This is simply an amazing performance by Magnus Carlsen. After 5 rounds (half way mark), no other players have scored a single win. But Carlsen won 4 games out of 5 and has a big lead. But Topalov is known to start slow and come back big in the second half. Can he pull it off this time?
Round 5 results:
| Carlsen, Magnus | – Radjabov, Teimour | 1-0 | |||
| Leko, Peter | – Jakovenko, Dmitry | ½-½ | |||
| Topalov, Veselin | – Wang Yue | ½-½ |
Standings after 5 rounds:
| 1. | Carlsen, Magnus | g | NOR | 2772 | 4½ | |||||||||||||
| 2. | Wang Yue | g | CHN | 2736 | 2½ | |||||||||||||
| 3. | Jakovenko, Dmitry | g | RUS | 2742 | 2 | |||||||||||||
| 4. | Leko, Peter | g | HUN | 2762 | 2 | |||||||||||||
| 5. | Radjabov, Teimour | g | AZE | 2757 | 2 | |||||||||||||
| 6. | Topalov, Veselin | g | BUL | 2813 | 2 |
Official website: http://www.chess-pearlspring.com/www/chess_pk/2009/en/
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Topa is hiding his preparation for the match with Anand. Just like Anand will hide his preparation at the Tal Memorial tournament.
no other players have scored a point? wang has 3.5 and the others have 2. draws are not zeros… oh, and Topa is not making a four point comeback on Magnus!
I wonder what is Carlsen’s performance rating at this point.
Kamalakanta
3128.
‘Topa is hiding his preparation for the match with Anand.’
Of course he is. That’s why Carlsen got lucky. It happens all the time.
it’s because wang drew carlsen while everybody else lost to him. that’s why he has 2.5 and everybody else is at 2
Keep cool: Remember Chucky’s 5/5 start in … I don’t know which tournament this was…?
The coming year he almost fell about 100 ELO points doing badly in several tournaments.
It’s all about phases: At the moment the boy has a very good phase but that does not mean he is going to be supreme in future in all tournaments. (Of course it may be so but it need not to be so.)
So good luck to him for the rest of the tournament (Chucky ‘faltered’ with 3/5 in the second half if I remember correctly) but stay on the floor.
Looks like Topa is wearing a military uniform. Is he going to war?
Jochen, it was Mtel Masters 2008 in Sofia. After starting with 5/5 Chucky finished the tournament with 8/10.