World Cup: Favourites through, nineteen tiebreaks on Monday

The FIDE World Chess Cup is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk from November 20th to December 15th 2009. It is a seven-round knockout event with six rounds of matches comprising two games per round, with the winners progressing to the next round. The final seventh round consists of four games. The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from move one. Games start at 15:00h local time, which is GMT +5 hours = 11:00 a.m. European time = 5 a.m. New York. The World Chess Cup is an integral part of the World Championship Cycle 2009-2011.

Round one day two report

Metal checks at the entry point of the World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk

Teimour Radjabov, Alexander Onischuk and Viktor Bologan go through the detector

The big names – Gelfand, Gashimov, Svidler, Morozevich, Radjabov, Ivanchuk, Ponomariov, Grischuk, Jakovenko, Eljanov, Karjakin, Mamedyarov, Shirov – all went through after two rounds.

Constantin Lupulescu lost the inner Rumanian duel against Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu

Chinese GM Yu Yangyi, who pulled off the biggest upset (so far) in round one

Notable the victory of the relatively unknown Chinese GM Yu Yangyi, 113th seed and rated 2527, who knocked out 16th seed Sergei Movsesian, rated 2718. The Slovakian GM had lost the first game and today got only an optical advantage in a Closed Sicilian. Movsesian is the highest-ranked victim of the first round (Leinier Dominguez Perez of Cuba is still tied with David Smerdon of Australia).

Fabiano Caruana of Italy beat Lazaro Bruzon Batista of Cuba to proceed to the next round

Ponomariov vs Essam El Gindi was a déjà vu match: we had seen it before in Khanty-Mansiysk, at the FIDE World Cup two years ago. This is how their match went at the time:

Ponomariov losing to El Gindy in two years ago, but equalised and won the tiebreak

Yesterday Ponomariov could not win his white game against the Egyptian GM – and intense 47-move affair in which the Ukrainian had tripple pawns on the f-file in a rook ending. Today he played a Gruenfeld Russian System and put early pressure on his opponent, especially the d5 and b2 pawns, and then used his advanced a-pawn to settle the matter. No dramatic tiebreak games between the two this time.

Vadim Milov, who had lost his first game to Indian GM Parimarjan Negi, played a wonderful game which demonstrates what happens when you give up your dark-squared bishop in a Gruenfeld. Milov took over the b2-h8 diagonal and used it to keep up the pressure until his young opponent cracked. Tomorrow they start their tiebreak games at 11:00 a.m. Central European Time.

After losing his game on the first day Ivan Sokolov had to win with the black pieces today. But his Ukrainian opponent GM Sergey Fedorchuk, 2619, got a good game and defeated the higher-rated Dutch GM a second time.

A comeback after losing the first game was achieved by Andreikin, Guseinov, Inarkiev, Milov, Baklan, Tregubov and Laylo from the Philippines, who beat David Navara, 155 points above him, to force the top Czech GM into the tiebreaks. A total of 19 matches go into the tiebreak phase on Monday.

Chinese GM Zhou Weiqi, 2603, who has held Emil Sutovsky, 2666, to two draws

The youngest player, GM Hou Yifan, 15, has also scored two draws against Arkadij Naiditsch

All photos courtesy of FIDE

Results of round one games one and two

In the following list tied matches are in red. The tiebreaks will be played on Monday.

GM Dusko Pavasovic, the opponent of Judith Polgar, was not able to make it to Khanty-Mansiysk in time. Their games (number 32 in the pairings) were not played, Judit won by forfeit.

Tiebreaks: In the matches that were drawn after two regular games four tie-break games will be played, with a time control of 25 minutes for each player with an addition of 10 seconds after each move. If the score is still tied a match of two games will be played, with a time control of five minutes plus three seconds increment after each move. In case of a level score, the same match will be repeated. If still there is no winner after five such matches (total ten games), a single decisive sudden death game will be played, according to the following rules: the player who wins the drawing of lots may choose the color; the player with the white pieces receives five minutes, the opponent with the black pieces receives four minutes, with both players receiving an increment of three seconds from move 61. In case of a draw the player with the black pieces is declared the winner.

Schedule of the World Cup 2009:

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN (some incomplete) The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program to read, replay and analyse PGN games. New and enhanced: CB Light 2009!