Magnus Carlsen won the Altibox Norway Chess tournament. He was just cruising, when he suffered a terrible defeat to Levon Aronian in the next to last round, putting everything in doubt. But in the last round, Carlsen beat Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine, and Aronian drew the Pentala Harikrishna of India. Aronian came in second, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Veselin Topalov, Vladimir Kramnik took third through fifth places.

The US Chess Foundation has finally published the results from the US Amateur Team playoffs. The championship match saw the north regional winner team Got Mate beating the eastern winner, Summer Chess Academy for Talented Youth I. In the semifinals, Got Mate beat the western winner, Rainbow Unicorns. Summer Chess Academy for Talented Youth I beat the south qualifier, Chakis-mate.

It must be noted that as a further sign of how truly young chess has become, Got Mate had an average age of 20, and if it weren’t for a 35-year-old member, the average age would be 15. The Rainbow Unicorns had an average age of just over 15, and Summer Academy’s average age was just over 14. The southern representative, Chakis-mate was odd man out, with an average age of well over 50.

A recent press release from the US Chess Foundation says Fabiano Caruana will play an exhibition blitz game versus NFL offensive lineman John Urschel at the Liberty Science Center’s Genius Gala 5.0 on May 20. Caruana will get 2 minutes while Urschel will get 3, though with a USCF rating of just 1601, Urschel would need a lot more time to stand a chance. Urschel plays for the Baltimore Ravens and is also a PhD candidate in mathematics at MIT.

Winners: Waltham Triskaidekaphobia #16: 1st: Denys Shmelov: 4.5-.5, 2nd: Todd Chase: 4-1; Boylston Tornado #123: Open: 1st: Chris Williams: 3.5-.5, U1950: 1st: David Stoner: 3.5-.5; Boylston Spring Thaw: 1st - 2nd: Frank Kroell, Soren Pederson: 3.5-.5.

Coming events:May 28, Mass. Open Scholastic K-12; May 29, Mass. Open Scholastic K-3; May 29, Massachusetts Blitz Championship; May 28-30, 85th Massachusetts Open (State Championship), all at Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel, 181 Boston Post Road, West, Marlborough, www.Masschess.org.

Answer to today’s problem: 1.Qc7+! QxQ 2.Nxe6+ and 3.NxQ leaves White a piece up.