Sao Paolo-Bilbao Masters 2012 Update: Caruana Leads at the End of First Leg

[caption id="attachment_1128" align="aligncenter" width="480"] 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.

Sao Paolo - Bilbao Grand Slam Final 2012

The Grand Slam this year will be held again in Sao Paolo in [country]Brazil[/country] and Bilbao in [country]Spain[/country]. It won't be a grand slam if it were not participated by the heavy weights in the world of chess:

• [player]Viswanathan Anand[/player], [country]India[/country], current World Champiion;


• [player]Magnus Carlsen[/player], [country]Norway[/country], currently the world's No. 1 in ELO Rating;


• [player]Levon Aronian[/player], [country]Armenia[/country], world's No. 2 and member of the champion team in the Istanbul 2012 Chess Olympiad;


• [player]Sergey Karjakin[/player], [country]Russia[/country], world's No. 7;


• [player]Fabiano Caruana[/player], [country]Italy[/country], world's No. 8; and


• [player]Francisco Vallejo Pons[/player], [country]Spain[/country], the pride of one of the host countries of this tournament.

The first round-robin matches will happen in Sao Paolo from September 24 to 29, while the final rounds in Bilbao from October 8 to 13, 2012. Check out the website.

ChessHive will bring you the updates about this grand event, so stay tuned.