Chess (#1114)

The Bilbao Masters is Viswanathan Anand's last outing before the title match, which is scheduled to start on November 5. Bilbao is a double rounder with Anand, Levon Aronian, Ruslan Ponomariov and Francisco Paco-Vallejo. It's being played at a time control of 90 minutes (no increment) for the first 40 moves, and 60 minutes sudden death with a 10 second increment from move 41. Soccer scoring applies.

The challenger seems in decent touch and leads with 10 points (+3,=1)from 4 games. He has managed smooth wins against Ponomariov and Vallejo (twice) and a draw against Aronian. Aronian is in second place with 6 points (+1,=3). The second Aronian-Anand game comes in the last round and Aronian will obviously be hoping he can crack that one.

After the results at Sinquefield, and the running score here, the world rankings are changing. Caruana is #2 at 2838 in the live ratings with #1 Magnus Carlsen at 2862. Anand has moved to #3 with 2797.4, while Alexander Grishcuk is #4 with 2796.8, and Aronian has dropped to #5 with 2794.

The European Club Cup is running concurrently in Bilbao and Grischuk is playing there, so he could pull ahead in the live ratings. After four rounds, Socar of Azerbaijan leads with four straight wins while Obiettivo Risarcimento (Italy), Malakhite (Russia), Odlar Yourdu (Azerbaijan) and Ladya (Russsia) share 2-5 place with 7 points each.

Socar (Shakhriyar Mamedaryov, Hikaru Nakamura, Michael Adams, Etienne Vbacrot, Teimour Radjabov) plays Obiettivo (Fabiano Caruana, Vaselin Topalov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Laurent Fressinet) in a vital fifth round match for the lead in the seven round Swiss. As one would expect, the chess has been of superb quality.

Fide has just amended Anti Cheating rules with immediate effect. The new rules forbid players to carry a live mobile or "any device capable of suggesting chess moves on their person". Such devices may be stored in a player's bag, completely switched off, with permission of the arbiter. "The arbiter may require players to allow his/her clothes, bags or other items to be inspected. The arbiter or a person authorised by the arbiter to inspect - shall be of the same gender as the player."

THE DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (Anand Vs Ponomariov Bilbao Masters 2014) is a from a time scramble. White's winning but the h-pawn has confusion potential. One way is 54. Bxg5 Bxe5 55. Bh6+ and white comes first.

Anand played the elegant 54.Ba3+ Kg7 55.Nxc7! h2 56.Ne8+ Kh6 57.Nf6! Qe2+ Sadly for black it's checkmate after 57 -h1=Q 58. Bf8#. So black finds another path to promotion after 58.Bb2 Ne4 59.Qxe4 Qxe4 60.Nxe4 h1=Q 61.c7 (1-0). If 61.-Qh3 62. Nd6 promotes anyway.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player