Chess - The Scotsman, 29/01/13

The 22-year-old superstar of the game was in majestic form as he powered his way to a memorable victory at the 75th Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee.

Carlsen, the undisputed world No 1, routed the opposition in much the same way as Fischer or Kasparov would have, finisheing with an unbeaten +7 winning score(!) of 10/13 to take the title of the first major of the year by a margin of 1.5 points. In the process, he equalled Kasparov’s record-winning Wijk score of 1999.

Carlsen’s performance was good enough for a Tournament Performance Rating of 2932, incredibly pushing his rating record now up to 2872.3, a phenomenal 62 points ahead of Vladimir Kramnik and 63 points up on Levon Aronian as he sets himself on a trajectory to become the first player to reach a 2900 rating.

The normally reserved and reticent Norwegian even surprised the chess world mid-tournament by revealing his goals for 2013 were to be World Champion and have a rating of 2900 by the end of the year.

In this sort of devastating form, there could be no stopping him achieving those targets.

Final standings: 1. M Carlsen, 10/13; 2. L Aronian, 8.5; 3-4. V Anand, S Karjakin, 8; P Leko, 7.5; 6. H Nakamura, 7; 7. P Harikrishna, 6.5; 8-10. A Giri, Wang Hao, L Van Wely, 6; 11. Hou Yifan, 5.5, 12. F Caruana, 5; 13. E L’Ami, 4; 14. I Sokolov, 3.

M Carlsen - H Nakamura

75th Tata Steel, (12)

Sicilian Sveshnikov

1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5 5 Nb5 d6 6 g3 h5 7 N1c3 a6 8 Na3 b5 9 Nd5 Nge7 10 Bg2 Bg4 11 f3 Be6 12 c3 h4 13 Nc2 Bxd5 14 exd5 Na5 15 f4 Nf5 16 g4 h3 17 Be4 Nh4 18 0–0 g6 19 Kh1 Bg7 20 f5 gxf5 21 gxf5 Ng2 22 f6! Bf8 23 Qf3 Qc7 24 Nb4 Nb7 25 Nc6 Nc5 26 Bf5 Nd7 27 Bg5 Rg8 28 Qh5 Nb6 29 Be6 Rxg5 30 Qxg5 fxe6 31 dxe6 1–0