Sao Paulo/Bilbao Concludes: Carlsen Defeats Ivanchuk in a Blitz Playoff
Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 11:53PM A four-way tie for first was possible entering the last round. If Hikaru Nakamura could bounce back from OJ-gate (Nod-gate?) to defeat Magnus Carlsen, and Levon Aronian could take down Vassily Ivanchuk, then those four would all tie for first and go on to a blitz tiebreak. That would have been entertaining, but both games were drawn (pretty easily in both cases - Carlsen with Black, Ivanchuk with White), resulting in a two-man playoff between Carlsen and Ivanchuk.
Once the round finished (Viswanathan Anand's win over Francisco Vallejo was the last game to conclude, putting Anand in a tie with Nakamura and Aronian for third) they went on to a blitz playoff. Carlsen had White in the first game and initially had Ivanchuk on the ropes, but it wound up a draw. That was a hopeful moment for Ivanchuk's fans, especially after two pretty convincing losses to Carlsen in the slow games, but he couldn't build on it. Carlsen broke through on the kingside in the second game, and became the official tournament winner. A pity for Ivanchuk, after his great start in the tournament, but a great job of bouncing back from Carlsen after a slow start and the blown game with Vallejo from the first cycle.
Final Standings (3-1-0 scoring, with traditional scores given in parentheses):
1-2. Carlsen, Ivanchuk 15 (6 for Carlsen, 5.5 for Ivanchuk); Carlsen wins the playoff 1.5-.5
3-5. Nakamura, Aronian, Anand 12 (5)
6. Vallejo 10 (3.5)
Carlsen, Ivanchuk in Sao Paulo/Bilbao 2011
Reader Comments (2)
Congrats to Carlsen, who in the last two years is establishing himself as the most dominant tournament player – since Pearl Springs 2009, he has won 9 out of the 12 classical (super-)tournaments in which he participated (7 clear and 2 shared, putting aside tiebreaks). I was quite impressed with his overall solidity throughout this event – he had a momentary tactical blackout in the game he lost to Vallejo, but apart from that he wasn’t really in trouble or under serious pressure at any time, and wasn’t systematically outplayed by anyone. His opening play with White occasionally seemed toothless or lacking in good ideas (as against Nakamura and Anand), and not for the first time since he stopped working with Kasparov; but it’s remarkable how smoothly things went there for him as Black, where what he got from the opening ranged from easy equality (against Anand and Nakamura) to clear advantage (against Vallejo).
Even with four players tied for first place, according to the Bilbao regulations only two (those with the best tiebreaks) would have played a blitz playoff - I guess they didn't want to delay the closing and prize-giving ceremony even more?
While Carlsen is obviously the deserved winner, taking London and Bilbao together it would have been ironic, arguably higher justice if
Ivanchuk had won the blitz playoff, or if the event had - like London does - "double Bilbao rules": football scoring AND most wins as a tiebreaker. In London, Carlsen was "classically tied" with Anand and McShane but had lost against both of them.