São Paulo Rd1 – Aronian wins, Carlsen loses

São Paulo / Bilbao Grand Slam Final

Round one

Report and pictures by Albert Silver

Though the last few days have seen the chess world’s attention turned towards the London Grand Prix, today the Grand Slam Masters started with the cream of the crop: world number one Magnus Carlsen, world number two Levon Aronian, the world champion Vishy Anand, the youngest grandmaster in history, Sergey Karjakin, the rising phenomenon Fabiano Caruana, and top Spaniard Francisco Vallejo-Pons. In this ten round double round-robin there are no boards with less than stellar appeal.

To further ensure maximum efforts to win, the tournament uses the football scoring method of three points for a win, and only one for a draw, to which the Sofia rules are added, meaning draws cannot be offered without the arbiter’s permission.

São Paulo tournament organizer Davy D'Israel shakes hands with Vishy Anand to start the game

The media was there in full. Here are TV presenter Alessandra and Murilo Azevedo
from TV Brasil, a public television network.

Following its tradition, the games are played in the glass cube referred by the players as the “aquarium”, allowing it to be played outdoors, but still quiet enough for the games not to be hindered by an excited audience. In fact, the live commentator area is right next to the cube itself!

GM Ian Rogers joined GM Gilberto Milos for the live commentary, much to the delight of the audience

Leontxo Garcia was unable to make the trip this time due to prior commitments, but will be replaced by Susan Polgar, who will analyze alongside the polyglot GM Gilberto Milos. As she will only arrive tomorrow, GM Ian Rogers was kind enough to join Milos to provide dynamic feedback and analysis.

Children from all over came to join the many chess-related activities

Levon Aronian had the ideal start, dominating his first game from end to end

The first game of the day was decided by Levon Aronian quickly steamrolling Sergey Karjakin, when the young Russian entered a line the Armenian said he had been waiting a longtime to meet with detailed preparation. The wait was worth it as he notched a powerful win and opened his tally with three points.

If he was praying for a good result, Paco got his wish as he managed to hold...

...world champion Viswanathan Anand to a draw.

After this, some time passed before the next game ended. Vishy Anand and Francisco Vallejo-Pons played a protracted struggle in which the advantage actually swung both ways. Ultimately neither player got more than a nagging edge and it pettered out into a draw.

The game started fairly poorly for the world number one

The last game was also by far the most dramatic. Fabiano Caruana found himself facing a French defense by Magnus Carlsen, and seemed to get a significant edge very early on. This did not last long as the game then swung the other way and he was on the defensive for the next fifty moves.

Magnus then turned the tables and kept the pressure going for the longest time

Magnus appeared to have several chances to decide the game in his favor, but somehow it never turned out that way, and instead the game also seemed destined to end in a draw. Everyone, from the grandmaster commentators to the spectators just waited for the players to shake hands, but Carlsen was having none of it. He wanted to play for a win!

It seemed like there was no way to avoid the draw, but Carlsen was determined to
transform lead into gold.

Though this can often be a recipe for disaster, he seemed to understand the fine balance between playing for the win, and forcing into a loss. Miraculously he got his wish as he steered the game to a genuine win, but at the cost of his precious time on the clock, and a few moves short of the time control, he not only missed the winning continuation, but tragically blundered into a loss, and suddenly it was all over.

A shocking turn of events instead handed the win to Fabiano Caruana

In the post-mortem, Caruana was still shocked by the turn of events and was a little more subdued than usual, but one suspects he will soon be jumping in glee once the enormity of his good fortune registers.

Photos by Albert Silver and official site

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