the state of chess nowadays

What are y'alls thoughts on the final position in the Leko-Anand game? The reason I'm asking is I don't ever play Sicilian positions for either color and am hoping to learn something by talking through this stuff.

For some reason chessvideos.tv isn't working for me right now so I can't post the diagram, but the game can be found here on this Chessbase link.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8795

A line I've seen suggested in the final position, which makes sense, is 25...Qe3 26.Re4 Rxe4 27.fxe4 Qxd2 28.Rxd2. So what are y'alls thoughts here?

After the queen trade in the line above, is there much dynamic potential left? It looks like black can play 28...Nf4 and it looks tough to make progress for either side, just not a lot of weaknesses or pieces left on the board.

Of course black doesn't have to trade everything with 25...Qe3, there are probably other options. What do y'all think?

i would have accepted a draw offer from Leko too in that position.

The more I look at it, the more I agree with this. I don't feel too good about black's winning chances there. I don't think black has any kind of an advantage either, or really much chance for one.

I can understand that but I somehow doubt he would have offered it to you in that position.

I might go further and suggest that White has a very slight but probably unexploitable edge given the relative status of the opposite coloured bishops.

I'm also not sure what other lines black has other than Qe3. Moving anywhere else seems to leave the N hanging

Posting this after 25...Qxe5 in Carlsen-L'Ami

Magnus seems to have a really nice position. Two bishops, open board, weak black pawn on c6 (not currently weak, but will be tough to defend in the endgame); I can't imagine not converting this, especially given how well he's been playing lately.

Caruana-Nakamura looks interesting. After move 21, we have a highly imbalanced position. I'll be curious to see what happens here.

It's so pleasant watching Carlsen play. He does such an incredible job of just making his pieces coordinate so naturally and cleanly.

In Aronian-Wang 20. Bf3!? is such an awesome looking move especially in conjunction with Bh5. It's an idea I probably would never consider. I wonder how strong it really is. Given Wang's play it looks like it deserves a !!

Agree completely about 20.Bf3 and the following plan. When I look at the position after move 19, effectively targeting the f7 pawn is about 993rd on the list of ideas I'd consider in the position. Really impressive idea.

So impressed by Carlsen every game

Carlsen wins again. It's amazing how well he's playing right now.

Nakamura had a nice win against Caruana. I'll try to find a diagram of his nice tactical shot.

Here is the position after 54.Kc2 in Caruana-Nakamura. Black to play and win. Answer is in the spoiler.

I was taking occasional peeks at the games and was wondering what the hell happened to Caruana's position around here, that explains

Carlsen has gotten himself into an absolutely horrific position in 12 moves against Wang. He's draining time trying to work out of it while Wang has more time than he started with.

I'm curious to see he if can pull a Houdini here. Given he seems to have walked into Wang's prep, it's going to be a long rough game.

I'm posting after 18.Na5 and it looks like Magnus has managed to defuse the situation a bit. The isolated c-pawn isn't fun, but it's not on an open file and the opposite colored bishops help his drawing chances. Currently Magnus has 40 mins on the clock and Wang has 67, so hopefully time trouble doesn't become a factor.

I bet Magnus holds this.

Nakamura is busted. Well played game by Aronian.

For the life of me it doesn't really look like Wang tried for a win once he got the better position. He just traded off pieces, hoping that the isolated c-pawn would give white winning chances in the endgame.

In the Nakamura game, it says -3.5? I've never really seen a 4v1 pawn, 1v2 rook endgame. It can't be that bad, can it?

An extra rook is an extra rook...

Anand miscalculated the pawn ending, it seems. The knight ending should have been very favourable for him.

Also, the end of the Naiditsch game (starting at about move 40) is kind of funny. Black can do absolutely nothing, while White just brings over his pieces for the winning sacrifice. This might have been the decisive game for first place in the B group.

I can't believe Carlsen held that game so seemingly easy. He walks into a terrible position from an opponent's prep and hops right on out of it like it's nothing.

Carlsen-Naka is going to be a fun game.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb5 d6 6. g3!?!?!?!?!! h5!?!?!?!?!?!?

OMG Carlsen! He is just on another level

2874 up in here

If I'm not mistaken, in addition to being the highest rated player and tournament winner, Magnus also gained the most rating points of anyone in this tournament. (unless someone who isn't on the 2700chess page gained more)

This could suggest, frighteningly, that in addition to being the strongest player by far, Magnus is also improving at the fastest rate amongst the Super GMs.

How does Carlsen play like that and win wtf?

Is there an easy way to see a summary of Carlsen's performance by player in recent years. I'm curious how much of his dominance is from beating players outside of the top 5, say, compared with, e.g., performance against 2790+ GMs.

"I did score 10.5 in the C Group..."