9/15/2019 – Hikaru Nakamura and Ernesto Inarkiev were knocked out by nominally weaker players — Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu and Xu Xiangyu respectively — after game two of the second round at the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk. Besides these two underdogs, fifteen other participants secured their place in round three. Meanwhile, Wei Yi and Eltaj Safarli bounced back with wins after having lost on Friday to reach the tiebreaks. IM LAWRENCE TRENT recapped the action of the day. | Photo: FIDE
new: ChessBase 16 - Mega package Edition 2022
Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training!
Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training! Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
1...e5 against the English is a theoretically sound response with good chances of equality or better in all variations, and in this video series I provide a complete Black repertoire based on this move.
€29.90
Fifth day of action
The FIDE World Cup is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk. It is a seven-round knock-out event for 128 players, with a total prize fund of US$ 1.6 million and a first prize of US$ 110,000. The matches consist of two classical games with a time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move. The finals consist of four classical games. Full schedule.
Nine out of eleven players that had kicked off round two with a win made the most of their early lead by drawing game two and reaching the round-of-32. Eight others won after having drawn on Friday, while only Wei Yi and Eltaj Safarli tied the scores in their match-ups after having lost game one. Remarkably, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Sergey Karjakin and Jan-Krzysztof Duda scored 2:0 wins after having gone through the first round without needing tiebreaks.
The story of the day, though, was Hikaru Nakamura's elimination, who could not recuperate from a painful loss against Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu. Also surprising was Xu Xiangyu's victory over Ernesto Inarkiev — no less than 116 Elo points separate the contenders' ratings.
In the meantime, the attack of the youth continues in Siberia, as Alireza Firouzja defeated Daniil Dubov in an exceptional effort to attain a place in round three and Andrey Esipenko drew a second game against Peter Svidler to reach the tiebreaks. On the other hand, the youngest of all still in contention, Nihal Sarin, had everything on hand to get a draw and a ticket to the next round, but surprisingly blundered the game away against Eltaj Safarli — the 15-year-old will play a tiebreaker round for the first time in Khanty-Mansiysk.
Hikaru Nakamura had to face a Petroff Defence in his must-win game against Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu. As so often happens, trying to create chances out of thin air backfired, which meant the German grandmaster was actually in the driver's seat by move 20. Soon enough, Nakamura's position completely collapsed but Nisipeanu nonetheless agreed to a draw, thus securing a spot in the next round.
Hikaru Nakamura could not win on demand against Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu | Photo: FIDE
Meanwhile, Xu Xiangyu (2576) had the white pieces against Ernesto Inarkiev (2693). The young Chinese played sharply in the opening, leaving his king in the centre and lifting the h-rook after having gone for an early pawn push to h4. Inarkiev did not sense the danger, and allowed Xu to execute a nice tactical shot:
This DVD provides everything you need to know to be able to play one of the most classical openings with Black, the Nimzo-Indian, arising after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4. Nearly every World Championship and top tournament features the Nimzo-Indian.
White made use of his great dark-squared bishop on the a1-h8 diagonal by giving up his rook with 23.♖xg7 — after 23...♚xg7, the f6-knight is pinned. The long tactical sequence 24.♗xe4 ♞d7 25.♘e5 ♜c8 26.♘xd7 ♜xc3 27.♕g3+ ♚h8 28.♘xf6 ♛xf6 29.bxc3 left White simply a piece up. Xu Xiangyu won after 46 moves.
Thirty-two players will be left on stage after Sunday's tiebreaks | Photo: FIDE
Games mentioned in this section
Firouzja shines, Nihal blunders
Alireza Firouzja was actually the rating favourite against world rapid champion Daniil Dubov —albeit by merely three points — and got the ticket to the next round without needing tiebreaks after winning game two in 68 moves. Firouzja was the one pushing out of the opening, but in the meantime he had left his knight rather short of squares on enemy camp:
After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6! leads to the so-called "Accelerated Dragon Defense". On this DVD the Russian grandmaster and top women player Nadezhda Kosintseva reveals the secrets of her favourite opening.
The Iranian could have gone for a repetition with 37.♘a6 ♜a7 38.♘b8, but instead found 37.exd6 with little time left on his clock. Dubov took the knight immediately, 37...♜xb8, and Firouzja went on to show the idea behind the sacrifice: 38.♖e1 ♚f8 39.♖e7 ♜d8 40.a6 ♜xd6 41.a7 and the a-pawn eventually cost Black the rook.
Dubov fought on but the result of the rook versus bishop endgame was never in doubt. Firouzja will face the winner of Ding Liren vs Sergei Movsesian starting Monday.
Daniil Dubov was knocked out by 16-year-old Alireza Firouzja | Photo: FIDE
Things went differently for Nihal Sarin. After winning his first three games of the event, he only needed a draw to knock out Eltaj Safarli. The 15-year-old from Thrissur got a comfortable position with Black — furthermore, he got the upper hand when his Azeri opponent faltered on move 30:
The Smith-Morra Gambit (1.e4 c5 2.d4!) is a great attacking weapon against the popular Sicilian . On move two White sacrifices a pawn for fast development and good attacking chances, and Black can easily fall into one of the many devious opening traps.
There is nothing preventing Black from capturing on f2 with 30...♝xf2 here. Nihal took the pawn almost immediately, but after 31.♘d2 ♛g4 32.♖xb7 he completely hallucinated with 32...♜g6:
There is no winning attack for Black after 33.♖xf2. White is simply up a piece — Nihal resigned four moves later. Fortunately for the Indian, young minds tend to recover rather quickly from these blows.
IM Sagar Shah analyzes Nihal Sarin's exquisite play to get a winning position and then the blunder to simply lose it in one move. See full report on ChessBase India.
Safarli was not the only player that bounced back on Saturday, as Wei Yi showed his sharp brand of chess to defeat David Anton with the black pieces and take the match to rapid (and blitz, if necessary) play-offs. The Chinese prodigy gave up a pawn early in the game, but he was clearly the one with the initiative against Anton's restricted pieces. Wei Yi pushed his central pawns when he felt his army was in place to attack:
"Occupy the centre!" Let GM Bologan show you move by move why 1...e5 against English (1.c4) is a rock solid and excellent choice.
There followed 37...f4 38.♘d5 e3 and Anton found nothing better than 39.♖xd4. Wei Yi simplified into an endgame an exchange up and converted his advantage into a 53-move win.
Spaniard grandmaster David Anton | Photo: FIDE
Rating favourites Ding Liren and Anish Giri will play tiebreaker rounds against Sergei Movsesian and Evgeniy Najer, while the next five in the ratings list are already in round three: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov will have a rest day before round three. The defending champion was interviewed after knocking out Parham Maghsoodloo and, as per usual, he had many interesting quotes in store:
Round-up show
IM Lawrence Trent recaps the action of the day
Commentary webcast
Commentary by GMs Evgeny Miroshnichenko and Alex Yermolinsky
Carlos Alberto ColodroCarlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
The new Komodo Dragon 3 engine has gained 100 Elo points in playing strength over its predecessor when using a processor core in blitz. That's a huge improvement for a program that already reached at
an Elo level of over 3500!
FIDE Grand Prix 2022: Esipenko, Giri, Vidit, Oparin, Predke, Shankland, So and Vitiugov comment + videos by Rogozenco. "Special" on Bent Larsen. Opening videos by Kasimdzhanov, Ragger and Marin. 11 opening articles with new ideas for your repertoire!
The new Opening Encyclopaedia offers fast access to all openings. Openings are sorted via the menu by name & ECO Code for fast and easy access to your favorite openings.
Throughout my playing career I have found the Hedgehog one of the most difficult type of positions to master. The basic aim of this video is to improve understanding of these complex positions and to help tournament players score better.
Studying this video course should greatly improve the viewer’s handling of dynamic pawn positions! As with all my other video courses material here is predominantly aimed at improving players and tournament players.
€29.90
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.
Pop-up for detailed settings
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies, analysis cookies and marketing cookies. You can decide which cookies to use by selecting the appropriate options below. Please note that your selection may affect the functionality of the service. Further information can be found in our privacy policy.
Technically required cookies
Technically required cookies: so that you can navigate and use the basic functions and store preferences.
Analysis Cookies
To help us determine how visitors interact with our website to improve the user experience.
Marketing-Cookies
To help us offer and evaluate relevant content and interesting and appropriate advertisement.