At the risk of coming over all 'fanboy-ish' I am convinced that Carlsen is a wizard. He wrapped up the Shamkir Memorial with an impressive 7/9 (+5=4), a full point ahead of Anand in outright second. But it wan't the margin of victory, but how he one his last game, against Mamedov that makes me wonder. When I looked at it ti seemed to be a clear draw, with Carlsen holding a slight edge, but Mamedov holding. I then looked back 10 minutes later and Carlsen had won, with Mamedov playing two or three bad moves to give Carlsen the point. This tends to happen a lot with Carlsen, and I suspect it is now becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. It is no doubt helped by Carlsen's willingness to sit at the board for as long as it takes to win, as this forces his opponents to expend extra energy each time they play him.
Previous to Carlsen, Kasparov had a similar effect on his opponents, and it seems that magic hasn't worn off either. I posted yesterday that he led Short 3.5-1.5 in their Rapid/Blitz match. In last nights play he romped home, winning all 5 games to finish the 8.5-1.5 victor. This turns out to be a bigger margin than when they played a few years back, and of cousre makes the chess world wonder if a returning Kasparov could match it with the current Carlsen. But like the Fischer - Karpov Match, it is probably something we will never see,
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