Chess: How does White win?

LAST year the Kings Tournament in Medias (near Bazna) in Romania was upgraded to the status of a Grand Slam event. And the tournament goes from strength to strength with the added attraction of having three future rivals in the world championship stakes from a newer generation in the game.

The six-player, double round-robin is headed by world No 2 and defending champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway), who will come under pressure from his rivals, the world No's 5, 6 and 8, Sergey Karjakin (Russia), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine) and Hikaru Nakamura (USA), with Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan) and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Romania) completing the field.

In the opening round Carlsen decisively reclaimed the world No 1 spot on the daily live ratings. The Norwegian, 20, playing his first classical tournament since Tata Steel in January, turned on the style to beat Nakamura, the winner of that particular Grand Slam event. Carlsen always had the upper hand in the encounter, but despite being extremely short of time Nakamura continued to find resourceful defences to stay (just) in the game.

From today's diagram, Carlsen calmly exchanged queens to force home the win, as taking the knight allows the save of: 32 Qxa4 Nc3+! 33 bxc3 Rb8+ 34 Qb4 Rxb4+ 35 cxb4 Qd5 36 h7+ Kh8 37 Nf7+ Qxf7 38 Bb2+ Rxb2+ 39 Kxb2 and Black certainly isn't losing.

M Carlsen - H Nakamura

5th Kings Tournament, (1)

Queen's Gambit Dec., Exchange variation

1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Be7 4 cxd5 exd5 5 Bf4 c6 6 Qc2 Bg4 7 e3 Bh5 8 Bd3 Bg6 9 Bxg6 hxg6 10 0–0–0 Nf6 11 f3 Nbd7 12 Nge2 b5 13 e4 b4 14 Na4 dxe4 15 fxe4 Qa5 16 Kb1 0–0 17 h4 Rfe8 18 e5 Nd5 19 h5 g5 20 h6 g6 21 Bc1 N7b6 22 Nc5 Bxc5 23 dxc5 b3 24 Qxb3 Qxc5 25 Nd4 Rxe5 26 Nf3 Re2 27 Nxg5 Qe7 28 Qd3 Rf8 29 Rdf1 f5 30 g4 Na4 31 Qd4 Qe5 32 Qxe5! Rxe5 33 gxf5 gxf5 34 Nf3 Re7 35 Rfg1+ Kh7 36 Rg7+ Kh8 37 Rhg1 Rfe8 38 Nh4 Rxg7 1–0