Baku 3.2: Plenty of results

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

Round Three - Game Two

Nine out of the sixteen matches today ended in one of the players passing through to round four. We start with the Chinese players. China will have two players in round four as both Wei Yi and Ding Liren won today with White, though in very different style. Thus China is guaranteed a place in the quarter finals as Ding Liren and Wei Yi will face each other in round four! Ding Liren outplayed Gadir Guseinov from the opening, won a pawn and converted it.

Ding Liren is already thinking of Wei Yi

Wei Yi was much flashier:

Another Chinese player, Yu Yangyi, was knocked out by Sergey Karjakin. In a probably winning position the Russian player took a draw to seal his advance.

S.P. Sethuraman was knocked out by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov as the Indian was unable to win today

Very newsworthy so far is Pavel Eljanov's performance. He is currently 6-0 in the tournament, winning all of his classical games and smashing through his opponents. His latest victim was Grischuk. Needing to win with Black, Grischuk went for a weird kind of set-up which backfired horribly. White's protected passed pawn on c6 simply dominated the position.

Anton Kovalyov was also in a tough situation: he had to defeat Fabiano Caruana to stay in the tournament. But the American player defended with ease and drew without problems.

Fabiano Caruana on his way to the next round

Veselin Topalov and Julio Granda. Odds are that this conversation was in Spanish
as the Bulgarian's Spanish is certainly better than the Peruvian's English.

Wojtaszek took care of Granda after giving his opponent more chances than his position deserved:

Two other players also safely advanced to round four. Jakovenko made short work of Ivanchuk's unsound position. When he traded his two rooks for a queen and two pawns it was clear that Black was going to suffer, but Ivanchuk collapsed surprisingly quickly.

Lastly, Anish Giri played a dream Catalan against Leko. His very slightly better position from the opening turned into a very slight pressure in the endgame that was slightly unpleasant to play against. Leko was unable to defend perfectly and Giri's advantage grew and grew until he was completely winning because his rook had invaded the seventh rank with devastating effect.

Daniel King takes a look at the games Eljanov vs Grischuk and Giri vs Leko

Dmitry Andreikin held Vladimir Kramnik to a draw with Black without too many issues.

Svidler's game against Radjabov lasted a whopping thirteen moves

Le Quang Liem and Wesley So are also going into the tie-break

MVL vs. Tomashevsky and Nakamura vs. Nepomniachtchi will also be decided in the tie-breaks. The fourth Chinese that made it to round three, Lu Shanglei, will be fighting for his tournament survival against Topalov tomorrow. Last but not least, in another duel of titans Adams will fight against Dominguez tomorrow. Thus seven matches will go into tie-break tomorrow.

All Round 3.2 Games

Round Three Pairings

Photos and information from the official website and their Facebook page