The tournament was named after the venue, the Mingfa Pearl Spring Hotel located in Pukou District of Nanjing.
Organization
The tournament was organized by the Municipal People's Government of Nanjing and Chess & Cards Administration Center of General Administration of Sport of China, and the People's Government of Pukou District, Nanjing, and Nanjing Administration of Sport
The organization web site did not disclose the player invitation criteria or protocol. In each of the first three years, one participant was of Chinese nationality.
Sponsorship
The tournament was sponsored by Jiangsu Kanion Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Yangzi Evening News, and Mundell International University of Entrepreneurship. The total prize fund was €250,000 with a first prize of €80,000.
Guests invited to the opening ceremony included Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, President of the World Chess Federation; Boris Kutin, President of ECU; Sheikh Sultan, President of ACU and Liang Zhirong, Secretary-General of FIDE, Xu Jialu, Vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and Nobel Prize winner, Robert A. Mundell.
Results
2008
10-22 December
The six players were Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria (Elo rating 2791, ranked first in the world); Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine (Elo rating 2786, ranked third in the world); Levon Aronian of Armenia (Elo rating 2757, ranked seventh in the world); Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia (Elo rating 2732, ranked thirteenth in the world); Peter Svidler of Russia (Elo rating 2727, ranked seventeenth in the world); Bu Xiangzhi of China (Elo rating 2714, ranked twenty-sixth in the world). With at least an Elo rating average of 2751.6, it was a category 21 tournament making it the strongest chess tournament ever held in China.
The 2009 edition of the Pearl Spring tournament is notable for Magnus Carlsen's dominant victory, attaining an unprecedented tournament performance rating of 3002 - the highest ever recorded to that point. In doing so, Carlsen became the fourth and youngest chess player ever to reach 2800 Elo.
The 3rd edition of the tournament took place from October 19 to October 30; with at least an Elo rating average of 2766, it was a category 21 tournament.[4]
