Carlsen wins tournament with two rounds to go!!

Winning a strong tournament is something, but winning a strong tournament with still two rounds to play is indeed something else.

Let's add more spice to it. The most beautiful thing is for a player to beat ALL of his opponents in the tournament, with no less than the world's No.1 player inlcluded in the list of victims.

What a feat! And that's what just GM Magnus of Carlsen of Norway did in the 2nd Pearl Spring tournament in Nanjing, China.

GM Susan Polgar might be right. A lot of good factors contribute to Carlsen's good performance.

One is his country which, based on the latest study conducted by the United Nations, is the most ideal country to live in the whole world. The exact statement is: "Norway enjoys the world's highest quality of life . . ."

Add to that the fact that the legendary GM Garry Kasparov is now a member of his camp.

Easy to discern, right? With so many good things around Carlsen, we no longer have to wonder why he's performing so great nowadays.

What about the quality of life in the Philippines? We are ranked No.105 out of 182 countries and included in the "Medium Human Development" category.

And can our leading grandmasters afford the services of somebody like GM Kasparov?

Chessvibes.com reports: "But the richest game of the round was Carlsen-Wang Yue, which can be analysed for days and days to come. It started with the sharp 6.Ne5 Nbd7 7.Nxc4 Qc7 8.g3 e5 Slav that was tested in both World Championship matches between Alekhine and Euwe and which was re-introduced at top level by Morozevich.

After the opening Black was fine and perhaps more than that, if Wang Yue had answered Carlsen’s bishop sacrifice with the tricky 23…Ne7. In the game White got the better chances, and even had a clear win at move 32 which both players missed. After move 40 was reached, the ending with an extra pawn for White should have been a draw, and Wang Yue defended well for a long time, but eventually the continuous pressure became too much even for the tough Chinese; one careless check and the position was suddenly lost. Walking through a minefield, the black king managed to avoid the many mates, but then suddenly the knight was lost.

Carlsen, who now beat every player in the tournament once, still has that amazing two point lead in the standings, just two games before the end. It means he can enjoy the second restday on Wednesday with the knowledge that has already won the Pearl Spring Grand Slam at least shared. Not to mention his performance rating, which went over 3000 again (3019 to be exact)! He won’t surpass Topalov on the rating list, but suddenly there’s a new goal on the horizon: trying to reach 2800 himself – just 3.6 points to go…"