2011 Bilbao Chess Grand Slam
The Bilbao Chess Master Final will begin on September 26th with the first round. Six of the world’s top Grandmasters with take part in a partnership event that will be divided between two venues… Brazil and Spain. The field features the 2800 trio of Magnus Carlsen, World Champion Viswanathan Anand and Levon Aronian plus World Championship qualifier Vassily Ivanchuk. Hikaru Nakamura and Francisco Vallejo-Pons round out the double round robin event which will invoke the Sofia Rules which includes the modified scoring of three points for a win and one point for a draw. The primary time control will be 40 moves in 90 minutes followed by 60 minutes with 10 seconds increment.
September 25th-October 1st, 2011 (São Paulo, Brazil) October 6th-October 11th, 2011 (Bilbao, Spain) |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
#
|
Name
|
Title
|
Federation
|
Flag
|
Rating
|
| 1 | Carlsen, Magnus | GM | Norway |
 |
2823 |
| 2 | Anand, Viswanathan | GM | India |
 |
2817 |
| 3 | Aronian, Levon | GM | Armenia |
 |
2805 |
| 4 | Ivanchuk, Vassily | GM | Ukraine |
 |
2765 |
| 5 | Nakamura, Hikaru | GM | USA |
 |
2753 |
| 6 | Vallejo-Pons, Francisco | GM | Spain |
 |
2716 |
Games: https://www.thechessdrum.net/palview5/grandslam2011.pgn
Wednesday, 26 September 2011
Viswanathan Anand ½-½ Magnus Carlsen
Levon Aronian 1-0 Francisco Vallejo-Pons
Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Vassily Ivanchuk
Aronian, 3
Anand, Nakamura, Carlsen, Ivanchuk, 1
Vallejo-Pons, 0
I attended the first leg in São Paulo (I live there) and wrote two posts about my experiences there.
https://celebratechess.blogspot.com/2011/09/chess-gods-arrive-in-town-my-home-town.html
https://celebratechess.blogspot.com/2011/10/chess-gods-part-2.html
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Vassily Ivanchuk 1-0 Francisco Vallejo-Pons
Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Levon Aronian
Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Viswanathan Anand
Aronian, Ivanchuk, 4
Anand, Nakamura, Carlsen 2
Vallejo-Pons, 0
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Viswanathan Anand 0-1 Vassily Ivanchuk
Levon Aronian ½-½ Hikaru Nakamura
Francisco Vallejo-Pons 1-0 Magnus Carlsen
Ivanchuk, 7
Aronian, 5; Nakamura, Vallejo-Pons, 3
Carlsen, Anand, 2
Friday, 30 September 2011
Levon Aronian 0-1 Vassily Ivanchuk
Francisco Vallejo-Pons 0-1 Viswanathan Anand
Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Hikaru Nakamura
Ivanchuk, 10
Aronian, Anand, 5; Nakamura, 4
Carlsen, Vallejo-Pons, 3
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Magnus Carlsen looking to make a comeback. His win over Ivanchuk was a good start.
Levon Aronian and Viswanathan Anand get ready to face off!
Hikaru Nakamura was also smiling after the game.
Photos by Albert Silver.
Vassily Ivanchuk 0-1 Magnus Carlsen
Viswanathan Anand ½-½ Levon Aronian
Hikaru Nakamura 1-0 Francisco Vallejo-Pons
Ivanchuk, 10
Nakamura, 7
Aronian, Anand, Carlsen, 6
Vallejo-Pons, 3
Play resumes October 6th in Bilbao, Spain.
FLASH!!! Vassily Ivanchuk and his wife were robbed at gunpoint in Sao Paulo! Both are fine. Ivanchuk lost money and wife lost her passport. He stated he would not continue unless his wife was able to travel to Spain with him. The event may be delayed until this situation is remedied.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Vassily Ivanchuk 1-0 Hikaru Nakamura
Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Viswanathan Anand
Francisco Vallejo-Pons ½-½ Levon Aronian
Ivanchuk discusses nuances of position while Nakamura looks on.
Photo by Pascal Simon.
Ivanchuk, 13
Carlsen, Nakamura, Anand, Aronian, 7
Vallejo-Pons, 4
Ivanchuk builds an almost an insurmountable lead with a crushing win over Nakamura. Looks like black was a step too slow in responding to the attack.
It has been reported that Nakamura could have played 30…Rxd3 and salvaged a draw after 31.cxd3 Qxc3 32.Bb4 Qxd3 and the king has no shelter.
Friday, 7 October 2011
Francisco Vallejo-Pons 1-0 Vassily Ivanchuk
Levon Aronian ½-½ Magnus Carlsen
Viswanathan Anand ½-½ Hikaru Nakamura
Carlsen and Aronian fought to a hard draw.
Nakamura and Anand conduct blindfold postmortem.
Photos by Pascal Simon.
Ivanchuk, 13
Carlsen, Nakamura, Anand, Aronian, 8
Vallejo-Pons, 7
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Vassily Ivanchuk ½-½ Viswanathan Anand
Hikaru Nakamura 1-0 Levon Aronian
Magnus Carlsen 1-0 Francisco Vallejo-Pons
Ivanchuk, 14
Carlsen, Nakamura, 11
Anand, 9; Aronian, 8; Vallejo-Pons, 7
Commentary by GM Maurice Ashley
Monday, 10 October 2011
Carlsen caught a slumping Ivanchuk.Photo by Pascal Simon.
Francisco Vallejo-Pons 1-0 Hikaru Nakamura
Levon Aronian 1-0 Viswanathan Anand
Magnus Carlsen 1-0 Vassily Ivanchuk
Carlsen, Ivanchuk, 14
Nakamura, Aronian, 11; Vallejo-Pons, 10
Anand, 9
(Vijay Kumar)
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Vassily Ivanchuk ½-½ Levon Aronian
Viswanathan Anand 1-0 Francisco Vallejo-Pons
Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Magnus Carlsen
Carlsen, Ivanchuk, 15
Nakamura, Aronian, Anand, 12
Vallejo-Pons, 10
Carlsen vs. Ivanchuk (TIEBREAKS)
* Carlsen wins 4-1 (1½-½) tiebreak over Ivanchuk
(Vijay Kumar)
I’ve never seen the Sofia rules before. Interesting. In normal scoring, it looks like the standings would be the same except there wouldn’t be a tie-break for the 2 leaders: Carlsen 6.0, Ivanchuck 5.5, Anand, Nakamura and Aronian 5.0, and Vallejo-Pons 3.5. Carlsen, Anand, Nakamura, and Aronian each had 6 draws while Ivanchuk only had 3. It seems the motivation for Sofia is to punish draws and it did punish Carlsen because his 6.0 by normal rules was a 15 by Sofia rules and Chucky’s 5.5 was a 15–forcing a tiebreak.
I have mixed feelings, but of course it makes the tournament a bit more exciting.