In Shanghai

ChessVibes is in Shanghai, for the 2010 Grand Slam Masters Final. The tournament is split in two, and the second part will be held in October in Bilbao with Anand and Carlsen already seeded. The first part has started just a few hours ago here at the east coast of China, with Shirov-Kramnik and Wang Hao-Aronian in the first round.

Yours truly flew to Shanghai from Brussels, after a train ride from Amsterdam, on Wednesday. I joined the big group (about 40 people) of sponsors, guests and organizers from Bilbao, and my job is, guess what, to produce videos for the official website. The one on the opening ceremony is being uploaded right now, which give me time to do a brief update here.

After a very long day yesterday (I was up for about 36 hours) and then a very long sleep (about 12 hours) I got a little behind as far as ChessVibes and email are concerned, but I'm catching up.

For now I can tell you that Shanghai is very interesting but the weather is quite hot (about 30 degrees Celcius) and very humid. There's stunning architecture both around the Gran Melia hotel in Pudong, where everyone is staying, and the city center itself, where I had a walk this morning. The same can be said about the Expo, actually - that's where the first three rounds of the tournament are being held, on the first floor of the Spanish pavillion if you happen to be around. Especially the Thailand pavillion and the Chinese one are beautiful.

Aronian just beat Wang Hao with the black pieces while Kramnik and Shirov are still in an ending. Later more.

Links

• Official website
• Live games
• Games in PGN via TWIC