Results and games in PGN up at ChessBase now. I'm working on the games and photos. Another exciting round, a pity that all this gets reduced to rapid and blitz garbage time every third day. Cheparinov held Ivanchuk with black in a weird game to eliminate the Ukrainian wizard. Radjabov won back with black when Kazhgaleyev totally collapsed under pressure. This could be good news because I have no trouble spelling "Radjabov." Kamsky was in trouble, then not, then totally lost, but Bocharov missed the crusher 55.Qf1+. Onischuk and Shulman are also in tiebreaks.
Amateurish display of Khalifman in his game
Who are Aronian? Is he able to play at the level of his rating list points? Another questions, is he armenian or naturalized german?
Unless I'm mistaken, Aronian must have passed both Ivanchuk, Leko and Kramnik unofficially on the rating list as of now. I'm not a rating fetischist but it does reflect his very good and stable results lately, although he remains largely untested against the absolute top.
Fritz says Kamsky was close to winning on 51 Qc7 (instead of d5?) - then (yes) Qf1+ was winning for his opponent. Radjabov missed ...Bg3!! in the first part of the round. Just goes to show - you can really screw up just about any position with one bad move.
Chess is hard.
hey guyz, any news from Filipino GM Mark Paragua
Tito, Mark Paragua drew both games against Dreev and is going into tie-breaking blitz.
Go Paragua!!!
This World Cup is becoming a nightmarish tournament for "teenage prodigies" (I know, many of them have crossed teens). Karjakin, Nakamura, Volokitin, Naiditsch, Mamedyarov, Kuzubov, Needleman, Ni Hua are all out by round 2!
-Amit
yeah but Carlsen, Areschenko, Radjabov, Pantsulia, Harikrishna ( I am sure I have botched half of these names) etc are still in. There are just so many "Superjuniors" these days.
Don't forget Cheparinov, he's only 19. And since Cheparinov and Carlsen are playing each other, and Radjabov outrates his R3 opponent, we're likely to see (at least) 2 teenagers in the top 16. Still not bad.
On the chess side, how about Yuri Shulman? Down 2-3 vs. Khalifman, he wins a drawish-looking rook endgame in game 6 to go 3-3 and force a sudden-death game; there, he's down 2 pawns, somehow manages to create counterplay, draws by perpetual check, and advances!
In other news, the "WTF Award of the Day" goes to Mamedyarov. In a must-draw game, the junior world champion played the Alekhine defense as black. Not exacly a good choice for a drawish opening, isn't it? Najer, helped by his opponent's combative spirit and the extra minute, has a powerful kingside attack by move 20, is completely winning by move 30, Mamedyarov resigns on 39.
where are the 3rd pairings ?
I am glad for Yuri Shulman. He is a good player and a really nice guy. It will be tough for him to beat Grischuk in round 3 though.
Jenya Najer is a friend of mine and is also a great guy. He played in the US several times already and won the 2002 US Open. He might have come for the North American Open in Vegas after Christmas, were he not going to play in the Russian Championship superfinal in Moscow at the end of the month.
And it's good that Gata Kamsky is slowly returning to his old form.