Schacksnack

Aronian proved that he is one of the best blitz players in the world if he has enough time on the clock. When he played the blitz match against Nakamura in Saint Louis a few months ago he lost many won positions by the sole virtue of having too little time on the clock. In this short blitz tournament, consisting of five rounds to decide the pairings, he showed that with four minutes + two seconds to start with he would have enough time to win the won games.

Results from the blitz:

GM Levon Aronian 4 p.

GM Fabiano Caruana 3.5 p.

GM Viswanathan Anand 3.5 p.

GM Hikaru Nakamura 2 p.

GM Vladimir Kramnik 1 p.

GM Sergey Karjakin 1 p.

There is a video from the blitz tournament – as well as other videos from the different arrangements – which can be seen here.

The first round of the main Classical event gave the following results:

GM Levon Aronian – GM Sergey Karjakin draw

GM Viswanathan Anand – GM Vladimir Kramnik draw

GM Fabiano Caruana – GM Hikaru Nakamura 0-1

In the match between GM Viktor Korchnoi and GM Wolfgang Uhlmann the score is 1-1. Uhlmann won the first game and Korchnoi the second. There are two more games to be played.

Round 2 starts 15.00 CET and has the following clashes:

GM Vladimir Kramnik – GM Hikaru Nakamura

GM Sergey Karjakin – GM Fabiano Caruana

GM Viswanathan Anand – GM Levon Aronian

There is live coverage and more information on the homepage.

GM Levon Aronian, Armenia, won the blitz tournament in convincing style. (Photo: Frederic Friedel 2006 - Wikimedia)