Bilbao Final: Anand first, Aronian second

2014 Bilbao Masters Final This super-GM double round robin tournament is being played September 14th until September 20th, 2014. The players – Levon Aronian (Armenia), Viswanathan Anand (India), Rulsan Ponomariov (Ukraine) and Francisco "Paco" Vallejo Pons (Spain). The tournament is being held alongisde the European Club Cup, which we will have reports for separately. The average rating of this event is 2754, making it a category 21. The event is being scored in the "soccer" format: three points for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss.

Round Six

Spectators gather to watch the final game

The last round of the tournament saw two games in which White was able to exploit their positional advantage. In Aronian-Anand a tiny slip by the Indian player caused him to be slightly worse, and although he was close to equality he started slipping near time pressure until eventually his position could not be held any more.

Vallejo Pons (above) won his first game of the event by squashing Ponomariov's position. The Ukrainian had trouble deciding what to do with a sacrificial pawn on c5, and leaving it alone was not the correct solution. That pawn when all the way to c6, clamping down Black's position and the Spaniard cleaned up without difficulties.

Anand still had a strong showing and he won the tournament, but because of this loss he falls to number six in the live rating list. Currently Places 3-6 are only 8 points away:

Last update: 20 September 2014, 17:38 GMT

#		Name	Rating	+/-	Age
1		Carlsen	2862.8	-7.2	23
2	1	Caruana	2843.5	+42.5	22
3	3	Topalov	2799.5	+15.5	39
4	2	Aronian	2797.6	-6.4	31
5	1	Grischuk	2796.6	+7.6	30
6	1	Anand	2791.8	+6.8	44
7	4	Giri	2768.1	+10.1	20
8		Karjakin	2767.3	-9.7	24
9	2	Nakamura	2764.3	-17.7	26
10	2	Mamedyarov	2763.7	+7.7	29

Information taken from www.2700chess.com and updated just after the ECC and Bilbao rounds finished today

Aronian goes back to fourth, trying to get back to 2800.
He had a much needed good performance in Bilbao.

The players trying to remember the Ramirez-Cornette game

Photos by Manu de Alba from Bilbao's Facebook site

Round Six Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Standings

Schedule

Links Official tournament site All Games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.