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Carlsen defeats Ivanchuk, catches him in the lead of the Bilbao Final Masters |
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Tuesday, 11 October 2011 08:44 |
 Magnus Carlsen defeated Vassily Ivanchuk in the 9th round of the Grand Slam Masters Final in Bilbao and caught him on the shared first place with one game to go.
On the last day Ivanchuk and Carlsen will face Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura, respectively, with a slight head start for the Ukrainian who will play with white, while Norwegian will be black.
The two leaders are clearly the favorites to win the tournament, the most prestigious in the world, leading the standings with 14 points.
But this is not the only possible combination, since there could be a quadruple tie on the top, if Nakamura and Aronian would win their games.
Round 9 video
In case of tie in the top of the standings, the winner would be decided in a quick-game playoff.
In the other 9th round game Nakamura lost against Vallejo, that was decided in a "conflict" after a small controversy in the end and protests of the American player. The arbiter proclaimed Vallejo the winner after Nakamura got confused and overstepped the time allowed for the first 40 moves.
For his part, and with unusual speed, World Champion Vishy Anand has lost in less than two hours against Levon Aronian, who was playing White.
Round 9 standings:
1-2. Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen - 14
3-4. Hikaru Nakamura and Levon Aronian - 11
5. Francisco Vallejo - 10
6. Viswanathan Anand - 9
Live games with GM commentary and computer analysis
Round 10 pairings:
Vassily Ivanchuk - Levon Aronian, Viswanathan Anand - Francisco Vallejo, Hikaru Nakamura - Magnus Carlsen
Official website
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