The Bilbao Chess Masters Final (previously called the Grand Slam Chess Final) is an annual chess tournament which between 2008-12 brought together the strongest players from the previous year's "Grand Slam" events. Series organisers Grand Slam Chess Association (GSCA) became defunct in 2012 due to the demise of the Grand Slam hosts and scheduling problems but the Bilbao Masters continued as an annual invitational event until 2016.
Grand Slam Chess Association
Negotiations between the organisers of major tournaments M-Tel Masters, Tata Steel Chess Tournament (under the name Corus) and Linares began in March 2006, seeking to create a cycle of tournaments to raise the popularity of chess and attract increased sponsorship for major events. Several rounds of talks took place over the next 14 months.
The GSCA was established on 17 January 2007 and the first edition of the series for 2008 announced in May, with Mexico City added to the list and Bilbao confirmed as Masters Final hosts. Due to problems raising funding for the tournament, it was announced on 16 May 2008 that Mexico City was cancelled.
On 16 March 2009, the members of the GSCA Presidential Board was published, confirming the addition of Pearl Spring in Nanjing, China as Grand Slam hosts as well as interest from San Luis, Argentina and London. The M-Tel Masters was held for the last time during this series.
During the 2010 series, marking the last edition of Linares due to financial problems and the cancellation of M-Tel Masters due to the World Chess Championship, held in Sofia that year, it was agreed that Kings Tournament held in Medias, Romania would join the 2011 edition.
At the end of the 2012 edition of Tata Steel the rest of the 2012 series was confirmed and announced that the 2011 winners of Tal Memorial and London Chess Classic qualified for the 2012 Bilbao Final. This would be the last Grand Slam cycle, later editions composed of invitees by the Bilbao Masters organising committee.
An ongoing problem was conflicting schedules between Grand Slam hosts and FIDE. For the 2013 series, invitees Carlsen and Anand declined spots in the Bilbao final due to their preparations for the World Championship.
Format and venue
The tournament is a double round robin featuring four to six players. The tournament regulations use the Sofia Chess Rules, which forbids agreed draws before 30 moves, and the "Bilbao" scoring system of 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss (though for ratings purposes the traditional scoring method is used).
The venue for the tournament has traditionally been the city of Bilbao in Spain. In year 2011 and 2012 a second venue was added as Sao Paulo in Brazil with one of the round-robins in each city. A soundproofed and air-conditioned glass "cube" was constructed to house the tournament, allowing spectators to watch closely the players inside.
Winners
{ | class="sortable wikitable" ! # !! Year !! Winner |- |align="center"|1 || 2008 || Veselin Topalov |- |align="center"|2 || 2009 || Levon Aronian |- |align="center"|3 || 2010 || Vladimir Kramnik |- |align="center"|4 || 2011 || Magnus Carlsen |- |align="center"|5 || 2012 || Magnus Carlsen |- |align="center"|6 || 2013 || Levon Aronian |- |align="center"|7 || 2014 || Viswanathan Anand |- |align="center"|8 || 2015 || Wesley So |- |align="center"|9 || 2016 || Magnus Carlsen |}
Tournaments
1st Grand Slam Masters Final (2008)
The inaugural Final was composed of Tata Steel joint winners Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian, Linares winner Viswanathan Anand, M-Tel Masters winner Vassily Ivanchuk, M-Tel runner up Veselin Topalov and third placed Teimour Radjabov.
Topalov convincingly won the tournament with 17 points, Carlsen beating Aronian to second place. Had Topalov lost to Ivanchuk and Carlsen defeated Anand in the last round, there would have been a tiebreak rapid match. Anand finished in last place ahead of his World Championship defence against Vladimir Kramnik.