Nanjing Pearl Spring 2010

[Michael Jones]

Carlsen won again today (vs Topalov) and is on +3 at the halfway point; Bacrot beat Wang Yue and is +2. The live rating list has Carlsen at 2806, Anand 2802 and Aronian 2801; despite his performance in Bilbao Kramnik is still well down at 2790, and thanks to a poor Olympiad and -2 so far at Nanjing Topalov is even further behind at 2777. If things don't improve for him in the second half of the tournament he may even drop out of the top 5 - thanks to a good run at the ECC Grischuk is now up to number 6 with 2771.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Carlsen has a one-point lead with two rounds to go. Can Anand still overhaul the 5-point differential in the live rankings? I suppose it doesn't matter too much, as the point (as Leonard made earlier) is that the London Chess Classic should have the official world number one playing, regardless (not sure about the live rankings, as I don't know where Aronian plays next or when, or indeed where Anand and Carlsen are scheduled to play before the LCC).

[Michael Jones]

Bacrot and Gashimov provided of wonderful demonstration of how to get around the Sofia rules: 'agree' to a draw by repetition at move 14.

Given that Anand's already played Carlsen twice, his only chance would be if Topalov beats him in the next round - I can't imagine he's likely to lose with white against Gashimov in the last round; if he's still a point ahead by then he's not likely to take many chances. Interestingly, a little further down the list Topalov is a mere 0.2 points ahead of Grischuk in 6th. Since his remaining opponents, Carlsen and Wang, have an average rating of 2779, scoring 1/2 against them would be sufficient to hold his place, but if he fails to do so Grischuk will probably overtake him.

[Michael Jones]

Carlsen beat Topalov with black, and has thus ensured victory the tournament and all but ensured that he'll retain the number 1 spot. Topalov will certainly drop below Grischuk if he loses to Wang Yue in the last round, and may still do so even if he draws.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Carlsen beat Topalov with black, and has thus ensured victory the tournament and all but ensured that he'll retain the number 1 spot. Topalov will certainly drop below Grischuk if he loses to Wang Yue in the last round, and may still do so even if he draws.

It seems that FIDE didn't rate one or other of the tournaments used in the live ratings:

1) FIDE November 2010 list:

http://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men

1 Anand, Viswanathan g IND 2804 6 1969
2 Carlsen, Magnus g NOR 2802 14 1990
3 Aronian, Levon g ARM 2801 22 1982

2) Live ratings (01/11/2010):

http://chess.liverating.org/

01 Carlsen 2811,5 -14,5 24 3 1990
02 Anand 2808,2 +8,2 16 2 1969
03 Aronian 2801,4 +18,4 22 3 1982

Oh, well, at least the London Chess Classic can claim to have both the official world number one and the number one in the live ratings list. Last year, IIRC, Carlson was only number one in the live ratings, and only became world number one in the official list of January 2010. So only 11 month as number one, though given his performance in Nanjing he will probably get back to top spot in the January 2011 list.

[Michael Jones]

I presume it was Nanjing that wasn't included. It's still pretty close at the top though, so Anand might only need to finish half a point ahead of Carlsen in London to overtake him. I don't know what other events there are in the next couple of months which any of the top three are playing in.