FIDE WCC R3-1: Topalov wins five in a row

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Round three, game one report

The FIDE knockout world championship is down to 32 players, of whom 9 are Russian. The average rating has risen to 2648, after a lot of weaker players were eliminated. The highest ranked player is Veselin Topalov at 2737, which is 193 points more than the lowest-ranked player left in the tournament (Hichem Hamdouchi of Morocco). The prize fund now dangling for a win in round three is $22,000, with 20-40% deductions if the matches go into tie-breaks.

Veselin Topalov, the unstoppable top seed, won again, this time against Slovak Sergei Movsesian. It was the Bulgarian's fifth victory in succession.

The other top seed Michael Adams, England, defeated Hichem Hamdouchi of Morocco. In the background we see Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan preparing to play Romanian Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (pony tail).

Russian GM Sergei Rublevsky left) went down to Croatian Zdenko Kozul (right). This was the only game today in which Black was victorious. Kozul has now scored 4.5 points in five games, against an average opposition rated 2636. This gives him a huge Elo performance of 3002.

The youngest player left in the tournament, 16-year-old Hikaru Nakamura (left) of the US, is playing some of the most spirited games in this tournament. Today he beat Alexander Lastin (27, right). Once again Hikaru played aggressively and fast, really dominating his Russian opponent.

The above pictures are from the event's picture gallery page and are brought to you be courtesy of FIDE (© FIDE.com)

Results of round three, game one

• All the games from round three in zipped PGN
• All the games from the first two rounds
• BBC report: Gaddafi's strategic chess move
• FIDE report on round 3-1 with pictures and videos
• Interview with Zhang Zhong
• ChessBase pre-match report
• ChessBase day one report
• ChessBase day two report
• ChessBase day three report
• ChessBase day four report
• Statistics: Who will be the next FIDE world champion?
• Revised statistics for FIDE championship

Photos from Libya

Rana Jawad from the BBC World Service has been in Libya for around five months and provided the FIDE web site with some beautiful shots she has taken around the country.

The rest of Rana Jawad's pictures of Libya can be seen (in full size) here...

General information

The FIDE site, which is being hosted by Libya Telecom And Technology, looks well equipped to handle live coverage of the event. The schedule, list of players, results tree and games are all in place, there are reports and picture galleries. The start page is http://wcc2004.fide.com and http://wcclibya2004.com.

Live coverage

The live game transmission from Tripoli, apparently of all games, requires you to have Java Virtual Machine installed on your PC. This program is distributed free of charge by Sun Microsystems (and is useful for many other applications). Visit the Java check page to see if you have everything required for the live coverage and install Java if you don't. To follow the games click on "Live coverage" in the link list above. There is a "View" button behind each pairing of players. Many of the key games will also be covered and discussed on the Playchess.com server.

Schedule

Note that local time in Tripoli is the same as in Central Europe. The start of the games is generally at 14:30h, which is GMT + 2 and translates to 13:30 London, 8:30 a.m. New York, 16:30 Moscow, 18:00 New Delhi, 20:30 Hong Kong, 21:30 Tokyo, 22:30 Melbourne, and 03:00 a.m. (on the next day) in the French Polynesia-Marquesas Islands of Taiohae.