Chess: The majesty of Magnus Carlsen

Should Norway’s Magnus Carlsen maintain the same level of play in the second half of the the Pearl Spring tournament at Nanjing, China he will register one of the greatest performances of all time, writes Telegraph.co.uk

Were he to ease off a little then the tournament will ‘merely’ go down in chess history as the tournament where the 18 year old Norwegian truly stamped his authority at the top level.

Carlsen has won some very strong tournaments but at Nanjing he is already 2 points clear and has a 2.5 point lead over world number one Veselin Topalov.

Carlsen won for the fourth time in five games at Nanjing and he did not merely defeat Teimour Radjabov, he dismissed him in 25 moves.

None of the other players has managed to win a single game and as we saw on Wednesday, the only player to avoid defeat at his hands, Wang Yue, was very fortunate.

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