Hikaru Nakamura and Yu Yangyi won their respective games in the final Round 10 of Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017, to get a shot at the title when David Antón Guijarro drew his game against Michael Adams.
At the end of Round 10, Guijarro, Nakamura, and Yu were tied, thus necessitated a playoff:
[csvtable file=”http://chesshive.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/gibraltar-final.csv”]
GM David Anton Guijarro
David Anton Guijarro beats Veselin Topalov in the penultimate Round 9 of Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017 ([replay]) to take the solo lead with 1 round to go. He might only be the 24th seed (ELO 2650) coming into this tournament, but he finds himself ahead of household names in the chess world such as Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Michael Adams, Boris Gelfand, and especially Fabiano Caruana.
Caruana is having a hard time in this tournament after he lost to Nigel Short in the 6th round and drew with several lower rated players in earlier rounds before that, thus he’s at No. 12 in the ranking after Round 9. He’s currently at 3rd place in the live ratings with 2819.7. He’s set to face Varuzhan Akobian in the final round.
The FIDE Ratings update for the month of August 2016 is out.
There are a lot of changes in the top 10, including MVL‘s jump from number 4 to number 2 after a 21 ELO rating points boost from 2798 to 2819. Let’s find out if he can keep his momentum in the upcoming Sinquefield Cup.
Ding Liren lost 23 ELO points after his loss in his mini match against Alexander Grischuk, among others, and thus slid down from number 8 to number 13.
Anish Giri and Sergey Karjakin lost ground as well after their dismal performances in Bilbao, and thus enabling Wesley So to gain control of the 7th spot.
You’ll find below the top 20 list:
| Rk | Name | Ti. | Fed | Rtg | Gms | B-Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carlsen, Magnus | g | NOR | 2857 | 10 | 1990 |
| 2 | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | g | FRA | 2819 | 11 | 1990 |
| 3 | Kramnik, Vladimir | g | RUS | 2808 | 7 | 1975 |
| 4 | Caruana, Fabiano | g | USA | 2807 | 7 | 1992 |
| 5 | Aronian, Levon | g | ARM | 2792 | 0 | 1982 |
| 6 | Nakamura, Hikaru | g | USA | 2791 | 10 | 1987 |
| 7 | So, Wesley | g | USA | 2771 | 10 | 1993 |
| 8 | Anand, Viswanathan | g | IND | 2770 | 0 | 1969 |
| 9 | Giri, Anish | g | NED | 2769 | 10 | 1994 |
| 10 | Karjakin, Sergey | g | RUS | 2769 | 10 | 1990 |
| 11 | Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | g | AZE | 2764 | 0 | 1985 |
| 12 | Topalov, Veselin | g | BUL | 2761 | 0 | 1975 |
| 13 | Ding, Liren | g | CHN | 2755 | 16 | 1992 |
| 14 | Grischuk, Alexander | g | RUS | 2754 | 4 | 1983 |
| 15 | Li, Chao b | g | CHN | 2753 | 9 | 1989 |
| 16 | Harikrishna, P. | g | IND | 2752 | 13 | 1986 |
| 17 | Rapport, Richard | g | HUN | 2752 | 0 | 1996 |
| 18 | Svidler, Peter | g | RUS | 2751 | 4 | 1976 |
| 19 | Gelfand, Boris | g | ISR | 2743 | 6 | 1968 |
| 20 | Navara, David | g | CZE | 2742 | 7 | 1985 |
It was a quiet 10th and final round for Bilbao Masters Final 2016 as the players drew all their three games. Magnus Carlsen was already the clear winner even before the final round started, and the participants were all seemed satisfied with their ranking, thus the draws in Round 10.
Hikaru Nakamura was undefeated during the entire tournament, and with one win against Carlsen in the very first round, he settled for second place.
Wesley So and Wei Yi shared third place. Check out the final ranking below:
| Pos | Name | Fed | Rtg | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2855 | 17 |
| 2 | Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2787 | 12 |
| 3 | Wei, Yi | CHN | 2696 | 11 |
| 4 | So, Wesley | USA | 2770 | 11 |
| 5 | Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2773 | 9 |
| 6 | Giri, Anish | NED | 2785 | 7 |
Check out the feature video from Bilbao Chess below:
With one round to go, Bilbao 2016 already saw a winner, as Magnus Carlsen now leads by 5 points against the second placer, Hikaru Nakamura.
Chessbase reports:
Before Bilbao 2016 Magnus Carlsen had never won a game with classical time-control against Anish Giri. But in round nine of the “Masters” in Bilbao he finally did. This win must have been particularly sweet because it helped Carlsen to win the tournament with one round to go. Hikaru Nakamura and Sergey Karjakin drew and so did Wei Yi and Wesley So. Before the last round Carlsen now has 16.0/9 and is full five points ahead of Nakamura.
| Pos | Name | Fed | Rtg | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2855 | 16 |
| 2 | Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2787 | 11 |
| 3 | Wei, Yi | CHN | 2696 | 10 |
| 4 | So, Wesley | USA | 2770 | 10 |
| 5 | Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2773 | 8 |
| 6 | Giri, Anish | NED | 2785 | 6 |
I still couldn’t imagine how a Fitbit Blaze can help in the development of chess players!
Explain this to me further please?
The defending champion of the tournament, GM Wesley So, finally bags home his first win in this event over his nemesis, Anish Giri, in the eighth round of Bilbao Masters Final 2016.
The game opened with the classic Giuoco Piano. Eventually, they found themselves maneuvering the game with four-knights play leading towards the endgame, until strategic play led Wesley So to be up by a clear pawn by move 46. Anish Giri found himself trapped in a mating net and resigned after white’s 57th move. See diagram of the game below:
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Black to move after 57. Kf4
And thus, here, Giri cannot stop the mate by the next move in either 58. Rg7+ or 58. Nh4+.[replay]
Because of that win, Wesley So is now number 8 in the live ratings ranking, overtaking Anand and Karjakin:
Chess fans, and sports fans in general, call for blood during games in order to spice things up. But that was not the case in Round 7 of Bilbao Chess, when all six players settled for draws.
Bilbao Round 7 saw no change in the relative scores as all the games were drawn. Magnus Carlsen had slight pressure throughout against Wei Yi without ever being objectively much better. Careful calculation saw Wei Yi hold the draw. Hikaru Nakamura looked like he was getting somewhere against Wesley So but in the end the game petered out to a draw. Anish Giri had very little advantage against Sergey Karjakin and they traded to a draw.
As such, we see no movement in the ranking: