CARUANA CONTINUES TO SURPRISE AND COMMANDS THE LEADERBOARD OF THE CHESS MASTERS FINAL WITH TWO WINS AFTER DAY TWO
The Italian-American beats Russia’s Karjakin, in last place, while Carlsen gets his first victory over Vallejo and Anand, who is slipping down,  draws against Aronian
Day 2 Results:
Vallejo (Spain) (w)- Carlsen (Norway) (b) 0-3 (duration: 4 hrs. 33 mins.; 42 moves)
Karjakin (Russia) (w)-Caruana (Italy) (b) 0-3 (duration: 2hrs. 24 mins.; 36 moves)
Anand (India) (w)-Aronian (Armenia) (b) 1-1 (duration: 1hr. 30 mins.; 35 moves)
Provisional scores:
Fabiano Caruana: 6 points
Levon Aronian: 4 points
Magnus Carlsen: 3 points
Viswanathan Anand: 2 points
Francisco Vallejo: 1 point
Sergey Karjakin: 0 points
Sao Paulo. 26.09.2012
After the surprising victory obtained yesterday by Fabiano Caruana over number 1 in the world rankings, Magnus Carlsen, the Italian-American has continued his winning streak on day 2 of the 5th Chess Masters Final after beating Sergey Karjakin, thereby placing himself at the top of the provisional leaderboard in the first round of the tournament being played in Sao Paulo. Caruana’s lead has been favoured by a draw between Olympic champion, Armenia’s Aronian, the only one who can catch up to him after his victory on the frist day, and India’s Viswanathan Anand. Recovered from his defeat on day one, world number 1, Carlsen, did not allow surprise to be an option as occurred last year, defeating Spain’s Francisco Vallejo.
With these results, the most significant thing is the apparent sliding down the leaderboard of Anand relative to the other two big favourites of the tournament, Aronian and Carlsen, currently joined by Caruana, as he wasted his respected favourable initial positions on playing with white in the two matches he has played up to now.
In a similar fashion Russia’s Karjakin is lagging behind in last place, once again a victim, as already occurred on the opening day, of great prior computer preparation on the part of his rival, on this occasion. After gaining an advantage with the sacrifice of a quality piece (rook for a bishop), the Italian-American conducted his game with the utmost ease to obtain an undisputable victory. With this second win, US-born Caruana who later became an Italian national has risen from virtually sixth to fourth spot in the FIDE (World Chess Federation) rankings.
The match played between recent Olympic and world champions Aronian and Anand respectively, ended disappointingly for the around one thousand fans who were following the tournament at Sao Paulo’s Ibirapuera Park. Both opponents practically copied matches they previously played, and after a brief contest that did not even reach an hour and a half in duration, they agreed to a watered-down draw and, just like that, they both left the Sao Paulo sporting premises.
In the third and final encounter, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen made up for the defeat inflicted on him last year by Spain’s Paco Vallejo. The initiative of the game fell quickly into the hands of the number 1, who forced the Spaniard to defend himself and fight for a draw. These seemed like a reasonable option based on how the moves progressed. However, a fatal error on move 37 by Vallejo allowed the Norwegian to enter an endgame with a clear advantage that the Spaniard was unable to withstand.
Matches can be viewed live on the tournament’s official website www.bilbaomastersfinal.com.
Just as in previous years, in this 5th edition play is via a double round-robin league among the six master participants, the first round being played in Sao Paulo (from September 24 to 29) and the second round to be played in a giant glass booth installed at the Alhóndiga Bilbao, the championship’s venue en in the Biscayan capital, from October 8 to 13.

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Tags: , , ,