São Paulo Masters – Both Carlsen and Anand lose

1st leg in São Paulo, Ibirapuera Park, from September 25th to October 1st.
2nd leg in Bilbao, Alhóndiga, from 5th to 11th October.
Tourney sytem: double round robin with 6 players over 10 rounds
Time control: 90 minutes/40 moves + 30 minutes + 10 seconds/move starting with the 1st move
Game start: 15h for all rounds in São Paulo (14h - NY time / 20h Paris time) --- 16:00 in Bilbao
Rest day: 29th September and 9th October

Round three

By Albert Silver

It is hard to imagine a more astonishing round than what transpired in the third. In one fell swoop, both the World Champion Viswanathan Anand and the world number one not only lost their respective games, but landed, even if temporarily, at the bottom two places of the crosstable!

Individually, neither of these individual circumstances is absolutely unique, even if extremely unusual. In the Sofia Mobiltel Masters in 2005, after the sixth round, both Topalov and Anand, the top-rated active players in the world (Kasparov had officially retired a couple of months earlier) shared the bottom places. Before you go tsk-tsk and shake your head, know that by the end of the tournament, they occupied sole first and second place respectively!

As to both losing in the same round, Morelia-Linares 2007 brought the same heroes to the stage, when Topalov and Anand, again ranked one and two at the time, both lost in round five, however ...by the end of the tournament (you guessed it) Anand had won the event a full point ahead of the field. Topalov was less fortunate that time though. This isn't to suggest that is necessarily what will happen here, just don't be shocked if it does.

The first game to finish was between Aronian and Nakamura who split the point after reaching mutual time-trouble. Despite being better, Aronian had spent some ten moves doing very little, except maintaining his edge, while Nakamura's clock began to dwindle at an alarming rate. The general belief was that the Armenian was planning on using Hikaru's time trouble to press his advantage and have an extra factor in his favor. The American was wily enough to know what was coming, and being an extremely strong speed player, was very cautious when it came to this, and sidestepped the potential mines.

The second game was the first fatality of the day, wherein Carlsen, with black, tried very hard to make something from nothing against Vallejo, who held tenaciously with creative resources. In fact, when asked about it the next morning, Paco, who had had time to look over the game a little more closely, was quite proud of the unexpected 17.Ra2 he had played. Even so, it wasn't all roses for Vallejo, as slips finally appeared, and Magnus crept into the position.

A historic win as Francisco Vallejo became the first Spanish-born player to beat a
world number one.

Things were looking dire indeed when the Norwegian missed a clear win to end the Spaniard's misery. The uncharacteristic oversight didn't stop there unfortunately, since a couple of moves later Carlsen lost most of his advantage with another error. Unable to recover his focus in time, the boat truly capsized after a further couple of moves when he went from equal to lost in a single blow as he dropped a full piece.

The tale of the World Champion's loss was quite different though, and though of course errors took place, it wasn't a game of wild swings as the previous. The opening was noteworthy in itself, and Ivanchuk chose a Schliemann for the first time, eschewing we don't really know what in its favor. It isn't a normal part of his repertoire, though the Ukrainian has such a wide choice of opening weapons, who can say whether he didn't simply feel like trying something new. Anand chose to avoid the sharper and more tactical lines, and kept it sane, however there was a point when White was no longer calling the shots, and despite being balanced, it was clear the tide was turning. An oversight cost him a pawn, and after that it was pretty much lost, though he fought for the longest time.

Hoping for the miracle

The reason was that after nearly 60 moves, the players were down to less than five minutes each, and the increment was a meager ten seconds per move, not the usual 30 often used, so there was still room for a miracle. In the final position, Anand resigned, not because he had finally given up, but because he had touched his king, and realizing this meant a forced queen exchange, he extended his hand instead.

With his fine win, Ivanchuk has also taken a strong lead with 2.5/3, or 7/9 using the Bilbao scoring system, and a near ideal start, with Aronian right behind, followed by Nakamura and Vallejo.

The rest day

During the rest day, there were no special activities organized, and the players were left to use the day as they saw fit. I had lunch with Anand at a Japanese all-you-can eat, typical of the country. The first and most common type of all-you-can-eat in Brazil is the classic churrascaria, which will serve meats of all kinds at the table until you tell them to stop. The fee will come with a right to typical accompaniments such as rice, beans, fries, not to mention a salad bar which always has more than just salad. At the Japanese restaurant, the fare was other, but equally delicious, and don't think for a minute that quality was spurned in favor of quantity. After lunch, we went for a walk, and were pointed to a park called the "Parque do Povo", or the "People's Park". This turned out to be a rather unique park, which only had one fully grown tree to shelter from the afternoon sun. We dubbed it the "Park with One Tree".

Anand enjoying the one place of shade in the park

On the way back we ran into Aronian, who, with his second, Brazilian GM Krikor Mekhitarian, was headed to the basketball courts for a game of one-on-one. At first I thought he was just pulling our leg, but it was soon clear that was really the plan. As to Carlsen, he spent the afternoon with his manager and a close friend of mine, seeking not only to stay away from the press but to put his previous day's reversal behind him, and come to the Friday game refreshed and renewed.

Magnus Carlsen's Blog:

"Even though a draw, as black, would be a pretty normal result, I felt eager to try for more. Things went well and I achieved a position I felt was close to winning. Having a big lead on the clock as well, I tried to figure out a forced win with 26 Rd3. The win was there, but I didn't manage to calculate it to the end. I went for Qxe4 instead, which is also a good move, but having squandered most of my time advantage, I started to drift and even managed to blunder a piece and the game with it. It's outrageous and painful, but with seven rounds to go it's possible to repair. Today is a day off, and I'm on my way to do some sports."

Pictures by Albert Silver and Official Site

Bilbao system scores after three rounds

Traditional crosstable after three rounds

Schedule and results

Links Official tournament site (São Paulo) Official tournament site (Bilbao) All ChessBase reports All the games in PGN The games will be 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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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