Bilbao day 2 report

DAY 2 – BILBAO CHESS 2014

ANAND INCREASES LEAD AT BILBAO MASTERS FINAL BY DEFEATING PACO VALLEJO

At the European Club Cup, big favorites Socar, Obiettivo Risarcimento (Italy), and Malakhite are still leading

Bilbao, 15 September 2014

DAY 2:

Bilbao Masters Final Results

FRANCISCO VALLEJO (Spain) – VISWANATAN ANAND (India) 0-3 (2 h. 36′ – 35 moves)
LEVON ARONIAN (Armenia) – RUSLAN PONOMARIOV (Ukraine) 3-0 (4 h. 10′ – 50 moves)

Bilbao Masters Final standings after Day 2:

1. Anand (india) 6 points

2. Aronian (Armenia) 4 points

3. Vallejo (Spain) 1 point

4. Ponomariov (Ukraine) 0 points

Five-times World Champion Viswanathan Anand increased his lead at the Bilbao Chess Masters Final today by defeating Spanish Paco Vallejo. He is now 2/2 of a total of six rounds. He is closely followed by the winner of Masters Final 2013 Levon Aronian, who defeated Ruslan Ponomariov today. Ponomariov has lost both games so far, and thus closes the standings. Today’s results highlight the duel that will take place tomorrow between the two leaders of the tournament, Anand and Aronian, in the third round and last before the free day.

At the European Club Cup, big favorites Socar (Azerbaijan), Obiettivo Risarcimento (Italy), and Malakhite (Russia) won again by a bigger or smaller margin, pending the competition system’s “natural selection” which will pair the strongest teams on one side and the weakest on the other.

Basque teams Sestao and Gros are fighting to join the group of strongest teams, but with unequal success. While the team from Bizkaia faced defeat today against team Oslo (Norway) after tying their match on the first round, Gros, on the other hand, scored their second victory, this time by 5.5-0.5 against Zurich (Switzerland). The third Spanish team, Solvay from Cantabria, also lost their match today, against Beer Sheva from Israel, thus neutralizing their victory of the first round.

With both the European Club Cup and the Grand Slam Masters Final being held simultaneously, Bilbao is turning into the world chess capital during this week. Until Saturday 20 September, many high-level players are meeting in Bilbao for both tournaments; amongst others, nine of the current top ten players in the world.

When it seemed almost certain that Anand and Vallejo were going to draw the game, the Spanish player made a mistake, most likely due to time trouble. This precipitated a rapid ending to the game, which Vallejo abandoned making Anand winner. Until then, Vallejo (white) had been leading the game and, worst-case scenario, had considered a draw settled. There was only one problem — he was thoroughly considering his every move, and consequently running out of time. Anand, unaffected and cautious as usual, was patiently waiting for his adversary to make a mistake. Which Vallejo did — when he moved the knight to the wrong square, he was doomed to failure. In fact, the Spanish player stated after the game that he “had made an unbelievable mistake and can’t remember when was the last time I played as badly as I did today”.

During the longest game on this second day at the Grand Slam Masters Final, more than four hours long, Levon Aronian (white) imposed his theoretical superiority and advantage over Ponomariov from the very beginning. Like he had done when playing against Anand the day before, Ponomariov kept fighting back double Olympic champion Aronian’s attacks. For the youngest ever ex world champion, however, the agony was long as well as inevitable.

For further information:

www.bilbaomastersfinal.com
www.europeanchessclubcup2014.com