Bilbao R6: Carlsen leads again after Aronian blunders
Thanks to the 3-points system, Magnus Carlsen has taken sole lead at the Bilbao Grand Slam after he profited from a blunder by Levon Aronian. He overtook Topalov, who drew with Radjabov - the same result as in Ivanchuk-Anand.It was a very quick draw, between Ivanchuk and Anand, and the games leave very little to talk about. White's novelty in the Slav doesn't seem to be a real threat to the specific line and after Anand could bring the pawn structures to total symmetry again, the position lost all of its flavour. For any player a draw with Black is fine here, and for Anand, well, the quicker the better perhaps at this point. Ivanchuk didn't yet want to admit that he's not playing as well as he was in Moscow: "There's still four more rounds to go."
Drawing quickly: Ivanchuk and AnandWhat a difference with the game Carlsen-Aronian, where right from the start the board was set on fire. Carlsen's first pawn sacrifice was still theory but his second one was new and very creative. It remains to be seen whether it was also correct, but it did bring Aronian in a dangerous position because of his king in the centre. And indeed the Armenian grandmaster soon made some mistakes and, quite suddenly, he was dead lost.
Carlsen strengthens his virtual number one position after Aronian blundersOne of the most interesting draws so far in this tournament was Topalov-Radjabov. The tournament leader seemed to be cruising to win, as he grabbed more and more space both in the centre and on the kingside, but after just one inaccuracy Radjabov could hold his position. He even got a very small advantage himself, and tried it for a while but without making any progress.
Topalov draws with Radjabov and drops to second place
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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