw against the Brazilian Champion in Blindfold Chess.
The main event on Thursday and Friday was a a four-player round robin rapid chess tournament with, besides Carlsen, Rafael Leitao (2645, reigning champion of Brazil), Gilberto Milos (2583, 6-times Brazilian Champion) and Andrés Rodríguez Vila (2437, the best player from Uruguay in history). The time control was 16 minutes per game during the first half, and 5 minutes per game during the second.
Let's look at some of Carlsen's games. In the first round he won against Rafael Leitao as Black in a Slav with 4...Bg4. He threw in some nice tactics just after White had played the e3-e4 break:
The games were played in a small glass cabin
Gilberto Milos played an excellent game and held the draw from the black side of a Scotch:
After an easy win against Andres Rodriguez Vila, Carlsen slowly outplayed Leitao in a 2.b3 Sicilian. The final position is hopeless with the a5-pawn also dropping.
In the last two games we saw the endgame skills of the world champ once again:
II “Recreio da Juventude” GM Chess Tournament | Round robin
| # | Name | Rtg | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Pts |
| 1 | Carlsen,Magnus | 2881 |  |
1 3 | 3 3 | 3 3 | 16.0/18 |
| 2 | Milos,Gilberto | 2583 | 1 0 | |
0 3 | 1 3 | 8.0/18 |
| 3 | Rodriguez Vila,Andres | 2437 | 0 0 | 3 0 | |
3 1 | 7.0/18 |
| 4 | Leitao,Rafael | 2645 | 0 0 | 1 0 | 0 1 | |
2.0/18 |
In the semi-finals Carlsen beat Rodriguez Vila 1.5-0.5. The first game was a complete crush and a nice demonstration of how one can meet the Dutch Defense when starting with 1.Nf3.
In the final Carlsen beat Milos twice and again in endings:
On Thursday Carlsen also gave a lecture about his path towards the world title, and on Friday he gave simul at a shopping mall.
On Saturday and Sunday Carlsen participates in a 9-round Swiss rapid event where his biggest rivals are his good friend and travel companion Peter Heine Nielsen (Denmark), Sergey Tiviakov (Netherlands), Rafael Leitao (Brazil), Sam Shankland (USA), Henrique Mecking (Brasil), Neuris Delgado Ramirez (Paraguay), Sandro Mareco (Argentina), Gilberto Milos (Brasil), Ruben Felgaer (Argentina) and Krikor Sevag Mekhitarian (full list here).
Games thanks to TWIC; info thanks to Marcos Bueno.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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