Another interesting day at the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Only 12 of 32 second-round matches are tied after two games and will require rapid tiebreaks tomorrow. One of the rating favorites exited the scene today as Teimour Radjabov lost again to Poland's Macieja and was eliminated. Expect whining to ensue. That opens things up for Svidler or Kamsky, who may meet in the fourth round. It also potentially clears the path to the final four for Ponomariov, who once again came back from a loss in the first game to win the second and force tiebreaks. This time it was against Wang Hao and with black. Pono, as I once wrote, is as tenacious as a pit-bull selling insurance. Tough! He put on a fine technical display in this one. Radjabov's loss was the biggest upset of the round, but America's Yuri Shulman came close to another. He tossed away a brilliant win against Shirov in a wild game, losing the win and the draw at once in a razor-sharp position. Had he found either 26..Nd4+ or 26..Rxd1 or even 26..Rd2 before playing ..e2 he would have completed an American hat-trick. Kamsky and Onischuk both drew to eliminate Avrukh and Nikolic, respectively.
Favorites Mamedyarov and Aronian moved on, as did Svidler, Adams, Alekseev, and Grischuk. Magnus Carlsen is in tiebreaks with Naiditsch and Ivanchuk will have to play rapids with Galkin. Karjakin took out Zhang Pengxiang to whittle down the impressive Chinese contingent. Latin America stayed in the hunt as Cuba's Dominguez easily beat Germany's Baramidze. Bareev completed his KO of van Wely although it cost him to draw with white. Sasikiran, the last of the Mohicans after the first-round massacre, will go to tiebreaks with Zvjaginsev. Tomashevsky finished off the last of the true outsiders, Hossain of Bangladesh.
Shirov-Onischuk is one of the 16 third-round pairings we already know. Others are Almasi-Jakovenko, Aronian-Inarkiev, Bacrot-Karjakin, and Grischuk-Bareev. Not quite the main course yet, but at least the pasta course or a hearty soup.
Grischuk - Bereev not a main course?
I know Evgeni's rating isnt as high as it used to be, but he is one helluva player and in my book thats going to be interesting match to follow.
Who does Kamsky play next? Is there a grid anywhere to look ahead in potential pairings? Thanks!
Alex Betaneli
You can download the full tree in Excel format here:
http://www.fide.com/news.asp?id=1520
Kamsky will play the winner of Kasimjanov-Georgiev in the third round.
Kamsky will play the winner of Kasymdzanov-Georgiev, you can look for a grid on FIDE site
"Sasikiran, the last of the Mohicans..."
Due to Columbus' compas & map reading defect, I assume.
Good to see Radjabov go down. He deserves it after his racist diatribe against Armenians. He should know he is no longer in backwater Baku but on the international stage. Congrats to the gentleman Macieja.
notice that nobody of the 'Chinese contingent' won their match.
Six drew, one lost.
Kasparov's out.
I didn't know he was playing.
You can see the pairing tree updated until round 2 here:
http://chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=570
I've put up the round 3 pairings up on TWIC. I've grouped them in such a way that it should be pretty clear who is getting who from now to the final. If anyone has seen a better method of doing this on the internet please let me know.
A Radjabov-Aronian deathmatch has been avoided, I guess that he didn't hate Polish enough.
Can somebody please explain to me why Ivanchuk doesn't win after 76 h7 in his game against Nisipeanu? Doesnt black have to give up his rook to prevent queening?
The problem with 76.h7 is 76...Ra3+! and 77.Kg4 f5 is mate, so White must go to the second rank, after which Black swaps rooks.
Gosh yes, thanks for that. Silly question.
Excellent bulletins at the official site- several games with analysis, downloadable in pdf format. Shame that every time i try to view a live game it crashes my firefox :-(
is there another game today, and when please?
Next leg tomorrow (classical again). You only get more than 1 game on the tie-break days.
ah, thanks
"notice that nobody of the 'Chinese contingent' won their match."
3 Chinese players--Wang Yue (2703), Bu Xiangzhi (2692), and (the Darkhorse, at 2566, the lowest rated player to remain) Zhou Jianchao has all made it to the 3rd Round.
Wang and Bu are paired against each other, which means that one Chinese will be eliminated, but at least one is going to reach the "Sweet Sixteen".
Wang (playing White) beat Bu in the 1st game of their 3rd Round Match. If he holds on, there is a good chance that he will face a "pair down" in the
Round of 16, since Ivan Cheparinov (2670) upset Mamedyarov.
Adams beat Zhou in their 1st game.
As a whole, White scored +5 =11. There were no wins by Black.
Aside from Adams, Cheparinov, and Wang, the other winners were Kamsky (over Kiril Georgiev, 2649), and Dmitry Jakovenko (over Zoltan Almasy, 2691).
Just a couple of players remain from the bottom half of the seedings: Zhao and Macieja (2606), while 15 out of the Top 16 seeds made it to the 3rd Round.
Deja vu... Cheparinov just beat Ivanchuk again.
I'm such a moron. Cheparinov beat Mamedyarov, not Ivanchuk.