World champion Magnus Carlsen has secured the winner’s trophy in 9th Bilbao Grand Slam Masters Final with one round to go. Carlsen has 16 points from 9 games (football scoring), five points ahead of the nearest follower Hikaru Nakamura. This will be Carlsen’s third “Txapela” from Bilbao.
In the ninth round Carlsen scored a victory against Anish Giri, his first ever, while the other two games were drawn.
Round 9 results:
Magnus Carlsen (Norway) – Anish Giri (Netherlands) (3 hours and 28 minutes/45 moves) 3-0
Yi Wei (China) – Wesley So (USA) (1 hour and 57 minutes/31 moves) 1-1
Hikaru Nakamura (USA) – Sergey Karjakin (Russia) (1 hour and 34 minutes/34 moves) 1-1
Round 9 standings:
1. Magnus Carlsen (Norway) – 16
2. Hikaru Nakamura (USA) – 11
3-4. Yi Wei (China) and Wesley So (USA) – 10
5. Sergey Karjakin (Russia) – 8
6. Anish Giri (Netherlands) – 6
Despite securing the title, Carlsen still wants more: “It doesn’t matter that I have already won. Tomorrow I want to play and fight and if Wesley is also inclined, we will have a nice game”, the world champion stated in relation to the match against So with which he will draw the tournament to a close.
The pairings for day 10, the last of the tournament, set to take place on Friday in the Campos Theatre, are as follows: So-Carlsen, Giri-Nakamura and Karjakin-Wei. On the last day, the matches will kick off an hour before the usual time, starting at 15:00.
Official website
www.bilbaochess2016.com
