Well, I guess we all knew the slump wouldn't last for long. Halfway through the Nanjing Pearl Spring Chess Tournament, Magnus Carlsen leads the field, having three wins and a 4/5 score. Just behind him is Etienne Bacrot; the Frenchman has played surprisingly well to get to 3.5/5, despite a loss to Carlsen. Viswanathan Anand, Vugar Gashimov, Veselin Topalov and Wang Yue round out the field, with Topalov's 1.5/5 performance standing out as particularly disappointing.
The Pearl Spring event might be one of the newer super-tournaments on the circuit, but there's no doubt that they draw great fields, and are becoming known for great performances. The tournament debuted in 2008, when it was won by Topalov, 1.5 points ahead of Levon Aronian. Carlsen did him one better last year, scoring 8/10 to finish 2.5 points ahead of Topalov!
As always, the tournament is a double round-robin, with the second time around the order beginning on Tuesday. The tournament wraps up next weekend -- I'll have a complete wrap-up once all the action concludes.
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