The FIDE World Cup is a knockout, starting with 128 players, with two games (90 min for 40 moves + 30 min for the rest, with 30 seconds increment) between pairs of players. The tiebreaks consist of two rapid games (25 min + 10 sec), then two accelerated games (10 min + 10 sec), and finally an Armageddon. The winner and the runner-up of the World Cup 2013 will qualify for the Candidates Tournament of the next World Championship cycle. The venue is the city of Tromsø, which lies in the northern-most region of Norway, almost 400 km inside the Arctic Circle. You can find all details and links to many ChessBase articles on Tromsø here. The World Cup starts on Sunday, August 11th and lasts until September 3rd (tiebreaks, closing ceremony). Each round lasts three days, while the final will consist of four classical games. Thursday August 29 is a free day. A detailed schedule can be found here.

Round five tiebreaks

In the first rapid game, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (above left playing black) employed the same maneouver that he had used against Gelfand in the Slav, provoking an early h3 before establishing his bishop on f5. Fabiano Caruana was unable to create chances against this idea and slowly but surely the game went towards a draw.

In a very strange move order the second game eventually arrived at a Stonewall formation. However it seemed that Caruana (left) was a little baffled in this position, as he wasn't able to create anything, while White kept improving his position gradually. He kept shuffling his pieces in the back ranks, waiting for Caruana to make a mistake, which came when he allowed his knight on c4 to be pushed to a5, where it was completely out of play. White eventually won a pawn and obtained a better pawn structure on top of that. After that MVL simply cruised to victory and to the semi-finals.

Dmitri Andreikin (above right) attempted another off-beat d4 but this time with more success. Despite the symmetrical structure the superior placement of his pieces and the quick access to the c-file gave him a considerable edge. Svidler was able to neutralize this, but gave his opponent chances when he played the somewhat over-aggressive 22...Nb4?! instead of the solid 22...Nf6. Andreikin didn't think twice to sacrifice a pawn and obtain a strong initiative that was difficult to defend against in this fast time control. The final blunder in move 29 gave away a piece and the game.

Svidler repeated the Caro-Kann variation of the classic game in this must-win scenario. However Black quickly sacrificed a pawn for open lines and strong pressure against White's pawns and even obtained a superior position. Andreikin forced a repetition in a clearly better situation, allowing him to advance to the next round.

Interviews with the winners: Susan Polgar talks to Dmitry Andreikin

... and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, with Europe Echecs producer Gérard Demuydt at the camera

All pictures provided by Paul Truong

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