World Cup R1 tiebreaks: favourites through, no big surprises

The tournament is taking place in the Ugorian Chess Academy in the very heart of Khanty-Mansiysk, which has hosted three previous World Cups: 2005, 2007, and 2009. The 128 participants hail from 46 different countries, and are playing for a total prize fund of US $1.6 million. In addition the first three finisher get tickets to the Candidates tournament in the next World Championship cycle.

Round one tiebreak report

The third day of the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk finalized all the results of the first round. After two days 47 micro-matches out of 64 had been decided, in the two classical games with the long time controls. The 17 remaining pairs had drawn 1.0-1.0 and had to continue with the third day tie-breaks.

We would like to remind you the regulations of the World Cup tie-breaks. First there are two games played with the time control of 25 minutes for all moves + 10 seconds for every move. If they do not determine the winner, there are two games set with the time control of ten minutes until the end of the game + 10 seconds increment for every move. Then if necessary there are two more blitz games (five minutes until the end of the game, plus three seconds for every move) played. If things are still not decided an “Armageddon” game is played: White has five minutes and Black four minutes (with an additional three seconds for every move, starting from the 61st one). A draw is counted as a victory of Black.

Alexander Morozevich (right) won both his rapid games against Stelios Halkias (GRE)

In general the favorites confirmed their reputation after the first two games: Gata Kamsky (USA), Francisco Vallejo Pons (ESP), Emil Sutovsky (ISR), Alexander Morozevich, Igor Lysyj, Evgeny Alekseev (all from Russia), Sebastien Feller (FRA), Wesley So (PHI) all moved through to the next round.

We would say that the victory of Ruben Felgaer, ARG, over Vladimir Malakhov, RUS, (picture above) and the one by the young Yaroslav Zherebukh from Ukraine over his more experienced compatriot Pavel Eljanov can be referred to as "unexpected". Both matches finished with score 1,5-0,5, where Felgaer could have won the first game as well, having one piece up and a pawn before he blundered to a stalemate idea in time trouble. In the first game Zherebukh as White outplayed his opponent, in the second he defending persistently and achieved a draw.

Yaroslav Zherebukh, Ukraine, playing his more experienced compatriot Pavel Eljanov

The multiple French Champion Etienne Bacrot and young American player Ray Robson (above) exchanged victories: in order to play off “a la carte” Robson chose the romantic King’s Gambit to achieve his goal. Bacrot went on to win both the accelerated rapid games. Here's the end of the first critical one:

On seven boards we saw two ten-minute accelerated rapid games, with ten minutes for each side. Apart from Bacrot it was Nikita Vitiugov, Vladimir Potkin (both from Russia), Lazaro Bruzon (CUB) and Ni Hua (CHN) who were successful at this stage.

Peter Heine Nielsen (DEN) beat Evgeny Postny of Israel in two blitz games

One board reached the Armageddon game: Alexander Motylev from Russia vs Yuri Drozdovskij from Ukraine (picture above). We should keep in mind that in this sudden death game the three second increments starts after move 60. Motylev, playing Black, seemed to have forgotten about the clock: he was confident in the opening, however, left less than 30 seconds on his clock, and gradually he simply ran out of time. In the final position his opponent Drozdovskij was already winning.

An argument? A fight? No, just a chance meeting between Hispanics (Felgaer and Vallejo)

• You can watch the live video coverage of the round, if you want in full screen HD

First round tiebreak results

First round results

• Source: official results page

Results as a bracket table

On Wednesday, August 31, 64 chess players will continue their battles in the 1/32 of the World Cup Final. We should mention such pairings as Kamsky (USA) vs Kasimdzhanov (UZB), Movsesian (ARM) vs Polgar (HUN), Grischuk (RUS) vs Feller (FRA).

The live commentary on Playchess will continue daily at 13:00h CEST (= 15:00h Moscow, 7 a.m. New York), with GM commentary in English and German. At around 19:00h there will be a wrap-up of the day's events. We will publish a schedule of the GMs commenting in each round presently.

Remaining schedule of the World Chess Cup 2011

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The 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 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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