Nanjing R2: Carlsen beats Topalov, increases lead
When announcing his cooperation with Garry Kasparov, Magnus Carlsen made his goal clear: to become the world's number one in the near future. In Nanjing the Norwegian is "still on schedule" with a second victory, this time over the current number one, Veselin Topalov. The 2nd Pearl Spring tournament takes place September 27th - October 9th in Pukou, Nanjing, China. Again it's a six-player, double round-robin with this year Veselin Topalov (2813), Magnus Carlsen (2772), Peter Leko (2762), Teimour Radjabov (2757), Dmitry Jakovenko (2742) and Wang Yue (2736) playing for a € 250,000 prize fund. The rate of play is 40 moves in 90 minutes plus 1 hour. Round 2
Fully profiting from his lot number 1, which always gives two white games at the start of a round-robin, Magnus Carlsen increased his lead to a full point with another smooth win, against Veselin Topalov. The Bulgarian sacrificed a pawn for which he never really saw true compensation and in an attempt to find counterplay over the f-file, his kingside was weakened too much. Carlsen has become a very effective and accurate player in positions where he's strategically winning, leaving his opponent not a single chance to get back into the game.The other two games were drawn; Leko's positional approach wasn't dangerous against Radjabov's Dragon while Jakovenko-Wang Yue started very promising with the topical 5.Nbd2 line of the Petroff, but soon petered out into a drawish ending.
The spacious stage in Nanjing
Games round 2
Game viewer by ChessTempo
Magnus Carlsen at the post-game press conference
Links
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.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097
