London Chess Classic Round 2
Round two of the London Chess Classic pitted world #1 Magnus Carlsen against #2 Lev Aronian, and a dramatic 6-hour game ended in victory for the Norwegian.
So Aronian has made the worst possible start with 2 losses, while in contrast Carlsen has won his first 2 games and now has a gravity-defying live rating of 2855 Elo!
Despite lasting 6 hours, the Carlsen v Aronian clash was the first game to finish in another day of intense action!
Next to finish was the game between Judit Polgar and Gawain Jones. For a long time it seemed that Judit had winning chances, but Gawain did well to escape with a draw.
in the other games Vladimir Kramnik kept pace with Magnus Carlsen by defeating Hikaru Nakamura with the black pieces, and Luke McShane came within a whisker of beating the world champion Vishy Anand - the game ended in a draw after 108 moves!
Magnus Carlsen beat Lev Aronian. Caption competition, anyone?
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The standings after 2 rounds (3-1-0 scoring)
| Name | Fed | Elo | Gms | Pts |
| Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2848 | 2 | 6 |
| Kramnik, Vladimir | RUS | 2795 | 2 | 6 |
| Adams, Michael | ENG | 2710 | 1 | 3 |
| Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2760 | 2 | 3 |
| Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2775 | 1 | 1 |
| Polgar, Judit | HUN | 2705 | 2 | 1 |
| McShane, Luke | ENG | 2713 | 2 | 1 |
| Jones, Gawain C B | ENG | 2644 | 2 | 1 |
| Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2815 | 2 | 0 |
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The 2012 London Chess Classic runs from 1-10 December , with one rest day on the 5th December. Games start at 14:00 GMT, except round four (16:00), and the final round (12:00).
The time control is 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour for 20 moves, then 30 minutes to finish. The 'Bilbao' style 3-1-0 scoring system is being used.
In the event of tied scores at the end of the competition, tie breaks are 1) # of wins 2) # of wins with black, 3) head-to-head result. If these mathematical tiebreakers are not enough, then there will be rapid tie-break games and if needed, a final sudden death game.
More information on all the London Chess Classic events is at the official website, including live games and video commentary.
Photos by Ray Morris-Hill. Games via TWIC.
