Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Carlsen Sees Red Luck

As Norwegian powerhouse GM Magnus Carlsen posts yet another win, his fifth, in the presently running Pearl Spring super tournament in China, I am beginning to wonder about his remarkable success in this event. Of course Magnus has been successful in past outings, but here it seems that his run has that extra "oomph" to it.

Except perhaps for his last game yesterday, Magnus is making it look so easy. Just take, for instance, his round 2 bout against Topalov. So smooth, very impressive. What, then, is Magnus' secret?

Well, OK, there's that partnership with Kasparov, but I reckon I found another reason.

It's that damn red shirt that the Chinese organisers have got him wearing!

In Chinese culture red can stand for all things positive: happiness, good luck, good health, whatever. Now compare that to what all the other players are wearing. A couple of them have that silvery/greyish colour, colours associated with death; same goes for Jakovenko's blue. Wang Yue wears green, a colour normally linked to prosperity, so that is possibly why he's not doing too badly.

I realise that this is all a bit of a stretch, but I reckon that what we have here folks is a Chinese fix-up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Each player chose their own colour shirt, not the organisers.

Anonymous said...

Then why did they not give it to Wang Yue in the first place?