Originally Posted by
Fred McKim
A spectacular ending in Bilbao, in the final leg of the Grand Slam Final. Vassily Ivanchuk's insurmountable lead after round 6, was surmounted as Magnus Carlsen scored 8 points in his final 4 games, while Ivanchuk scored only 2 points. This set up a two game blitz match for the title, which Carlsen took 1.5-0.5. Anand, Aronian, and Nakamura all tied for 3rd place.
At the Saratov (RUS) Governor's Cup RR, Alexei Morozevich is continuing his return to form with a score of 5.5/6. He is followed by Peter Leko with 4. Top seed Ruslan Ponomariov is way back with 2.5.
Sergey Karjakin has a narrow 1/2 point lead going into the final round of the Karpov International. In fact after 8 of 9 rounds everyone else in the field has between 3.5 and 4.5. Etienne Bacrot and Fabiano Caruana share second.