Shanghai Masters 2010

The 2010 Shanghai Masters is underway, featuring the powerful line-up of Lev Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexei Shirov and Wang Hao in a double round-robin contest.

The tournament runs from 3-8 Sept and forms the first part of this year's Grand Slam final, being a qualifying event for the actual final in Bilbao from 9-15 October.  The top two finishers in Shanghai will join Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen in Bilbao.

The official site is not particularly informative (what time do the games start please?), but it should perk up now that the games have actually started.

In the first round Lev Aronian (pictured) started with a win with black against local hopeful Wang Hao.  The full draw can be found here.

Live games can be followed here at the official site, starting at (my best guess) 14:30 local time for rounds 1-3 and 15:00 for rounds 4-6.

The "Sofia" anti-draw rules are in effect, as well as the controversial 3-1-0 scoring system.

The competition is taking place as part of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.