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.

Games round 2

Game viewer by ChessTempo


2nd Pearl Spring (Nanjing) 2009 | Round 2 Standings


2nd Pearl Spring (Nanjing) 2009 | Schedule & results

Links

• Pearl Spring website
• Gujuan Tzu's blog
• Pearl Spring games in PGN
• Women GP website
• Women GP games in PGN