Carlsen Strikes Again In Bilbao! UPDATED
Magnus Carlsen made it two wins from two games in Bilbao, drawing level on points with Fabiano Caruana at the top of the leaderboard in the Chess Masters Final.
Magnus had the white pieces against tournament underdog Paco Vallejo Pons, and made his victory look deceptively easy.
Lev Aronian was unable to make a dent in the defences of Vishy Anand, who has now drawn all seven games in the tournament so far, while Sergey Karjakin kept everything under control to earn a draw with Fabiano Caruana.
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The standings after 7 rounds (3-1-0 scoring)
| # | Name | Fed | Elo | Pts |
| 1 | Caruana, Fabiano | ITA | 2773 | 12 |
| 2 | Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2843 | 12 |
| 3 | Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2816 | 9 |
| 4 | Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2780 | 7 |
| 5 | Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2778 | 5 |
| 6 | Vallejo Pons, Francisco | ESP | 2697 | 4 |
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The scene in the glass cube at the start of round seven
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The Chess Masters Final is a 6-player double round-robin event which is held half in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and half in Bilbao, Spain. The games in Bilbao start at 17:00 local time (15:00 UTC).
The tournament uses the "Sofia" anti-draw rules, meaning that players can only draw by mutual agreement with the permission of the arbiter. The "Bilbao" scoring system (3-1-0) is also in use.
UPDATE: The Bilbao leg rest day has been changed from the original schedule to be today (Wednesday), so round 8 is on Thursday 11 October!
The Bilbao schedule
| 07-Oct | Opening |
| 08-Oct | Round 6 |
| 09-Oct | Round 7 |
| 10-Oct | Rest Day |
| 11-Oct | Round 8 |
| 12-Oct | Round 9 |
| 13-Oct | Round 10 |
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Games via TWIC. Photo from the official website.
