Carlsen wins Pearl Spring 2010
Magnus Carlsen won the 3rd Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing with a round to spare. In a slightly worse ending his opponent Veselin Topalov blundered today, and with draws in both Bacrot-Wang Yue and Gashimov-Anand, the Norwegian increased his lead to 1.5 points with one round to go. The last round starts 10AM local time, 04:00 CET.General info
The third Kanion Cup Nanjing Pearl Spring Chess Tournament takes place October 21-30 in Nanjing, China. Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Veselin Topalov, Wang Yue, Vugar Gashimov and Etienne Bacrot play a double round-robin with one rest day halfway. More info here.Videos
Round 9 report
We have a winner. It happened a bit suddenly, and perhaps not in the most elegant way possible, but we do have a winner. Because Veselin Topalov blundered in an ending, Magnus Carlsen scored another full point with which he increased his lead over Viswanathan Anand and Etienne Bacrot to one and a half points, as both had drawn their games earlier today.
At the press conference Carlsen said he was "very happy" to win the tournament twice in a row, but also that he was "very tired". There's a good chance the Norwegian will return to Nanjing next year, as he "had a great time this year and last year," to which he added: "...and I cannot complain about the results either."In his penultimate game Carlsen was worse after the opening, but then Topalov made a mistake and suddenly the tables turned. In a slightly difficult ending the Bulgarian missed a knight check based on a pin with the rook - a blunder Carlsen "actually anticipated", but he couldn't explain why.
In his White game against Anand, Vugar Gashimov repeated Carlsen's recipe of 5.Re1 against the Berlin. After the game was drawn, the grandmaster from Azerbaijan didn't want to claim that he had an advantage, but "it was easier to play for me". Anand was quite satisfied about the way he solved his problems tactically.
Just like yesterday, Bacrot drew his White game rather quickly. "But today at least I was pushing." He admitted that the 14-move draw against Gashimov was directly related to his unnecessary loss against Topalov the round before. "It is very difficult to play after such a blunder. I am not strong enough, it's different for these top guys who play tournament after tournament," Bacrot said. An interesting thought from the Frenchman. 
And so tomorrow morning Anand and Bacrot will meet for a fight for second place, while Topalov and Wang Yue will decide who finishes as the cellar dweller. With the white pieces Carlsen can try to gain a few more rating points against Gashimov.Games round 9
Game viewer by ChessTempo
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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