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.
Dmitri Andreikin did not go in with a big preparation, instead he chose the somewhat quiet Symmetrical English (he's playing 1.c4 in the picture above) as his battleground to try and outplay Vladimir Kramnik. This plan quickly backfired as every attempt to complicate the issue made Andreikin's position worse.
Kramnik knows that playing passively for a draw is not the best strategy in must-draw situations. He welcomed the complications and quickly his advantage was obvious. Despite Black's off-side knight on a5, his pawn structure was vastly superior, which gave the rest of his pieces good play. The real mistake came with 24.Qf3? which allowed Black to create a passed pawn on the e3, choking the white army.
The game was far from perfect, the tension showed as every move was arguably innacurate, but at the end the advantage proved to be too much and in the end Andreikin offered a draw in a much worse position, giving Kramnik the half point he needed to clinch the match.
Post mortem of the final game of the Tromsø
World Cup, with press officer Anastasiya Karlovich,
Dmitri Andreikin, New in Chess editor Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, Nigel Short
and Vladimir Kramnik
Photos by Paul Trong
Select games from the dropdown menu above the board
| Player | Rtg | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | Pts |
| Kramnik,Vladimir | 2706 |
1
|
½
|
½
|
½
|
2.5 |
| Andreikin,Dmitri | 2741 |
0
|
½
|
½
|
½
|
1.5 |
LinksThe games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs. |
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