World Cup: Second round started in Khanty-Mansiysk
The first games of the Second Round of the FIDE World Cup were played on September 13 in Ugra Chess Academy. Hikaru Nakamura’s loss to Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu was one of the main headlines of the day. The grandmaster from Germany, playing Black, employed an interesting queen sacrifice and took the upper hand in a complicated game that followed. Nisipeanu had some concerns during the game, though. “I remembered that I looked at it but I could not remember the conclusions. This is always a problem when you’re not repeating the line before the game which I haven’t done. I was quite nervous” – confessed the winner. Despite this convincing victory, Liviu-Dieter is far from complacency: “I expect to face a beast [tomorrow]. I know what’s coming. I hope to survive but obviously, it will be extremely tough!” Another unexpected result occurred in Wei Yi – AntonGuijarro: the Spanish grandmaster won as black against a much higher rated opponent. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) won against Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbekistan), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) defeated Igor Kovalenko (Latvia), Nihal Sarin (India) convincingly outplayed Eltaj Safarli (Azerbaijan), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland) was stronger than Tamir Nabaty (Israel), Evgeny Tomashevsky (Russia) downed Chithambaram Aravindh (India), Vladimir Fedoseev (Russia) lost to Pentala Harikrishna (India), Levon Aronian (Armenia) trounced Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran), Vladislav Artemiev (Russia) got the best of Ivan Cheparinov (Georgia), and Sergey Karjakin (Russia) prevailed in the encounter with Samuel Sevian (USA). All other games, namely Abasov-Dominguez, Andreikin-Jumbayev, Sjugirov-Radjabov, Inarkiev-Xu Xiangyu, Demchenko-So, Huschenbeth-Vitiugov, Nepomniachtchi-Predke, Adhiban-Yu Yangyi, Jones-Jakovenko, Vidit-Rakhmanov, Grischuk-Bok, Ding Liren-Movsenian, Najer-Giri, Dubov-Firouzja, Matlakov-Gelfand, Wang Hao-Rodshtein, Svidler-Esipenko, Alekseenko-Christiansen, Korobov-Le Quang Liem, Xiong-Tabatabaei, and Yuffa – McShane were drawn. The last encounter came down to a rare position two bishops vs. knight (no pawns). According to 5-piece Nalimov database white wins in 68 moves, but the Russian GM failed to find the correct algorithm and the game was drawn on the move 132. The second games of the matches with the colors reversed will be played on September 14. Official website: https://khantymansiysk2019.fide.com/en/ General partner – Gazpromneft-Khantos LCC.Official airline – Utair.Official partners of the competition: OJSC Rostelecom, Ugra Chess Academy, Russian Chess Federation, AB InBev Efes and PJSC Rosneft.FIDE official partner – JSCo “RZD”.General media partner – News Agency TASS.Media partners – Match TV, World of Chess social network, OTRC “Ugra”, Ugra-news.ru News of Ugra regional newspaper, AIF-Ugra newspaper.
WGP: Gunina emerges as the sole leader
FIDE Vice-President and a great supporter of chess Mahir Mammedov paid a visit at the Skolkovo Women’s Grand Prix and made the first move in the game between World Champion Ju Wenjun and Indian top-seeded player Harika Dronavalli. Mr Mahir brought equal luck to the opponents and the game ended up in a drawish rook-endgame. Valentina Gunina managed to beat her countryman Alexandra Kosteniuk with black pieces. After Alexandra refused to go for the principal continuation and then missed the winning move g5 twice, she ended up blundering an exchange. Rapid activation of the black pieces brought the whole point and sole lead to Gunina. Later, at the press conference, Valentina admitted that she disliked her position at the beginning, but later on she declined a three-time repetition. She added that having Women Grand Prix next to her home brings her great benefits. Valentina also shared her secret of alleviating stress – she does it with a little help from her lovely pets (a cat and a dog). A spectacular game was played in another Russian derby, in which Alina Kashlinskaya’s king was under heavy fire from Katerina Lagno, who obtained a significant advantage after her aggressive advances on the kingside. However, at the key moment of the game, Katerina did not demonstrate the necessary accuracy. Alina sacrificed one of her rooks and forced a perpetual check. Aleksandra Goryachkina went to the Slav Defense Exchange Variation in her game with Elisabeth Paethz. Black managed to mobilize her pieces and equalized position, but on the move 21 Paethz captured automatically on c6 with a queen and found herself in a quandary. To her credit, Elizabeth put up a stubborn resistance and held her unpleasant position. Pia Cramling and Antoaneta Stefanova also played a very entertaining game. The Swedish GM obtained a decisive advantage but missed the precise way 27.c4 Rb3 28. Bc5 +- to win some material. The game between French GM Marie Sebag and Indian number one female player Koneru Humpy was the most peaceful encounter of the second round. The players shook hands on the move 26. The third-round games will be played on September 13, at 3 pm local time (GMT +3). Spectators can follow the games with English and Russian commentaries: https://www.youtube.com/fidechannel Official website: https://wgp2019.fide.com