Tag: Bilbao

Wesley So Victorious in Bilbao

American Grandmaster Wesley So achieved victory through a blitz tiebreaker against GM Anish Giri 1.5-0.5. Giri made headlines earlier this week for destroying Vishy Anand in Round 4 and for playing a mammoth 172 move draw against Ding Liren. Unfortunately the recently married GM from the Netherlands was unable to keep up the pace and was outmaneuvered in the tiebreaker by So. Wesley was the only player to win a game in the first half of the tournament and quickly became an early favorite to take the lead or at least find himself in a deathmatch with Giri. Like his American counterpart GM Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So is also a deadly blitz master:

Check out a complete recap with photos and commentary on Chessbase.

Anand’s Worst Game…Ever?

On Thursday as the Bilbao Masters tournament resumed play into Round 4 nobody expected that former World Champion Viswanathan Anand would be offering up such a scathing criticism of his own game. Anand fought back hard and tournament commentators believed that he had a fighting chance to win the game but lost on time. Anand had this to say about his loss:

Today was perhaps the worst game of my life. I’ve never made so many ridiculous moves.

For a man of Vishy’s chess playing caliber it is hard to imagine such a devastating loss occurring in high-level chess, but it does happen! Just when I or others think that the 5-minute blitz game that was bombed at 2AM on Chess.com was the worst game of our lives…there are things worse than that. Judge for yourself by replaying Vishy’s Round 4 game against Anish Giri in its entirety:

Read more on the match between Anand and Giri on Chess24.com.

Giri Plays 172 Move Nail-Biter

If I were Anish Giri I would want to find a cold scoop of ice cream and curl up in bed for the rest of the night. The recently married Grandmaster just finished a 172-move game against Ding Liren at the Bilbao Masters tournament. Giri missed several opportunities to capitalize against his opponent and was only able to manage a draw after six hours of play!

Check out more at Chess24.com.

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