Carlsen Dominates First Half In Nanjing
The first half of the Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing is now completed, and it's getting increasingly difficult to find original superlatives to describe the truly remarkable performance of Magnus Carlsen.
In a complicated middlegame struggle, today's Nordic victim Radjabov had an active position, but desperately needed to get his King to safety. When he finally chose to castle on move 23, it was ironically a crucial error which immediately lost material and the game.
Since the other games in round 5 ended in draws, Carlsen now leads by an astonishing 2 clear points after 5 games! In fact, he is the only player to have won ANY games in the tournament! Barring a small slip in time trouble in round 3, Carlsen almost achieved a 5-0 shut-out.
| Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2772 | * | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4½ |
| Wang Yue | CHN | 2736 | ½ | * | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 2½ |
| Jakovenko, Dmitry | RUS | 2742 | 0 | ½ | * | ½ | ½ | ½ | 2 |
| Leko, Peter | HUN | 2762 | 0 | ½ | ½ | * | ½ | ½ | 2 |
| Radjabov, Teimour | AZE | 2757 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | * | ½ | 2 |
| Topalov, Veselin | BUL | 2813 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | * | 2 |
For those who like their chess statistics, Carlsen's TPR is now apparently a Rybka-esque 3100+! As a result of this powerful surge, Carlsen has passed both Lev Aronian and Vishy Anand on the live rating list, to reach #2 behind Topalov.
The players will enjoy their first rest day tomorrow, and it's hard to imagine that anyone is going to catch Carlsen in the second half of the tournament.
