Baku 2.1: Fights continue!

World Cup 10th September – 5th October Baku, Azerbaijan

Round Two - Game One

Arbiters on duty before every round

Security, of course, is tight

Today, eight of 32 games were drawn around move 20 and some of these draws came rather unexpected - Nakamura's early draw with White against Shankland being one example.

Shankland (left) drew easily against Nakamura and Harikrishna (right) also drew.

There were also a number of upsets. In the Chinese duel between Lu Shanglei and Wang Hao it was the lower rated player who simply crushed his opponent. Wang Hao played with Black and did not create much during the game, and when White's light-squared bishop was unleashed and Lu only had to push his pawns forward to get a massive initiative.

Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana and his manager,
the infamous Lawrence Trent. What is this, the Grand Chess Tour?

When playing Wei Yi with Black Vovk tried to repeat the success he had had with the French against Robson in the first round, but was duly punished by the young prodigy.

Eljanov outplayed Ipatov convincingly and finished with a nice tactic:

After a big scare in round one, Dominguez convincingly outplayed Melkumyan in a Berlin.

The "combination of the tournament" so far belongs to Ding Liren:

Another surprise was Onischuk's win against Karjakin. The Russian player underestimated the power of the two bishops and the American came through with excellent technique. In similar style Laznicka won against Adams by outplaying him in a Ragozin, winning the game from start to finish. Wojtaszek won a pawn early against Artemiev and converted it.

Adams fell to Laznicka's Ragozin pressure

The game between Guseinov and Navara saw a very unusual material imbalance: queen and three pawns against rook and two pieces. The Azeri had the queen, the pawns and his king was safe - and this ultimately cost the Czech player the game.

The hero of the tiebreakers, Henriquez Villagra, was soundly ground down by Granda with the pair of bishops.

No one knows how he does it, but Granda is extremely strong when he feels like it

Mareco and Kovalyov play for Argentina and Canada, respectively, but few know they were teammates in a previous Olympiad! The Ukrainian-born player (Kovalyov) lived in Argentina for some time. Their duel today ended in a draw.

So's patience paid off

Today, the black side of the anti-Berlin worked well for the Americans: Caruana (against Mamedov) and So (against Balogh) both won with this line. Andreikin and Ivanchuk also won with black and thus put Korobov and Rodshtein in a very unenviable situation: tomorrow they both have to win with Black.

Hou Yifan and Mamedyarov split the point in a complicated Berlin. The last game of the day was a heartbreaker for Cuba's #2:

75+50 = 125. Not quite there yet!

All Round 2.1 Games

Round Two Pairings

Round One

Photos and information from the official website