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.

Grandmasters can play ball

Photo by Albert Silver, Chessbase

It is but on rare occasions we get to see Grandmasters playing sports other than chess.

Participants of the [event]Sao Paolo-Bilbao Grand Slam Final 2012[/event] dressed up in rubber shoes and jerseys to play basketball the day before the opening ceremony. In the picture above you'll see [player]Levon Aronian[/player] tries to get past the defense of [player]Sergey Karjakin[/player] while [player]Magnus Carlsen[/player] waits in the background.

More photos in the Chessbase website.

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.

September 2012 Updated FIDE Official Ratings List Top 100

The official FIDE Ratings list is out for the month of September 2012, and we see Magnus Carlsen still No. 1 at ELO 2830, inching closer to the 2850 level. The second and third top chess players, Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik, retained their ratings at 2816 and 2797, respectively.

Check out the full list of the Top 100 below:

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2843	10	1990
2	Aronian, Levon	g	ARM	2816	0	1982
3	Kramnik, Vladimir	g	RUS	2797	0	1975
4	Radjabov, Teimour	g	AZE	2788	0	1987
5	Nakamura, Hikaru	g	USA	2783	10	1987
6	Anand, Viswanathan	g	IND	2780	0	1969
7	Karjakin, Sergey	g	RUS	2778	9	1990
8	Caruana, Fabiano	g	ITA	2773	0	1992
9	Ivanchuk, Vassily	g	UKR	2769	0	1969
10	Morozevich, Alexander	g	RUS	2758	2	1977
11	Grischuk, Alexander	g	RUS	2754	9	1983
12	Topalov, Veselin	g	BUL	2752	0	1975
13	Svidler, Peter	g	RUS	2747	9	1976
14	Kamsky, Gata	g	USA	2746	9	1974
15	Wang, Hao	g	CHN	2742	10	1989
16	Gelfand, Boris	g	ISR	2738	0	1968
17	Gashimov, Vugar	g	AZE	2737	0	1986
18	Leko, Peter	g	HUN	2737	0	1979
19	Jobava, Baadur	g	GEO	2734	4	1983
20	Giri, Anish	g	NED	2730	10	1994
21	Tomashevsky, Evgeny	g	RUS	2730	0	1987
22	Ponomariov, Ruslan	g	UKR	2729	11	1983
23	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	g	AZE	2729	0	1985
24	Dominguez Perez, Leinier	g	CUB	2725	0	1983
25	Jakovenko, Dmitry	g	RUS	2724	9	1983
26	Adams, Michael	g	ENG	2722	0	1971
27	Volokitin, Andrei	g	UKR	2718	11	1986
28	Andreikin, Dmitry	g	RUS	2718	9	1990
29	Fressinet, Laurent	g	FRA	2714	10	1981
30	Shirov, Alexei	g	LAT	2714	6	1972
31	Bruzon Batista, Lazaro	g	CUB	2713	9	1982
32	Wojtaszek, Radoslaw	g	POL	2713	4	1987
33	Almasi, Zoltan	g	HUN	2713	0	1976
34	McShane, Luke J	g	ENG	2713	0	1984
35	Bologan, Viktor	g	MDA	2712	8	1971
36	Naiditsch, Arkadij	g	GER	2712	0	1985
37	Riazantsev, Alexander	g	RUS	2712	0	1985
38	Sasikiran, Krishnan	g	IND	2707	0	1981
39	Bacrot, Etienne	g	FRA	2705	20	1983
40	Korobov, Anton	g	UKR	2705	11	1985
41	Movsesian, Sergei	g	ARM	2705	11	1978
42	Nepomniachtchi, Ian	g	RUS	2704	0	1990
43	Areshchenko, Alexander	g	UKR	2702	11	1986
44	Malakhov, Vladimir	g	RUS	2700	10	1980
45	Moiseenko, Alexander	g	UKR	2699	11	1980
46	Sokolov, Ivan	g	NED	2699	10	1968
47	Vitiugov, Nikita	g	RUS	2699	9	1987
48	Polgar, Judit	g	HUN	2698	0	1976
49	Short, Nigel D	g	ENG	2698	0	1965
50	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	g	FRA	2697	21	1990
51	Vallejo Pons, Francisco	g	ESP	2697	14	1982
52	Ding, Liren	g	CHN	2694	13	1992
53	Le, Quang Liem	g	VIE	2693	0	1991
54	Rublevsky, Sergei	g	RUS	2693	0	1974
55	Sargissian, Gabriel	g	ARM	2693	0	1983
56	Wang, Yue	g	CHN	2691	10	1987
57	Navara, David	g	CZE	2691	0	1985
58	Van Wely, Loek	g	NED	2691	0	1972
59	Harikrishna, P.	g	IND	2690	11	1986
60	Efimenko, Zahar	g	UKR	2689	11	1985
61	Cheparinov, Ivan	g	BUL	2689	10	1986
62	Georgiev, Kiril	g	BUL	2687	25	1965
63	Akopian, Vladimir	g	ARM	2687	0	1971
64	Sutovsky, Emil	g	ISR	2687	0	1977
65	Kryvoruchko, Yuriy	g	UKR	2686	0	1986
66	Berkes, Ferenc	g	HUN	2685	0	1985
67	Eljanov, Pavel	g	UKR	2684	11	1983
68	Kasimdzhanov, Rustam	g	UZB	2684	0	1979
69	Bu, Xiangzhi	g	CHN	2683	9	1985
70	Inarkiev, Ernesto	g	RUS	2683	0	1985
71	Alekseev, Evgeny	g	RUS	2682	9	1985
72	Edouard, Romain	g	FRA	2678	21	1990
73	Dreev, Aleksey	g	RUS	2677	10	1969
74	Ragger, Markus	g	AUT	2677	7	1988
75	Bauer, Christian	g	FRA	2676	21	1977
76	Laznicka, Viktor	g	CZE	2675	6	1988
77	Gyimesi, Zoltan	g	HUN	2674	0	1977
78	Tiviakov, Sergei	g	NED	2674	0	1973
79	Grachev, Boris	g	RUS	2672	11	1986
80	Onischuk, Alexander	g	USA	2672	8	1975
81	Ni, Hua	g	CHN	2671	0	1983
82	Zvjaginsev, Vadim	g	RUS	2671	0	1976
83	Balogh, Csaba	g	HUN	2668	0	1987
84	So, Wesley	g	PHI	2667	9	1993
85	Zhigalko, Sergei	g	BLR	2667	0	1989
86	Li, Chao b	g	CHN	2665	0	1989
87	Najer, Evgeniy	g	RUS	2664	0	1977
88	Gareev, Timur	g	USA	2663	18	1988
89	Potkin, Vladimir	g	RUS	2663	9	1982
90	Gharamian, Tigran	g	FRA	2663	0	1984
91	Matlakov, Maxim	g	RUS	2663	0	1991
92	Nielsen, Peter Heine	g	DEN	2662	0	1973
93	Kurnosov, Igor	g	RUS	2660	11	1985
94	Jones, Gawain C B	g	ENG	2658	11	1987
95	Negi, Parimarjan	g	IND	2658	9	1993
96	Motylev, Alexander	g	RUS	2658	0	1979
97	Fridman, Daniel	g	GER	2657	9	1976
98	Petrosian, Tigran L.	g	ARM	2657	9	1984
99	Meier, Georg	g	GER	2656	20	1987
100	Gupta, Abhijeet	g	IND	2654	9	1989
101	Bartel, Mateusz	g	POL	2654	0	1985

Check may also want to check out the September 2012 Top 100 Women, Top 100 Juniors, and Top 100 Girls.

Chess Olympiad 2012 Round 4 Results for Team Philippines

Team Philippines incurred its first team loss (and even its first player loss) in the fourth round in the ongoing Istanbul 2012 World Chess Cup, against one of the toughest teams -- the 3rd seed, in fact -- Armenia.

Team Armenia is of course headed by the current second highest ELO rated player in the person of Levon Aronian.

The final tally: Philippines is 1.5 as against Armenia's 2.5, as Oliver Dimakiling bowed to Gabriel Sargissian in Board 4, while the rest of the boards were draws:

Bo.	Team Philippines	Rating	Result	Team Armenia	Rating
1	Wesley So	2652	1/2-1/2	Levon Aronian	2816
2	Oliver Barbosa	2554	1/2-1/2	Sergei Movsesian	2698
3	Mark Paragua	2508	1/2-1/2	Vladimir Akopian	2687
4	Oliver Dimakiling	2428	0-1	Gabriel Sargissian	2693

Although a loss, I'd say it was a decent loss, and the team did really fought a good game. After all, they came clearly as the underdog, a 35th seed up against the 3rd seed, before the start of the round.

You can replay the games from these pages:

• Wesley So vs. Levon Aronian [Chess Olympiad 2012] [R4]


• Sergei Movsesian vs. Oliver Barbosa [Chess Olympiad 2012] [R4]


• Mark Paragua vs. Vladimir Akopian [Chess Olympiad 2012] [R4]


• Gabriel Sargissian vs. Oliver Dimakiling [Chess Olympiad 2012] [R4]

Download the PGN: Philippines vs. Armenia Round 4 Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad.

Updates

After four rounds, Team Philippines is ranked no. 20.

In the fifth round, Team Philippines will be up against the 51st seed Iceland, who shares the same standings with 3 wins and 1 loss (0 draws).

Check out Team Iceland Profile.