Carlsen wins with...the King's Gambit!

Was Magnus Carlsen inspired to play the King's Gambit, because the event in Medias, Romania is called the 'Kings tournament', or did he want to avoid the Petroff at all costs? In any case, his win, plus two other White wins by Teimour Radjabov and Ruslan Ponomariov, have completely changed the leader-board.

Wang Yue was no doubt surprised by Carlsen's daring opening choice and reacted with a solid albeit slightly passive system. White managed to keep some advantage due to his extra central pawn that eventually became passed. Despite the reputation of the opening Carlsen won a nice controlled positional game.

White	Rating	Country	Result	Black	Rating	Country	No. Moves	Opening
Magnus Carlsen	2813	NOR	1-0	Wang Yue	2752	CHN	54	King's Gambit (Modern defence)
Ruslan Ponomariov	2733	UKR	1-0	Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu	2672	ROU	36	Blumenfeld Gambit
Teimour Radjabov	2740	AZE	1-0	Boris Gelfand	2752	ISR	38	Petroff's defence

The Blumenfeld is another opening that rarely gets played at this level, but Nisipeanu does venture this slightly off-beat opening occasionally.

In the opening Ponomariov declined the gambit and gave up the bishop pair in order to obtain a central space advantage. The complex positions that resulted also led to White obtaining an advanced d-pawn that led, to a significant degree, to Ponomariov's success.

Gelfand played the Petroff as he does so often, but rarely does he come under such a vicious attack as today. Radjabov played a fine combination involving a (temporary) piece sacrifice that left Gelfand's king very exposed. The Israeli survived to an endgame, but a losing one.

Radjabov dealt Gelfand's Petroff a mortal blow @ Chessbase.com

Wang Yue has now been left behind with the other five players within half-a-point of each other.

Position	Name	Country	Rating	Pre-tournament rating change	World Ranking	points
1st-2nd	Magnus Carlsen	NOR	2813	-	1	2.5
1st-2nd	Teimour Radjabov	AZE	2740	-	13	2.5
3rd-5th	Boris Gelfand	ISR	2741	-9	11	2
3rd-5th	Ruslan Ponomariov	UKR	2733	-4	18	2
3rd-5th	Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu	ROU	2672	+11	59	2
6th	Wang Yue	CHN	2752	+3	8	1

Two wins in a row by Radjabov have catapulted him up the table into equal first with Magnus Carlsen.

The subsequent rounds can be followed live at 1.30 pm (London), 2.30 pm (Paris) or 3.30 pm local time. The exception being the last round that will start two hours earlier.

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