The first half of the double-round-robin tournament in Nanjing is over, and Carlsen is leading with 4.5/5. He won against Leko, Topalov, Jakovenko and today against Radjabov. Wang Yue was a bit lucky because Carlsen was close to winning there, too. He currently has a performance rating of 3128 against 2762 opposition.

He had some okay results this year though nothing outstanding for a player of his strength, but here he really looks impressive. In fact, every single game in the tournament other than the four Carlsen wins has been drawn. I am not a big Carlsen fan, but it is fun to watch him play there. Hopefully he doesn't slow down to much in the second half; he is headed towards 2800 and the number 1 world ranking spot.

I start to think they intentionally leaked the Carlsen-Kaparov coaching agreement to scare Magnus' opposition...

Makes for a funny looking crosstable:

That's what I instantly thought when they first announced it.

Why leak it anyway?

Why let people know what you are doing?

B/C of psychological factors. Every move that Carlsen plays against someone they are either consciously or unconsciously thinking "**** this guy is trained by Kasparov."

Soul-crushing FTW


4.5/5.0 is an amazing start.. he'll prob slow a little cuz it's near impossible to keep up that pace, but I'm sure he'll finish at least as strong if not a little stronger than his rating.

I can already see Kasparov's influence in round 1 vs Leko.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5805

Carlsen played ... The Scotch !!! and he appeared very prepared and at ease in the positions that arose.

Which Kasparov extensively pimped out a few years back winning a bunch of nice games. Coincidence, I think not!

(1) Carlsen,M (2772) - Leko,P (2762) [C45]
2nd Pearl Spring Nanjing CHN (1), 28.09.2009

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Be3 Qf6 6.c3 Nge7 7.Bc4 Ne5 8.Be2 Qg6 9.0-0 d6 10.f4 Qxe4 11.Bf2 Bxd4 12.cxd4 N5g6 13.g3 0-0 14.Nc3 Qf5 15.d5 a6 16.Re1 Kh8 17.Rc1 Bd7 18.Bf3 Rac8 19.Qb3 b5 20.Ne2 Qh3 21.Nd4 Bg4 22.Bg2 Qh5 23.h4 Ng8 24.Rc6 Nf6 25.Rxa6 Bd7 26.Nxb5 Rb8 27.a4 Ng4 28.Bf3 Qh6 29.Qc4 Nxh4 30.Bxg4 Bxg4 31.gxh4 Bf3 32.f5 Qh5 33.Qf4 Bxd5 34.Nxc7 Bb7 35.Rb6 f6 36.Bd4 Qf7 37.Ne6 Rg8 38.Kf2 Rbc8 39.Bc3 Bd5 40.a5 Rc4 41.Nd4 Ba8 42.Qxd6 Qh5 43.Qf4 Rcc8 44.Rbe6 1-0

He'd probably just need 1/5 from the remaining games to finish as strong as his rating, and that's not gonna happen. Even if he slows down a bit he will have a huge performance.

Also, I'd love to see him play the scotch more often, I play it with white as well and there are some troubling lines in which I would really like to see his novelties.

I didn't mean overall rating performance including his 4.5/5.0 would be at or near his FIDE rating level at the end. That's just silly.

I apologize for not being explicit.

I meant with just his remaining 5 games he should at least have a perf. rating of his current FIDE rating or maybe even a little above it in those 5 games alone (Not counting his 4.5/5.0 start in calculation of performance rating).


Wow his game vs. Radjabov was utter destruction.

2757's arent supposed to lose in 25 moves, and at least not like this..

(1) Carlsen,M (2772) - Radjabov,T (2757) [B30]
2nd Pearl Spring Nanjing CHN (5), 02.10.2009

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 e6 4.0-0 Nge7 5.c3 a6 6.Ba4 b5 7.Bc2 Bb7 8.Qe2 d5 9.e5 d4 10.Be4 Qb6 11.d3 Rd8 12.a4 Nd5 13.axb5 axb5 14.cxd4 cxd4 15.Nbd2 Nf4 16.Qd1 Nb4 17.Nb3 Bxe4 18.dxe4 Nfd3 19.Bg5 Rc8 20.Nfxd4 Nxb2 21.Qe2 Nc4 22.Rfc1 Bc5 23.Nxb5 0-0 24.Nxc5 Nxe5 25.Be7 1-0


Radjabov must feel like a Bitch too cuz he used to have that feud with Kaspy, and now Kaspy's protege Knocks Him OUT

Oh ok, I totally misunderstood that.

Ironically, Kasparov had played this opening as well until move 10 - with black though. He won a rapid game against Grischuk in 2002 which went just the other way round: white was almost lost after 25 moves.

Time to bump "When Carlsen Peaks He Will Be Stronger Than The Strongest Engine?" :-P

I'd bump it myself but the Strongest Engine is getting stronger too..

:-x

Carlsen played the Scotch, the Najdorf and the Gruenfeld twice. That is a clear indicator...Kasparov must have convinced him.

Slightly off-topic but it refers to Nanjing: Why does Radjabov play so uninspired with white? His draw with Wang Yue today was the Sofia-rule interpretation of drawing in 10 moves in a Slav Exchange.

If Kasparov told me to jump, I'd ask how high.

If Kasparov told me to move all-in pf with 23o, I'd say should I time down or snap all-in.

If Kasparov told me to dump my hot intelligent gf, I'd say **** off Kaspy.

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I guess this shows that at the Very least, Carlsen is a good student and is "coachable" in that he's trusting in his trainer's recco's.

Interesting position from Carlsen-Radjabov, Black's move:

I wasn't going to say anything, but I hope that some of my fellow posters realize that the idea of Carlsen becoming as strong as Rybka, while still a stretch, isn't as ridiculous as it originally sounded. To be fair, you should consider Carlsen in top form against Rybka, since an engine can never have an off-day. I don't think it's absurd to say that if Carlsen were in absolute top form, he could post a reasonable score between 30-55% against Rybka in a match with a long time control tomorrow.

Look at the scores that Rybka posts in the big computer tournaments and then look at Carlsen's current score in this Super-GM tournament...

Crikey, had Karpov been able to finish off Kaspy in Game 41 of the first match, winning 6-1, he'd prolly have the two best chess performances of all-time.

Carlsen just shipped another whole point. Actually every single game was decisive.

Carlsen's game was just insane. Looks like his opponent was booked out the ass taking like 5 minutes for the first 22 minutes in a super complex position getting an excellent position, at which point Carlsen sacs a piece, his opponent goes into the tank and proceeds to completely blow the game making 2 significant blunders in the next 6 moves and gets destroyed. I'm guessing he'll go hit rybka to figure out what to do next time.

Very nice game by Carlsen, pathetic display by his opponent.

completely +1

Just quickly played through the game on chessbase and got mostly the same impression.

I always thought that the line played was slightly better for White and then Black busts out those moves.. I thought Carlsen would be in trouble and then he does Bxc6!? Wow. and yes Pathetic display by his opponent.

Haha next time he'll just play the Scotch.

Awesome game by Carlsen, looks like he and Topalov are the only ones at the moment who really play fighting chess and try to generate winning chances out of every position against world class opposition. In poker terms, these are the guys that really take them out of their comfort zone, with devastating effect. Just look what Topa did to Leko today, i don't like him at all but that was an awesome game.

^^ yeah def. very uncompromising chess by Topalov, ended up making Leko look like a bitch.

So is Carlsen 5.5/6 right now?

6.5/8

Wow, Carlsen's play has got me interested in chess after not having played competively for 20 years! It's not supposed to be this easy get wins against GMs. His games are fun to analyze.

I agree, very fun chess to analyze.

Like a breath of fresh air compared to most top 10 games which are mostly boring draws.

Looks like Carlsens training with Kasparov has already started to pay off.