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Aronian, Grischuk Lead Diminished Final Chess Masters

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  • Aronian, Grischuk Lead Diminished Final Chess Masters

    ARONIAN, GRISCHUK LEAD DIMINISHED FINAL CHESS MASTERS
    By Dylan Loeb McClain

    New York Times
    Sept 10 2009

    Midway through the Final Chess Masters in Bilbao, Spain, Levon Aronian
    of Armenia and Alexander Grischuk of Russia are tied for the lead of
    the tournament. Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine is in third, while Alexei
    Shirov of Spain is bringing up the rear.

    The Final Chess Masters is supposed to bring together the top finishers
    in four of the top tournaments of the year: Corus, Linares, M-Tel and
    Nanjing Pearl Spring. Karjakin won Corus earlier this year, Grischuk
    won Linares and Shirov won M-Tel. But Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria,
    the winner of Pearl Spring, and the No. 1 ranked player in the world,
    bowed out, partly citing the diminished purse of this year's event. As
    the second-place finisher in Pearl Spring, Aronian replaced Topalov.

    While the four players who in the Final Chess Masters are all
    tremendous players, there is little doubt that this year's event is not
    as prestigious the inaugural one last year when the field was bigger
    and included Topalov, Viswanathan Anand of India, the world champion,
    Aronian, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and
    Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan. The organizers have acknowledged that
    the economy took a toll on their plans and so they reduced the prize
    fund and the size of the field.

    Like last year, the scoring system being used in the tournament
    is unusual. Wins, instead of counting one point, count for three,
    while draws count for one point instead of one half. Grischuk and
    Aronian each have six points under this system, having won two games
    and lost one. Karjakin has four points, with one win, one draw and
    one loss, while Shirov has only one point, having managed only one
    draw and two losses. The tournament has been unusual for a top-flight
    competition in that five of the six games so far, or 83 percent, have
    been decisive. Usually, the percentage of decisive results hovers
    around 25 percent.

    Grischuk, who had the biggest victory of his career with his win
    at Linares, got off to a great start with a win over Aronian, who
    seemed to implode. In the popular and very sharp Anti-Moscow Gambit,
    Aronian sacrificed an exchange (rook for bishop) but did not get
    enough compensation for his material deficit. Grischuk methodically
    consolidated his position and gradually outflanked Aronian until
    he forced him to resign. Karjakin and Shirov agreed to a quick draw
    after Shirov sprung a novelty in the Dragon variation of the Sicilian
    Defense.

    In Round 2, Grischuk got the tiniest of advantages against Shirov
    and then ground him down in the endgame. Meanwhile, Aronian outplayed
    Karjakin in the middle game when Karjakin imprudently grabbed a pawn
    that allowed Aronian's rooks to set up shop on the seventh rank.

    Grischuk was tripped up in Round 3 when he misplayed a complicated
    position against Karjakin and succumbed to a beautiful and brutal
    attack. Aronian beat Shirov when the latter, in severe time pressure
    and facing a difficult position, blundered and resigned because he
    faced the loss of a great deal of material.

    The fourth round is Thursday, the fifth on Friday and the tournament
    wraps up Saturday.
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