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.

2011 Bilbao Grand Slam Masters
September 25th-October 1st, 2011 (São Paulo, Brazil)
October 6th-October 11th, 2011 (Bilbao, Spain)
Participants
#
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
Official Site

Games: https://www.thechessdrum.net/palview5/grandslam2011.pgn

26 Comments

  1. Round #1
    Wednesday, 26 September 2011

    Viswanathan Anand ½-½ Magnus Carlsen
    Levon Aronian 1-0 Francisco Vallejo-Pons
    Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Vassily Ivanchuk

    Standings

    Aronian, 3
    Anand, Nakamura, Carlsen, Ivanchuk, 1
    Vallejo-Pons, 0

  2. Round #2
    Tuesday, 27 September 2011

    Vassily Ivanchuk 1-0 Francisco Vallejo-Pons
    Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Levon Aronian
    Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Viswanathan Anand

    Standings

    Aronian, Ivanchuk, 4
    Anand, Nakamura, Carlsen 2
    Vallejo-Pons, 0

  3. Round #3
    Wednesday, 28 September 2011

    Viswanathan Anand 0-1 Vassily Ivanchuk
    Levon Aronian ½-½ Hikaru Nakamura
    Francisco Vallejo-Pons 1-0 Magnus Carlsen

    Standings
    Ivanchuk, 7
    Aronian, 5; Nakamura, Vallejo-Pons, 3
    Carlsen, Anand, 2

  4. Round #4
    Friday, 30 September 2011

    2011 Bilbao Masters (Sao Paulo, Brazil)

    Levon Aronian 0-1 Vassily Ivanchuk
    Francisco Vallejo-Pons 0-1 Viswanathan Anand
    Magnus Carlsen ½-½ Hikaru Nakamura

    Standings
    Ivanchuk, 10
    Aronian, Anand, 5; Nakamura, 4
    Carlsen, Vallejo-Pons, 3

  5. Round #5
    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!

    Nakamura was also smiling after the game.

    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

    Standings
    Ivanchuk, 10
    Nakamura, 7
    Aronian, Anand, Carlsen, 6
    Vallejo-Pons, 3

  6. 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.

  7. Round #6
    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.

    Standings
    Ivanchuk, 13
    Carlsen, Nakamura, Anand, Aronian, 7
    Vallejo-Pons, 4

  8. Round #7
    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.

    Standings
    Ivanchuk, 13
    Carlsen, Nakamura, Anand, Aronian, 8
    Vallejo-Pons, 7

  9. Round #8
    Saturday, 8 October 2011

    Vassily Ivanchuk ½-½ Viswanathan Anand
    Hikaru Nakamura 1-0 Levon Aronian
    Magnus Carlsen 1-0 Francisco Vallejo-Pons

    Standings
    Ivanchuk, 14
    Carlsen, Nakamura, 11
    Anand, 9; Aronian, 8; Vallejo-Pons, 7

  10. Round #9
    Monday, 10 October 2011

    Magnus caught a slumping Ivanchuk. Photo by Pascal Simon.

    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

    Standings
    Carlsen, Ivanchuk, 14
    Nakamura, Aronian, 11; Vallejo-Pons, 10
    Anand, 9

  11. Round #10
    Tuesday, 11 October 2011
    Vassily Ivanchuk ½-½ Levon Aronian
    Viswanathan Anand 1-0 Francisco Vallejo-Pons
    Hikaru Nakamura ½-½ Magnus Carlsen

    Standings
    Carlsen, Ivanchuk, 15
    Nakamura, Aronian, Anand, 12
    Vallejo-Pons, 10

    * * *

    Carlsen vs. Ivanchuk (TIEBREAKS)

    * Carlsen wins 4-1 (1½-½) tiebreak over Ivanchuk

  12. 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.

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