Carlsen Catches Ivanchuk In Bilbao

Magnus Carlsen beat Vassily Ivanchuk in the penultimate round of the Grand Slam Masters in Bilbao to catch the Ukrainian at the top of the leaderboard.

Carlsen whipped up an extremely threatening kingside attack to which Ivanchuk had no answer, eventually blundering a piece in time trouble to hand victory to the Norwegian.

All three games today were decisive, with the white pieces holding sway. Lev Aronian beat an out-of-sorts Vishy Anand in just 25 moves to condemn the world champion to the bottom of the standings. This seems to be the quickest defeat in a regular time-control game for Anand since he lost in 25 moves in the 2009 Tal Memorial - also against Aronian!

But even more remarkable was the unfortunate end to Nakamura's game with Vallejo. The American thought he had completed his 40 required moves to reach the first time control, and left the board. However, he was one move short and lost on time!

A terribly wasteful way to lose for Nakamura, who has been having a good tournament, and a gift of a win for Vallejo.

The standings with one round remaining (3-1-0 scoring system):

What's that coming over the hill? It's world #1 Magnus Carlsen!

The final round games are Ivanchuk v Aronian, Anand v Vallejo, and Nakamura v Carlsen. Don't forget that the games in the last round start an hour earlier at 16:00 local time (14:00 UTC).

If there is a tie for first place, there will be a pair of blitz games, followed by a sudden death game if needed, to produce a winner. Ties for lower places will be decided by mathematical tie-breaks, starting with scores under the traditional 1-½-0 system.

Sofia-Rules are in operation, meaning that players can only reach a draw by mutual agreement if they have the permission of the arbiter. The 3-1-0 soccer-style scoring system is also being used.  The time control is 40 moves in 90 minutes followed by 60 minutes to a finish, with a 10 second increment after move 40.

Picture from the official website.