Photo credit: www.bilbaomastersfinal.com[/caption]With 3 wins and 2 draws, [player]Fabiano Caruana[/player] leads the pack of 6 top players in the [event]Sao Paolo-Bilbao Grand Slam Final 2012[/event]. He started the campaign with a win in Round 1 against [player]Magnus Carlsen[/player] (replay game here), followed by two more wins against [player]Sergey Karjakin[/player] and [player]Francisco Vallejo Pons[/player] in Rounds 2 and 4, respectively.
The current world champion, [player]Viswanathan Anand[/player], appears to be the master of draws in this tournament, with all his 5 games drawn. The 3-1-0 rule (3 points for a win, 1 for draw, and 0 for loss) is particularly intended to penalize players like him who settle for uneventful draws.
[player]Levon Aronian[/player], on the other hand, missed back-to-back winning chances: in Round 4 against [player]Magnus Carlsen[/player] (see Chessbase analysis), and in Round 5 against the leader himself, [player]Fabiano Caruana[/player] (see TWiC analysis) -- both games ended in draws. He settled for 2nd place at the end of the first leg in Sao Paolo.
Scores after 5 rounds:
| # | Player | Pts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fabiano Caruana | 11 |
| 2 | Levon Aronian | 7 |
| 3 | Magnus Carlsen | 6 |
| 4 | Viswanathan Anand | 5 |
| 5 | Francisco Vallejo | 4 |
| 6 | Sergey Kariakin | 3 |
The second leg in Bilbao resumes on 8th October 2012.
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