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.