Vallejo Lights Up Bilbao Round 8
Local hero Paco Vallejo is comfortably the lowest rated player at the Chess Final Masters, but he produced a thrilling rook sacrifice in round 8 against world #2 Lev Aronian.
With both players running short of time in a complicated position, it looked like Vallejo might score his first win of the event, but Aronian found a way to survive.
After defeating the French defence in consecutive games, Magnus Carlsen played it himself against Sergey Karjakin and achieved a draw. Vishy Anand and Fabiano Caruana also drew their game, to leave the tournament standings unchanged.
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The standings after 8 rounds (3-1-0 scoring)
| # | Name | Fed | Elo | Pts |
| 1 | Caruana, Fabiano | ITA | 2773 | 13 |
| 2 | Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2843 | 13 |
| 3 | Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2816 | 10 |
| 4 | Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2780 | 8 |
| 5 | Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2778 | 6 |
| 6 | Vallejo Pons, Francisco | ESP | 2697 | 5 |
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Paco Vallejo Pons and Lev Aronian played the game of the day
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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.
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.
