Bilbao, Day 1: Anand Leads The Masters, Few Upsets in the European Club Cup
Viswanathan got off to a good start in the Grand Slam Final in Bilbao, defeating Ruslan Ponomariov in round one to take the early lead as the other game (Francisco Vallejo Pons vs. Levon Aronian) was drawn. They use a 3-1-0 scoring system, so he's off to a pleasant-looking lead already.
Over in the European Club Cup most of the early matches were lopsided and many of the absolute top players took the opener off. Some very strong GMs were held to a draw, but I only noticed two elite players suffering defeat. One was Peter Leko, who was crushed by the (stylistically) wild Dutch IM Manuel Bosboom, and the other - sadly - was Gata Kamsky missing a simple tactic and losing to an FM. I don't know what has happened to Kamsky, who last July was 2763 and has lost more than 80 points since then, but I hope he's able to get back into good form.
Both tournaments' websites can be accessed through this page.
Reader Comments (2)
"Kamsky" had already been worse before the blunder, but I am 99% sure it wasn't Kamsky. The result of Ladya - Werder Bremen was 0.5-5.5 (more upsets) according to the live transmission, but 5.5-0.5 according to the official results. What probably happened: board 1 in the live transmission was actually board 6, board 2 was board 5 and so on. Additional circumstantial evidence: I know FM Olaf Steffens and I know he plays 1.b4 - he played board 4, in the live transmission it was played on board 3.
True upsets from a German perspective (while not all played for German clubs): Schramm-Movsesian 1-0 (crushing), Polzin-Najer 1-0 (the underdog actually won the game 'twice'), Wells-Naiditsch 1-0.
[DM: I wondered if there was some sort of transmission error. Thanks for writing in!]
Hi Dennis, from beautiful Bilbao,
thanks for your article, and yes it´s true, some problems occured with the live transmission in our match Werder Bremen vs Ladya. So, the Russian team finished us with a convincing 5,5 - 0,5, and in fact Kamsky, too, won in good style against IM Gerlef Meins. So, not to worry about Gata!
Best regards, and thanks for your inspiring blog
Olaf
PS The game Bosboom - Leko is certainly worth a look. He plays madly entertainingly chess, as my colleague Thomas Richter has often pointed out with admiration:
http://www.schach-welt.de/BLOG/blog/dieabenteuerdesherrnbosboomingibraltar