Bilbao R2: Anand beats Carlsen, Kramnik beats Shirov

In Bilbao the day of 10-10-10 was most special for World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who defeated Magnus Carlsen and thus overtook the Norwegian on the live rating list. Vladimir Kramnik scored another victory with the white pieces against Alexei Shirov. Games now annotated with comments by the players.

Tournament info

The 3rd Masters Final takes place 9-15 October in Bilbao, Spain. Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik and Alexei Shirov play a double round-robin with a rate of play of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and another 60 minutes to finish the game, with 10 seconds increment from move 41. Again the so-called “Sofia rule” is enforced as well as the system of three points for each game won, 1 point for a draw and 0 for a loss. Each day the rounds will begin at 16:30 CET. More info here.

Videos

iPhone/iPad users might want to watch the videos here.

Round 2 report

If you happen to visit Bilbao at some point, don't forget to pay a visit to Jaime, a bar that serves arguably (as in: according to locals!) the best cocktails in town for very reasonable prices. The Bloody Mary's are a speciality there, and having two of them was for yours truly perhaps the best way possible to end his 35th birthday.

The next day started cloudy but at least it wasn't raining, like the night before. But clearly the summer weather is history in Bilbao, and so chess fans better spend their days in the Alhondiga this week. Sunday they could witness two decisive games.



Kramnik said he was 'much more familiar with this type of position' than his opponent, and indeed Shirov said he played it for the first time with Black. Kramnik had played it quite a few times, the most significant game being one of his White games in the London 2000 match against Kasparov. Shirov 'wanted to solve his problems in a tactical way but he miscalculated something' (Kramnik) and that something was 18.b4 (Shirov). As Black never found ways to get counterplay his task was just about hopeless from there.



Something similar happened to Carlsen, who miscalculated at a later stage. He evaluated that after 31.Ne3 'everything was a dead draw' and thought 'why not make a draw this way'. However, he soon went wrong with 33.Nc5?! where 33.d5 is much better. While explaining this, Carlsen smiled to Anand (who was to speak after him at the press conference) and said: 'By the way sorry that I'm stealing your line here,' a sign that the Norwegian is still in a relatively good mood despite his double loss. 'After 35...Ba8 I underestimated the fact that I cannot untangle so easily after I promote,' Carlsen added. With one more mistake in timetrouble on move 38 his fate was sealed.



Carlsen has now lost five of his last nine games, and so it's no surprise that our comment section (and that of many websites) is full of speculation about his bad form. Is he in love? Did the G-Star campaign take too much energy? Well, the Norwegian simply had 'an exceptional year', as Anand put it today, and it's really not that strange that things start to got a bit worse at some point.

The World Champion, who is now also the highest rated player according to the live ratings and therefore the undisputed 'world's number one', pointed out that from now on peaking at the Candidates Tournament (scheduled for spring 2011) is priority number one for his colleagues. Until then, we can't draw too much conclusions.

Games round 2

Game viewer by ChessTempo


Bilbao Masters Final 2010 | Schedule & results


Bilbao Masters Final 2010 | Round 2 Standings (Football System)


Bilbao Masters Final 2010 | Standings (Classical System)

Link

• Official website
• Games in PGN via TWIC