Carlsen Wins the Meltwater Tour Final with Two Rounds to Spare

As detailed a few posts back, Magnus Carlsen entered the Meltwater Tour Finals with a headstart, earned by his superior performance in the earlier tour events. Only Wesley So was close enough to have any sort of realistic shot of catching Carlsen; for the other eight players, it was a battle for money and prestige.

The event has been strongly contested, and if I'm not mistaken every player has won at least one match and lost at least one match. Carlsen hasn't played terribly, but had So been in great form, he would have had good chances to leapfrog Carlsen. The most impressive player so far as been Teimour Radjabov. He lost the first three matches, to Vladislav Artemiev, Hikaru Nakamura, and Anish Giri in blitz playoffs, but since then he has come on like a truck. Rather than wait for something bad to happen in blitz, he has won all his matches in the rapid games, defeating, in order, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Levon Aronian, Wesley So, and now even Carlsen himself.

Unfortunately for Radjabov, it's too late to fight for first, but he's only half a point out of second. Here are the standings - remember that each match is worth a total of 3 points (if a player wins in the rapid portion, he gets 3 points and the loser gets none; if he wins in the blitz/Armageddon playoff, he gets 2 and the loser 1):

1. Carlsen 28.5
2. So 21.5
3. Radjabov 21
4. Aronian 18
5. Nakamura 16
6-7. MVL, Artemiev 13.5
8. Giri 11.5
9. Duda 11
10. Mamedyarov 9.5

There have been 166 games played so far; here are 16 of them, with varying degrees of commentary by yours truly.