The Shanghai Masters took place 3rd-8th September 2010 just prior to the Olympiad. Wang Hao, as best Chinese player (20th ranked); Alexei Shirov, as best Spanish player (9th ranked); Levon Aronian, as winner of the Final Chess Masters 2009 (5th ranked);and Vladimir Kramnik competed for two places in the Bilbao Masters final after the Olympiad.

Alexei Shirov took clear first place with a run of three wins in a row settling matters for first place. Kramnik seemed out of it too when he lost to Shirov but he managed to grind out a win against Aronian in Round 5. They had a blitz playoff where Kramnik won game one, should have won game two but lost on time and then in an Armageddon (sudden death) playoff with White having 5 minutes and Black 4 he won with black on time to get the final place in Bilbao. Shirov and Kramnik will be joined by Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen in Bilbao.