Bilbao Grand Slam Final

The Grand Slam Final will take place from 9-15 October in Bilbao, Spain.

The qualification process for the Grand Slam Final has become rather distorted this year, with Magnus Carlsen winning three of the four qualification events (Corus, Nanjing and Bazna)! When the other qualifier, Topalov, elected not to play in the final, the wheels seemed to be coming off the whole series.

Despite this, the organisers have rebranded the event as the "Bilbao Final Masters" and put together a small but extremely strong line-up for this "final", which will be one of the strongest tournaments ever held.

Magnus Carlsen, the world's #1 rated player, will take the place he earned three times over, and will be eager to return to better form after a very disappointing Olympiad which cost him a precious 15 Elo points.

World champion Vishy Anand is also in Bilbao, and back at #2 in the current live ratings courtesy of Topalov's loss of 17 Elo points in the Olympiad.

Joining them as qualifiers from Shanghai a month ago are Alexei "Fire On Board" Shirov and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.

The tournament format is a double round-robin with anti-draw rules in place, and it also uses the so-called Bilbao scoring system (3-1-0).

Who will you be cheering for? Some recent games between the gladiators are below.