tag: FIDE World Cup Khanty-Mansiysk - Page 1

World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk: Players in the background

9/21/2011 – The organisers of the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk did an extraordinary job, providing the world with live video feed in HD quality, running commentary in Russian and English, live broadcast of the games on the official site and on Playchess, professional pictures in the highest quality we have received from any chess event. Here are some of the people who made it possible.

World Cup Finals: Svidler wins, Ivanchuk takes bronze

9/19/2011 – Peter Svidler drew his final game against Alexander Grischuk, securing it with a nice knight sacrifice. This gave him a 2.5-1.5 win over Alexander Grischuk and the title of World Cup winner. In the match for third place Vassily Ivanchuk drew for a similar final score against Ruslan Ponomariov. Svidler, Grischuk and Ivanchuk have qualified for the next stage of the World Championship. Full illustrated report.

World Cup Finals: both games drawn, players under pressure

9/18/2011 – Alexander Grischuk played his final white game against Peter Svidler aggressively, and came close to losing it in time trouble. But after 29 moves a draw was agreed. In the match for third place Vassily Ivanchuk, playing white, had serious losing chances against Ruslan Ponomariov, but saved the minor piece ending. In the last game Ponomariov and Grischuk are under tremendous pressure.

World Cup Finals: Ivanchuk wins game two with black

9/17/2011 – Peter Svidler played fourteen moves of theory against his good friend Alexander Grischuk, then they played two more moves and agreed to a pragmatic draw. In the game for place three Vassily Ivanchuk came with a clear advantage out of the opening, and just when his opponent Ruslan Ponomariov appeared to be holding, he cracked under the pressure and gave Ivanchuk an important point.

World Cup Finals G1: Svidler beats Grischuk, Ivanchuk draws Ponomariov

9/16/2011 – The first game of the finals and the fight for third place were not without drama. The primary battle for all the marbles Grischuk uncorked a strong novelty, but Svidler seemed ready for it and eventually it was Grischuk who lost his way. In a repeat match against Ponomariov, Ivanchuk generated chances in the endgame but failed to make the most of them. Will history repeat itself?

World Cup R6 TB: Grischuk makes it to the final

9/14/2011 – The first rapid tiebreak ended in a nice win by Alexander Grischuk, in the second Vassily Ivanchuk bounced back with a convincing win of his own. Then came the accelerated rapids – ten-minute time controls. In the first tragedy struck when Ivanchuk, in a potentially winning position, blundered horribly and lost. The finals start on Friday, with Peter Svidler playing Alexander Grischuk. llustrated report.

World Cup R6.2: Peter Svidler through to final

9/13/2011 – Former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov played a rare line of the Grunfeld, which allowed Peter Svidler to play very sharply and get a queenside pawn avalanche. The St Petersburg grandmaster refused a draw offer and forced a win in 43 moves. With this Svidler moves into the final. On the other board Ivanchuk and Grischuk drew an equally sharp game. Illustrated report.

World Cup R6.1: Both games drawn, Ukraine to move

9/12/2011 – Both the Russian grandmasters left in the World Cup played their first game of the semifinals with White. Realizing that the stakes are very high (there are only three tickets to the World Championship, not to speak of the substantial money prize) everyone played very carefully. The result: two draws, in 20 and 22 moves. On Tuesday the Ukrainians have white and thus the advantage. Semi-final report.

World Cup R5.2: Radjabov equalises, Polgar and Gashimov eliminated

9/11/2011 – Azeri GM Taimour Radjabov lost his first game against veteran Vassily Ivanchuk; in the second he struck back and equalised, forcing a tiebreak on Sunday. David Navara and Alexander Grischuk are also tied and meet in the tiebreaks. Peter Svidler tricked Judit Polgar and Ruslan Ponomariov won a black game against Vugar Gashimov. Both are now in the semi-finals. Illustrated report.

World Cup R5 tiebreaks: It's Russia vs Ukraine in the semifinals

9/11/2011 – Alexander Grischuk won his first rapid chess game against David Navara and survived the second to proceed to the next round. Vassily Ivanchuk managed to hold a difficult ending against Teimour Radjabov and then went on to outplay him in the second game. On Monday Grischuk plays Ivanchuk, and Peter Svidler faces Ruslan Ponomariov. Full illustrated report.

World Cup R5.1: Ivanchuk leads against Radjabov

9/10/2011 – Three games were decided quickly – in 14, 16 and 28 moves. But even short games can be of considerable theoretical interest, as the annotation of Svidler-Polgar by GM Efstratios Grivas clearly show. There was one decisive game: Taimour Radjabov overlooked a tactical shot by Vassily Ivanchuk and, playing a queen for rook and bishop down, lost in 41 moves. Illustrated report.

World Cup R4 Tiebreaks: Polgar and Ponomariov win on last blitz

9/8/2011 – Anyone looking at the scoreboard would conclude that the results of the fourth round were eminently logical as the Elo favorites, all went forward. However, the matches could easily have gone otherwise. For the Cubans, it was an especially bad day, as both Leinier Dominguez and Lazaro Bruzon lost in the last blitz game to Judit Polgar and Ruslan Ponomariov respectively. Report, pictures, and games.

World Cup R4.2: Judit evens the score

9/8/2011 – In the second game of round four in the World Cup the amazing Judit Polgar, a loss down against Cuban GM Lenier Dominguez, actually pulled back with a black-piece win. Navara, Svidler and Radjabov went through, the former two with 2-0 wins, with Peter Svidler eliminating Gata Kamsky. Five of the eight games were decisive, five pairings go to the tiebreaks on Thursday. Illustrated report.

World Cup R4.1: no draw death in Khanty-Mansiysk

9/7/2011 – Round four in the World Cup was another uncompromising day – six games out of eight were decisive! White won four times, Black scored two wins, and of the two draws one was well fought out. Dominguez, Navara, Gashimov, Potkin, Radjabov and Svidler go into the second game on Wednesday with a win under their belts, the first two with the advantage of the white pieces. Illustrated report.

World Cup R3.2: Fair play in Khanty-Mansiysk

9/5/2011 – Game two of the third round of the World Cup produced an extraordinary display of fairness. First David Navara accidentally touched a piece, but his opponent, Alexander Moiseenko did not insist on the "touch-move" rule that would have lost him the game. Moiseenko was subsequently outplayed by the Czech GM, who with a forced mate on the board offered him a draw. Chess gentlemen.

World Cup R3 Tiebreaks: Navara wins, and Mamedyarov falls to Zherebukh

9/5/2011 – It was an incredibly bloodthirsty round of tiebreaks with nine of the first ten games ending in a decisive result. For those wondering whether Navara's sports-manship would cost him the potential $8000 he risked losing, it did not, and he beat Moiseenko to pass forward. The biggest surprise was 18-year-old Zherebukh's victory over World Championship Candidate Mamedyarov. Report, pics, and games.

World Cup R3.1: Top players clash, Polgar, Kamsky, Sutovsky win

9/4/2011 – Round three of the World Cup saw top players finally encountering each other, with upsets still possible. The big one was the victory of the only remaining female in the event, Judit Polgar, over top seed Sergey Karjakin. Emil Sutovsky brought down the great Vassily Ivanchuk and Alexander Grischuk outwitted Alexander Morozevich with an obscure line of play. Illustrated report.

World Cup R2 tiebreaks: The 2700 clashes are coming

9/2/2011 – In the second round, nearly half the matches were pushed into the tie-break phase, and one surprise exit was Michael Adams, who has a superb record in KO events, losing to the Danish GM Heine-Nielsen. Most of the favourites avoided surprises, such as Karjakin, Grischuk, Ponomariov and Svidler. Vallejo Pons was unable to complete his comeback against Cuban Bruzón Batista. Illustrated report.

World Cup R2.2: Shirov and Movsesian sent packing

9/1/2011 – The second round had a bit of it all. There were Morozevich’s crushing 2-0 win over surprise opponent Fier, as well as Shirov’s surprise 2-0 loss to Potkin. Judit Polgar overcame Movsesian, and Kamsky erased his first-round scare with a clean win over Kasimdzhanov. Vallejo Pons rebounded with a win to push into the tiebreaks, and Karjakin was unable to bully So. Report and GM analysis.

World Cup R2.1: Live by the sword, die by the sword

9/1/2011 – In the second round of the FIDE WC knock-out event, the current European Champion Vladimir Potkin was happy enough to perform an ideal attack against the well-known and fierce attacker Alexei Shirov, a top player who is famous for setting the board on fire. But the time always comes for those who live by the sword to die by it. Here is some very instructive analysis by GM Efstratios Grivas.

World Cup R2.1: small tragedies, expected victories

8/31/2011 – Alexei Shirov spoilt a comfortable position against Vladimir Potkin and lost in 28 moves. Francisco Vallejo applied pressure for 60 moves, then imploded and lost five moves later. Sergey Azarov tried the Jaenish Gambit against Vugar Gashimov and went down in 23 moves. Other top players (Ivanchuk, Radjabov, Morozevich) took home full points. Report and pictures.

The winner takes it all, the loser standing small...

8/30/2011 – We are reporting enthusiastically on the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, concentrating, as any news site would do, on the stars and the winners. But what about the players who on Tuesday all met at the airport for an early flight to Moscow? They had been knocked out in round one. Chess trainer Efstratios Grivas tells us the story of one of them, with two instructively annotated games.

World Cup R1 tiebreaks: favourites through, no big surprises

8/30/2011 – Gata Kamsky won one of the first two rapid games, Morozevich both of them. Etienne Bacrot struggled a bit against youngster Ray Robson – each won a game, then Bacrot won both the fast rapid games. One match, Drozdovskij vs Motylev, went all the way to the sudden death (Drozdovskij won). We bring you a full updated report with video and pictures.

World Cup R1.1 – A few upsets and vivid coverage

8/29/2011 – In the first round of the FIDE World Cup brought many players with large rating differences – 250-350 Elo points – together on the first ten boards. Almost all ended in the favorites beating the underdogs, but we saw losses by Super GMs Wang Yue and Peter Leko to lesser opponents. The HD video coverage from Khanty-Mansiysk is very impressive and vividly shows the drama of the game.
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