Bilbao Chess Masters Final
The Bilbao Chess Masters Final (also called as the Grand Slam Chess Final) is a double round robin chess tournament typically featuring the winners of the grand slam chess tournaments which are part of the Grand Slam Chess Association. These are
- Pearl Spring chess tournament, held in October in Nanjing, China
- Tata Steel Chess Tournament (formerly the Corus chess tournament), usually in January in a small town called Wijk aan Zee, North Holland, Netherlands
- Bazna Kings Tournament, held in June in Romania
- Linares International Chess Tournament usually held in February but this event was cancelled due to lack of financial support during the year 2011
- MTel Masters Chess Tournament held in Sofia, Bulgaria in the month of May -- which was also not held during the year of 2011.
Format
The tournament is a double round robin featuring four to six players. The tournament regulation use the Sofia Chess Rules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_by_agreement#Only_theoretical_draws_allowed_.28Sofia_Rules.29 which prohibits draw offers and the football scoring system of 3-1-0.
Venue
One of the venues for this tournament has always been the city of Bilbao in Spain. In year 2011 a second venue was added as Sao Paulo in Brazil which one of the tournament in each place. This tournament has become one of the most important tournaments in chess history thanks to the level of the participants and the prizes at stake.
History
The first edition of the grand slam was held in the year 2008. The playing place allowed a lot of people to follow the games live and directly. A huge soundproofed and air-conditioned glazed case was constructed for this purpose [1]. Since then, the sound proof glass has been a regular feature for this tournament. The winners of this prestigious event have been Veselin Topalov, Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik.
Tournament Results
2008: Veselin Topalov
The 2008 tournament consisted of six players Vishy Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Vassily Ivanchuk, Veselin Topalov, Teimour Radjabov and Levon Aronian. Veslin Topalov dominated the tournament and won the event with 17 points (football scoring system). Vishy Anand finished last in the event but such a performance by him was possibly due to the fact that the chess world championship 2008 match between Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik was only a couple of months away and one can speculate that he did not want to reveal his cards.
2009: Levon Aronian
The 2nd edition of the tournament consisted of four players competing -- Sergey Karjakin, the winner of 2009 Wijk ann Zee Corus Chess Tournament, Alexander Grischuk, winner of Ciudad de Linares Linares Chess Tournament, Alexei Shirov, winner in Sofia MTel Masters Chess Tournament, and Levon Aronian, second-place winner of Pearl Spring chess tournamentsince Veselin Topalov, the winner refused the invitation to play the Final. Levon Aronian emerged as the clear winner, winning the event with one round to spare.
2010: Vladimir Kramnik
The 3rd edition once again featured four players. Two players were directly seeded to the final. They were Vishy Anand, the World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen the winner of that years Bazna Kings, Corus as well as the Pearl Spring tournament. For the other two spots a qualifier tournament was held in Shanghai, China consisting of Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Alexie Shirov and Wang Hao. Alexie Shirov and Vladimir Kramnik(by winning over Levon Aronina in tie-breaks) qualified for the final masters. Vladimir Kramnik then went on to win the final masters as well.
2011
The 4th edition is back to a six player event featuring Vishy Anand, the World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen the winner of Bazna Kings and Pearl Spring, Hikaru Nakamura winner of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, Levon Aronian world number 3 and winner of the 2009 edition, Vassily Ivanchuk and Francisco Vallejo Pons.