CARUANA LOSES THE OPPORTUNITY TO SEAL THE FIRST ROUND OF THE MASTERS FINAL
The third round’s three matches ended in a draw, placing the Italian-American at the top of the leaderboard before the rest day
Day 3 Results:
Aronian (Armenia) (w)- Vallejo (Spain) (b) 1-1 (33 moves)
Caruana (Italy) (w)- Anand (India) (b) 1-1 (70 moves)
Carlsen (Norway) (w)- Karjakin (Russia) (b) 1-1 (67 moves)
Provisional Leaderboard:
Fabiano Caruana: 7 points
Levon Aronian: 5 points
Magnus Carlsen: 4 points
Viswanathan Anand: 3 points
Francisco Vallejo: 2 points
Sergey Karjakin: 1 point
Sao Paulo. 27.09.2012
Fabiano Caruana, the surprise of the start of the 5th Chess Masters Final being played in Sao Paulo, missed the opportunity last night (early morning Spanish time) to polish off his lead in the first round, when he wasted his advantage against world champion, Viswanathan Anand, and ended the match in a draw. A win would have decisively increased his lead over the other contenders, who in their respective games agreed to draws among themselves. Ending in a tie were the encounters between Vallejo and Aronian and Carlsen and Karjakin, who won his first point of the tournament, although it is not enough to get him out of last place on the provisional scoreboard.
With the results obtained on day three of the first round being held at Sao Paulo’s Ibirapuera Park, Caruana sits atop the leaderboard with 7 points, followed by Aronian with 5, Carlsen 4, Anand 3 and Vallejo with 2. Rounding out the scoreboard is Karjakin with 1. The three top contenders are separated by a win since in the Masters final the “Bilbao Rules”, which award the winner of each pairing 3 points, 1 point to each player in the case of a draw and 0 points for the loser.
With two days of play to go in Brazil after tomorrow’s rest day, by all indications the winner of the tournament, one of the world’s most prestigious in which five of the eight current best players are competing, will be determined in the second and deciding round which will be played in Bilbao from October 8 to 13.
“It has indeed been a day of draws, but the matches have been very competitive,” said international grandmaster and commentator, the Hungarian-born American Susan Polgar. “And Caruana missed a magnificent opportunity against Anand and wasted the opportunity of having two more pawns almost at the end of the match”.
Among the attractive encounters brought about by the 5th Masters Final, there was one that was being anticipated with rare interest by experts—the one that the Fabiano Caruana – Viswanathan Anand pairing had in store, the Italian being the younger and the Indian the more experienced of the players, the former the best under-20 player in the world and the latter the current overall world champion.
In what seemed like it would end in a new victory, the third for the Italian genius, on gaining in the opening a pawn advantage in a “Sicilian Marocozy”, Caruana seemed surprised by the lesson in pragmatism dished out by the world champion, who simplified the midgame in an ingenious way. The advantage accumulated by the Italian at the end proved completely useless for winning the match.
In the Aronian-Vallejo duel, the Spanish champion gained a clear opening advantage and he seemed on his way to earning his first victory of the tournament. The errors committed by the Armenian double Olympic champion only served to increase the Minorcan’s advantage. However, Vallejo decided not to enter into the endgame, in an excess of respect for the quality of his opponent and gave up the advantage to enter a line which which allowed him to easily maintain a draw and with it his second point on the scoreboard “The way things were, I am satisfied with the draw achieved”, said Vallejo.
In the third matchup starring Carlsen and Karjakin, the Russian obtained his promising first place in the Final, to later throw away the advantage in a slightly misguided mid game, which condemned him to playing the endgame in an inferior position. In this last stage, world number one, Carlsen, was about to repeat the fatal error he made on the first day, and through an excess of ambition, gave clear opportunities to his opponent to win, that the latter was unable to take advantage of since the time on the clock was thrown on top of him. In short, it was a fair draw in a back and forth encounter which either of them could have won.
The matches can be followed live on the tournament’s official website www.bilbaomastersfinal.com and will resume on Friday after tomorrow’s rest day.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
a very strong and competitive chess tournament…congratulations to Susan for the very informative news…
Amazing games.