Bilbao Super Final Masters

The Highest-level tournament in Chess History

The 3rd Final of the Masters of Grand Slam Chess has become the highest-level tournament in the history of the discipline, with four players taking part. In the final this year are Viswanathan Anand, current world champion and world number two; Magnus Carlsen, winner of the Wijk aan Zee, Nanking and Bazna tournaments and current world number one; Alexei Shírov, best Spanish player and ranked tenth in the world; and Vladimir Kramnik, world number five. These last two qualified after placing first and second respectively in the preliminaries played in Shanghai from September 3 to 8. These four players raise the Bilbao Final to level 22, making it the highest-level tournament in Chess history, surpassing in ELO points the first Masters Final, also held in Bilbao in 2008 and which also achieved the same level.

The presentation of the tournament which took place today, Friday 8, in front of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum was attended by the Mayor of Bilbao, Iñaki Azkuna, and the four main stars of the Final. Also attending the ceremony were Coordinator of the Final, Andoni Madariaga, and Juan Carlos Fernández, Technical Director, together with representatives from collaborating companies and institutions.

The Tournament, which is officially recognized by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), will again be played in Bilbao for the third time, with the Grand Slam Chess Association putting its faith un the Biscayne capital in the wake of the success enjoyed by the 2008 and 2009 finals. This year the chosen venue is the Alhóndiga, where the matches and the other related activities will take place.

AlhóndigaBilbao

The Alhóndiga, right in the heart Bilbao, will host this tournament, with the grandmasters playing in a glass room in view of the public. The final will begin on Saturday 9^th and go on until Friday 15^th. A two-round league will be played over the course of these six days (plus a rest day on Tuesday 12th). The rhythm of play will be 90 minutes for the first 40 plays and another 60 minutes to finish the match, with 10 seconds added per play from 41. Each day of the Masters Final will begin at 4:30 p.m.

In the spectacular atrium of this building, the parallel activities will also take place:

• The Meeting Room: a space for analysis, commentary and interviews, run by Leontxo García with the collaboration of chess experts and Bilbao’s International Master Santiago González de la Torre or chess historian Joaquín Pérez de Arriaga. The Alhóndiga’s big screen placed outside of the Meeting Room will allow the games to be viewed live.
• 2nd Amistad Chess Club Bilbao e4 Tournament, on the evening of Saturday 9, in which teams from the Basque Country and from the rest of the State, made up of four players each, will take part
• 3rd Quick Chess Open, where around 100 enthusiasts will compete on the 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th and 15th, starting at the same time as the grandmasters.
• Euskaltel Game-gunea, a game space for younger players.
• Prize-giving and Closing Ceremony in the atrium of the Alhóndiga on Friday15th after the end of the day’s matches.

The third Masters Final will continue striving towards innovative rules aimed at guaranteeing competition and showmanship in each match. The so-called “Sofía rules” will be enforced, which state that only the arbiter has the authority to decide if a game is drawn, which prevents pacts between players. In addition, the system of three points for each game won, 1 point for a draw and 0 for a loss will continue to be used. It was first used in an elite tournament at the Final of the 2008 Bilbao Masters and has been known since then as the “Bilbao rules”.

Official website: http://www.bilbaofinalmasters.com/2010/