The FIDE World Chess Cup is being stage from November 26th to December 18th, 2005, in Khanty-Mansyisk, Russia. This the 128-player event replaces what was known as the "FIDE Knockout World Championship" and serves as a qualifier for the Candidates stage of the world championship. The prize fund is US $1.5 million, with President Ilyumzhinov providing $300,000 for organisational costs.

FIDE WORLD CUP, 2005 ROUND 2.2

Report by Mig Greengard – Pictures by Frits Agterdenbos

Parity is the watch-word in Khanty-Mansyisk. Over half of the matches are going to rapid tiebreaks tomorrow and it's only the second round. Top-seed Ivanchuk is out, although it's hard to call his loss to Cheparinov an upset. The young Bulgarian is clearly on the march up the rating list. There were an impressive number of must-win wins – five – including a pair with black by Teimour Radjabov and Mikhail Gurevich. Replay a selection of games.

Ivanchuk seems a bit distracted before his elimination by Cheparinov.

Ivanchuk's longevity, honesty, eccentricity, and, above all, his sporadically brilliant chess have brought him a fair legion of fans around the world. His recent surge back up the rating list had many of these supporters criticizing the FIDE criteria for its invitations to the San Luis world championship. Now that he's been eliminated in Siberia they'll be even hotter when they find out the FIDE rules for the 2007 world championship cycle use the exact same rating lists (July 2004 and January 2005 averaged) to choose the rating seeds for next year's candidate matches.

In case you don't have the degree in particle physics required to follow all these rules, this is the way things are currently laid out. There will be 16 players in the candidates matches. 10 come from this tournament, which is why the final 16 will continue to play every day so they can determine places 1-16 and not just the winner. Those ten join with five rating seeds and 2004 FIDE champ Kasimdzhanov.

The rating seeds are, since they are using the same lists (?!), the same players invited to San Luis by rating, which is why they didn't bother to come to the World Cup. (The top four San Luis finishers (Topalov, Svidler, Anand, Morozevich) are into the final tournament directly.) Kasparov, Kramnik, Leko, Adams, and Polgar are the five who go into the 2006 candidates matches by rating. Kasparov has retired and Kramnik appears to want nothing to do with FIDE championship events. So we would go to the next two players, first Shirov and then Bacrot, whose rating on those old lists is exactly 0.5 points higher than Ivanchuk's! Perhaps Ivanchuk's leap up the list this year will help him in 2009? Meanwhile, back to 2005...

Wang Yue is in tiebreaks, Xu Jun is through, and Zhang Zhong is out.

The highest-rated player in tiebreaks is Boris Gelfand, who couldn't break through the resistance of Argentina's Ruben Felgaer. Teimur Radjabov played a delicate endgame to win with black and tie up his match with Kazhgaleyev. Paragua decided he'd rather play rapid chess against Dreev and played a short draw. Kamsky and Bocharov's route to the tiebreaks was far more adventurous. Kamsky was worse, then a little better, then totally lost, and then found a miracle draw. Elsewhere on the American front, Lautier got the short draw he wanted to eliminate Ivanov and Shulman surprised by overwhelming Khalifman to level the score. Harikrishna leveled the score against Vescovi with a devastating attack.

We peek over Pentala Harikrishna of India's shoulder at Brazil's Giovanni Vescovi.

There were a few knock-out blows landed today. Bareev eliminated Naiditsch when the young German blundered in a drawn rook endgame. The fast time control used in this event tends to turn the endgame into a rook and pawn craps game even for Grandmasters. Another victim was Hungary's Cao Sang, who had two moves to draw an endgame of rook and pawn versus rook, but he chose wrong and had to resign seven moves later.

Results

Photos by Frits Agterdenbos

This one is going to tiebreaks.

 
Shirov is through, as is Bacrot, who is looking like a young Oliver Platt these days.

 
Grischuk had no trouble taking out Romania's Istratescu.

 
Lautier won't be leading the ACP anymore but is doing fine as a chessplayer so far.
Israel's Erenburg is in tiebreaks against Sakaev.

 
You might not know Levon Aronian yet, but he made short work of Sadvakasov.

Links

• Download all games as a zipped PGN file
• Official web site (English version)
• All ChessBase reports so far

About the photographer

Frits Agterdenbos, 45, lives in Heemstede, not far from Amsterdam, and was one of the leading chess photographers in the eighties. From 1979–1991 his pictures appeared in several magazins, including New in Chess, Schakend Nederland, Inside Chess, BCM, Chess, Europe Echecs and Schach. In 1984 his Dutch book “64 Schaakportretten” (in English “64 Chess Portraits”) was published. In 1991 he “retired” as a chess photographer to finish his studies and in 1997 he received a diploma as an insurance mathematician (actuary). Since 1998 he has been a self-employed, working under the company name “Acturix”, which is his actuarial consultancy firm.

Now Frits is back as a chess photographer! In January 2005 he picked up his old passion, and publications show he still knows how to handle his camera. He combines his insurance job and chess photography with being a husband and a father of the beautiful Elena (three years old). You will find his photos on Chessbase.com, Schaakbond.nl, Schaaklog.nl and Schakers.info, and many more websites and magazines. You can contact him under f.agterdenbos (at) acturix.com.