Round 05 tiebreaks: A close scrape for Carlsen
Anna Muzychuk advances to semi-finals in the women’s section Tuesday, July 27th, 2021 – Seven tiebreak matches were contended this afternoon in the Galaxy Centre – six in the open section and one in the women’s group – all of them very evenly matched, to qualify for the sixth round (quarter-finals) of the World Cup. Many surprises occur each day: after Grischuk’s elimination, the World Champion Magnus Carlsen is the only player left in the top ten FIDE rating list. As usual, all eyes were focused on the board one match between GM Magnus Carlsen (2847) and GM Andrey Esipenko (2716). The two classical games ended in draws, and it seemed that in general Esipenko was having the better part of it. But Carlsen is a beast in rapid and blitz games, several times World Champion in all the disciplines, in addition to a huge amount of recent online rapid event wins in his track record. Even so, the two 25/10 rapid games finished in a draw, and although Carlsen won the first 10/10 game, Esipenko bounced back with his own win, something that generally doesn’t happen when Magnus scores first. The Blitz games 5/3 is where the World Champion went for the kill, with great technique in the first and tactical efficiency in the second, all within the last few seconds. Witnessing this display of chess in person in the playing venue is a joy for all chess fans. Visibly tired, but clearly content, Carlsen came down to the press center to give us his opinion on the match and comment on tomorrow’s quarter-final pairing with Etienne Bacrot. The Carlsen-Esipenko match was the last to finish. Meanwhile, three other matches ended much earlier, in the 25/10 rapid games. The first of them to finish was the encounter between GM Haik M. Martirosyan (2632) from Armenia and GM M. Amin Tabatabaei (2613) from Iran, which was absolutely crazy. Martirosyan won the first classical game and came very close to winning the match outright: he only needed to find one or two simple moves in a knight and pawn ending in the second game. However, nerves, tiredness and a miscalculation all came together and a fatal exchange left the match 1-1. Today’s first rapid game was madness again: up and down, left and right, anything could have happened, but the game ended in a draw. The second rapid game was all Tabatabaei and the Iranian phenom discussed it with us in a brief interview. The amazing player of the tournament has clearly been GM Velimir Ivic (2582). Only 18 years old, he has surprised many of us with his fresh approach and huge strength. But his run came to an end today. His opponent GM Vladimir Fedoseev (2696) was unmatched in the rapid games, winning clearly with a 2-0 score. The first game was a nice technical win with Fedoseev with White. Although Ivic had some advantage in a messy position in the second game, ultimately Fedoseev took it down. Fedoseev will face Tabatabaei in the quarterfinals. He gave us his thoughts in a brief postgame interview. The third match to finish in the first two rapid games was GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2738) from Poland who defeated GM Alexander Grischuk (2778) from Russia, not a huge surprise but without doubt one of the most important eliminations of the round. Duda took us through the key moments of the match and gave us his views on the upcoming quarterfinals pairing with Vidit. Two matches were still tied after the first two rapid games and went on to the 10/10 rapids. After five consecutive draws in which, to date, has been the most equal match-up, former World Cup winner GM Sergey Karjakin (2757) from Russia pulled through with a win in the second 10/10 game and will now face Sam Shankland in the quarterfinals. In the post-game interview Karjakin talked about the games and revealed that he had never played against Shankland before. Finally, French GM Etienne Bacrot (2678) defeated his opponent GM Kacper Piorun (2608) from Poland. Although he lost the first rapid game, he was able to recover in the second, winning on demand. Piorun was unable to regroup and lost both of the two 10/10 rapid games. The pairings for the quarter-finals of the open world cup, scheduled to start tomorrow Wednesday 28th July are: Carlsen-Bacrot, Duda-Vidit, Fedoseev-Tabatabaei and Karjakin-Shankland Yesterday’s results in the women’s group left just one game for the tiebreaks, the exciting match between GM Anna Muzychuk (2527) from Ukraine and GM Nana Dzagnidze (2523) representing Georgia. The first of the two 25/10 rapid games ended in a clear win for Muzychuk: her opponent played a rare side-line in the Sicilian Najdorf, which was promptly refuted by Muzychuk, who opted for an aggressive opposite-side castled kings’ setup. Although she could have probably decided the game earlier, her attack plus material advantage eventually was too much to defend against. In a must-win scenario, the second game didn’t go well for Dzagnidze. Her opening setup with White was slightly dubious and it didn’t seem that Muzychuk was in danger at any point during the game. After a few mistakes, the Ukrainian grandmaster won and will now face Aleksandra Goryachkina in the semi-finals. Anna was kind enough to come to the press center and give us her thoughts on both of the games and also discussed her track record against Goryachkina. The pairings for the semi-finals of the women’s world cup, scheduled to start on Thursday 29th July are: Goryachkina-Muzychuk and Kosteniuk-Tan Zhongyi (tomorrow the women’s group enjoy a well-deserved rest day). Pairings of the round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside
Gregory Kaidanov clinches 2021 U.S. Senior Championship title
GM Gregory Kaidanov won the 2021 U.S. Senior Championship title after defeating GM Larry Christiansen in an exciting playoff tiebreak, scoring 1.5 – 0.5 in the two-game rapid match. Gregory was a half-point ahead coming into the last round of the round-robin, but GM Larry Christiansen won a critical last-round game forcing a tiebreaker. The first game saw Kaidanov miss a golden opportunity out of the opening as Christiansen fell into trouble early on in a Bogo-Indian Defense. Despite winning a clear extra pawn, Kaidanov was not able to consolidate his advantage, as Christiansen created enough counterplay to win the pawn back and equalize the game. After more trades the players ended up in an equal rook endgame, agreeing to a draw soon thereafter. In the second game, Christiansen essayed the London System, to which Kaidanov responded in an aggressive manner, playing an early Qxb2 to isolate White’s queenside pawns. Christiansen in turn continued to play for the initiative, sacrificing a pawn for development. While under pressure, Kaidanov found an incredible resource to refute White’s attack, temporarily sacrificing a piece but leaving White with multiple pieces hanging. After the dust cleared, Kaidanov was left with an extra exchange, which he duly converted into the full point, winning the tiebreak and the national title. 19…Rc8!! was a brilliant find securing Black a decisive advantage Coming up next month will be the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz, taking place August 9 – 16, followed by the Sinquefield Cup, which runs August 16 – 28. Check out more info for both events on grandchesstour.org. Text: IM Kostya Kavutskiy Photo courtesy of Saint Louis Chess Club, Lennart Ootes
Round 05 Game 02: Shankland and Vidit advance
Goryachkina, Kosteniuk and Tan Zhongyi qualify for semi-finals Monday, July 26thth, 2021 – There were two very happy chess players this afternoon in the playing venue: Sam Shankland and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi. Both of them won their games in good style and are the first qualifiers for the quarterfinals: the rest of the players will have to return tomorrow afternoon for the stressful tiebreaks. The first one to finish was USA’s number five player GM Sam Shankland (2709). After holding his opponent, Russian GM Peter Svidler (2714), to a draw with Black in the first game, Shankland went all out with the aggressive 3.h4 against Svidler’s pet Grunfeld defence. Soon the game entered a tactical stage with opposite-side castled kings and both players attacking with all their forces. Svidler’s 24…Qb6 was a big mistake (24…Qb5 was the correct move, with approximate equality) probably based on a miscalculation, and Shankland cashed in with a direct attack on his opponent’s king. He will now face the winner of the match between Sergei Karjakin and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, which will be decided in the tiebreaks. After dealing with the mandatory testing, Sam was kind enough to pop in to the press-centre and give his thoughts on both of the games of this round. The other happy face of the day was Indian’s number three player GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi. He missed a win with White in game one and the game ended in a draw. Today, with Black, he played an interesting side-line in the Ruy Lopez in which his opponent’s light-squared bishop – the “Spanish bishop” is the key piece. In the game, GM Vasif Durarbayli (2625) wasn’t able to solve this equation over the board and in the end the bishop was blocked in with no activity. Vidit’s excellent technique did the rest. He will be paired against the winner of the more than interesting tiebreak between Karjakin and Vachier-Lagrave. Before abandoning the playing venue, a relieved Vidit gave us a brief interview, explaining the reasoning behind his thought process in both of the games. The third decisive result of the day in the open group was Iran’s GM M. Amin Tabatabaei (2613) defeating on-demand GM Haik M. Martirosyan (2632) from Armenia, levelling the score in the match 1-1 and forcing the tiebreak. Tabatabaei was pressing with Black most of the game but the draw was always in hand. But in the nick of time, Martirosyan miscalculated a pawn ending, exchanged the last piece and found himself resigning after a few moves. Instead of 58.Nxf3? , a move like as 58.Nf1 would have probably held the draw and Martirosyan would have advanced to the quarterfinals. The rest of the games all ended in draws, some of them hard-fought, others blitzed out in the opening. Funnily enough, the first game to finish was the rematch between GM Sergey Karjakin (2757) and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2749). While the rest of the players were essentially starting to get comfortable in their chairs, preparing for a long afternoon of chess, Karjakin and MVL blitzed out a fashionable line of the Grunfeld defence, which includes a spectacular queen sacrifice, but that ultimately ends in a perpetual check. There will be six tiebreaks (of the eight matches) battled out tomorrow afternoon at the Galaxy Center in Sochi. GM Magnus Carlsen (2847) vs GM Andrey Esipenko (2716)GM Vladimir Fedoseev (2696) vs GM Velimir Ivic (2582)GM Etienne Bacrot (2678) vs GM Kacper Piorun (2608)GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2738) vs GM Alexander Grischuk (2778)GM Haik M. Martirosyan (2632) vs GM M. Amin Tabatabaei (2613)GM Sergey Karjakin (2757) vs GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2749) In the women’s group, the action was fast and furious. Three players qualified for the semi-finals with their result today and only one match will be decided at tomorrow’s tiebreak. An interesting fact is that the three top finishers in the women’s section qualify directly for the Candidates tournament. Since Goryachkina is out of the contest, all the other three semi-finalists have qualified for the Candidates. Kosteniuk and Tan already got their tickets, and the third name will be decided in tomorrow’s tiebreak. The first game to finish in the women’s group was the rematch between GM Anna Muzychuk (2527) and GM Nana Dzagnidze (2523). A three-fold move repetition in a tense position of the Sicilian Najdorf “Poisoned Pawn” variation left the match with a final 1-1 score. Soon after, playing with Black, GM Aleksandra Goryachkina (2596) found a convincing way to equalise against the London System proposed by IM Dinara Saduakassova (2483). Dinara Saduakassova – Aleksandra Goryachkina However, the blunder 22.Rc2?? (22.Rfe1 and anything can happen) decided the game immediately, the point being that 22.Qxc2 Qxf1+! (but not 22…Ne3 23.Qb3+ which was probably what Dinara had in mind) 23.Kxf1 Ne3 and White has to resign. As the first game ended in a draw, the top seed representing Russia advances to the semi-finals. Towards the end of the playing session, the other two games finished one after the other. In GM Kateryna Lagno (2559) vs GM Tan Zhongyi (2511) the game seemed to be heading for a draw, but around move 30 Lagno went astray, and let Tan Zhongyi’s rooks penetrate to the seventh where they proved to be decisive. Meanwhile, on the adjacent board, GM Valentina Gunina (2437) and Alexandra Kosteniuk (2472) were fighting it out in a side-line of the Ruy Lopez. Gunina, in a must-win situation, was forced to play aggressively in a situation where she might have been able to hold a draw. Kosteniuk will now face Tan Zhongyi in one of the semi-finals while Goryachkina’s opponent will come out of tomorrow’s tiebreak and will be either Nana Dzagnidze or Anna Muzychuk. The tiebreaks of Round 5 are scheduled for tomorrow Tuesday, July 27th at 3 pm. Pairings of the round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the
Hans Niemann and Annie Wang win U.S. Junior Championships
Two national champions were crowned on Sunday, July 25, as GM Hans Niemann and IM Annie Wang clinched victories in the 2021 U.S. Junior Championships, both winning $10,000 scholarships in addition to the first-place prize. With their victories, Hans and Annie qualified for the 2022 U.S. Championship and U.S. Women’s Championship. Each event featured a 10-player round-robin format, with a time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by an additional 30 minutes with a 30-second increment added from move one. After the loss in the penultimate round to IM Christopher Yoo, GM Hans Niemann (pictured below) started the final round just half a point ahead of his nearest rivals GM Brandon Jacobson, IM Praveen Balakrishnan, and IM David Brodsky. Playing White against Jacobson, Niemann utilized a safe line in the English Opening and stood better for most of the game, though missed some chances to secure a large advantage. Meanwhile, IMs Brodsky and Balakrishnan faced each other, both needing to win in order to possibly tie for first and force a playoff tiebreak. It was Balakrishnan who had the better position in the middlegame, as he built up a strong attack against White’s king, but Brodsky defended well, and the game eventually petered out into a draw by repetition, with neither player being able to push for a win. Once Brodsky and Balakrishnan agreed to a draw, Niemann forced a draw in an equal rook endgame against Jacobson, securing first place in the tournament and clinching the title. In the U.S. Girls’ Junior, IM Annie Wang (pictured below) just needed a draw in her final game to clinch the title, and was paired against her main rival WCM Ruiyang Yan, who going into the round was a full point behind. Annie prepared well for her opponent’s Ragozin Defense, essaying a drawish variation that left her with virtually zero losing chances. After trading into an endgame in which only White could play for the win, Ruiyang offered a draw in a slightly worse position, giving Annie clear first place in the event. Text: IM Kostya Kavutskiy Photo courtesy of Saint Louis Chess Club, Crystal Fuller
FIDE endorsed festival “Rudaga-Kaissa 2021” kicks off in Jurmala
The Rudaga-Kaissa 2021 International Festival that brought together over 400 participants took off in Jurmala today. For the first time, the event is held in the festival format and under the auspices of FIDE. The official ceremony was attended by FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, FIDE Vice President Anastasia Sorokina, and FIDE Managing Director Dana Reizniece-Ozola. The festival started with a rapid tournament. In addition to the competitive part of the festival, participants can take part in masterclasses, meetings, and other related activities. The guests of the festival had a chance to take part in simuls by GM Nikita Meshkov (Latvia) and IM Sergey Berezuk (Czech Republic). Before these simuls, there were several tournaments and a busy entertainment program on the menu. In 2021, online tournaments were added to the traditional over-the-board format for the first time. On July 23, 235 participants from more than 50 countries in the under-12 and under-16 age categories (open and girls) took part in the qualifying stage. After two days of intense chess battles the winners were crowned in four categories: Open U12 1 – Samunenkov Ihor (Ukraine)2 – Dau Khuong Duy (Vietnam)3-4 – Le Nguyen Hoang Nhat Dinh (Vietnam)3-4 – Duong, Vu Anh (Vietnam) Girls U12 1 – Çaku Kler (Albania)2 – Morales Perez Ghisell (Colombia)3 – Azjargal Chinzorigt (Mongolia) Open U16 1 – Turkey Gurel Ediz (Turkey)2 – Viet Nam Dau Khuong Duy (Vietnam)3-4 – Bialiauski Artsiom (Belarus)3-4 – Mongolia Chinguun, Sumiya (Mongolia) Girls U16 1 – Hertlein Irena (Poland)2 – Gilani Mysha (Canada)3-4 – Bondar Daria (Ukraine)3-4 – Laamim, Roaa (Morocco) The winners will receive accreditation to the 2022 World Chess Olympiad in Sochi as a prize, tickets to the opening ceremony, and online lectures by Antoaneta Stefanova, world champion (2004-2006), and Ruslan Ponomariov, the 2002 FIDE world chess champion. Photo: Anna Shturman
Round 05 Game 01: Magnus Carlsen skates on thin ice
Alexandra Kosteniuk takes the lead in the women’s group Saturday, July 24th, 2021 – Artistic figure ice-skating and chess don’t seem to have much in common at first glance, but world-class performers of both disciplines share several common skillsets: high levels of pre-game concentration and constant technique improvement are just a couple that comes to mind. International ice-skating star Evgenia Medvedeva, two-times World and European Champion and two-times Olympic silver medallist was the guest of honour this afternoon in the Galaxy center, performing the first move – 1.d4 – in the GM Magnus Carlsen (2847) vs GM Andrey Esipenko (2716) game on board one. In a brief interview after the on-stage ceremony, Medvedeva summarized her sensations: “I sensed the tension, the “silent” adrenaline, the concentration in the playing hall. Figure skaters like me usually do more physical work before the start of the competition: we are always in motion, we warm up, listen to music, we even communicate to relax the nervous system and muscle tension. And here in the hall, there was complete silence”. The first game to finish in a draw was the top-level clash between GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2749) and GM Sergey Karjakin (2757). In a theoretical Berlin Ruy Lopez, the former 2015 World Cup winner bashed out his moves with Black at lighting speed, sacrificing a pawn for active piece play in the ending and forcing a three-fold draw repetition with more time on his clock than he started with. The second match to finish was precisely the game one bout between GM Magnus Carlsen (2847) and GM Andrey Esipenko (2716), both of them back to the playing hall after a tough tiebreak yesterday. Carlsen went for a Catalan opening and Esipenko chose the “hanging pawns” set-up with Black, which left him with quite a decent position. The World Champion wasn’t able to create any momentum and decided to offer a three-fold repetition which Esipenko accepted. After the game, the young Russian quickly checked the computer to assess a specific position before our daily interview, in which he gave us his thoughts on the first game of the match. Unbelievably, we hadn’t had a chance to talk to GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2738) yet. However, the opportunity came today, after a tough draw against GM Alexander Grischuk (2778). The Russian grandmaster sacrificed a pawn in the opening and got a nice attack going, with many pieces on the kingside looking to finish off Duda’s weakened castled king. But Poland’s number one player had it all under control: solid defence and a couple of sacrifices to force a perpetual leaves the match totally open for tomorrow’s rematch. Duda was kind enough to accept our invitation and give us a brief postgame interview. The only decisive result of the round in the open group occurred in the game GM Haik M. Martirosyan (2632) against M. Amin Tabatabaei (2613). The young Armenian, who is having the tournament of his life – Brkic and Mamedyarov are his two most important match victories – was able to convert the extra pawn that Tabatabaei lost in the middlegame. Visibly tired, he still came along to the press centre to pinpoint the key moments of the game. The rest of the games ended in hard-fought draws that leave all the matches open. GM Peter Svidler (2714) was pressing with White most of the game against GM Sam Shankland (2709) but the American defended carefully and a draw was agreed on move 47. GM Nigel Short, official commentator and also a member of the Appeals Committee, went over the game with Svidler. Insert link to video clip if uploaded if not delete this line The other results of the round were: GM Vladimir Fedoseev (2696) 0.5-0.5 GM Velimir Ivic (2582)GM Etienne Bacrot (2678) 0.5-0.5 GM Kacper Piorun (2608)GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2726) 0.5-0.5 GM Vasif Durarbayli (2625) In the women’s group GM Aleksandra Goryachkina (2596), playing with the White pieces, had a small advantage most of the game against IM Dinara Saduakassova (2483) but the Kazakhstani number one women’s player defended tenaciously and a draw was agreed. The last game of the round to finish was the incredible fight between GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (2472) and GM Valentina Gunina (2437). Gunina, with Black, had a clear advantage for most of the game and could have won on move 37 (…Rf4) and then again on move 42 (… Qg1 instead of …Kh6). But in these tough matches with everything on the line one must close the games. After saving these two match-balls Kosteniuk went on to win an opposite colour bishop ending in great style, and now leads the match going into the second day. The other two games ended in a draw and will be decided in the rematch. GM Nana Dzagnidze (2523) 0.5 – 0.5 GM Anna Muzychuk (2527)GM Tan Zhongyi (2511) 0.5 – 0.5 GM Kateryna Lagno (2559) The second game of Round 5 is scheduled for tomorrow Monday July 26th at 3 pm. Pairings of the round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
Round 04 tiebreaks: Carlsen advances to 1/8 finals
Goryachkina will face Saduakassova in the women’s quarterfinals Saturday, July 24th, 2021 – After round four’s two classical games, twelve of the twenty-four matches (50%!) didn’t yield a clear winner and were decided today in the tiebreaks – two rapid games 25/10, followed by two more rapid 10/10 games. Unexpectedly, no blitz nor Armageddon games were needed, so the shortest round is now in the books. Although Radoslaw Wojtaszek really put World Champion Magnus Carlsen to the test in the classical games, the experience and strength in rapid play of the latter would help him pull through in the rapid games and that was exactly what happened this afternoon. After a solid draw with Black in the first game, Carlsen started pressing on the white side of a Nimzo-Indian defence. On move eighteen, 18…Nc6 would have probably kept the balance but 18…Na6 gave Magnus an edge: “knights on the rim are dim” is the rhyme that always comes to mind in these cases. Even though White’s bishop is theoretically “bad”, it does a great job cramping Black’s own knight and as long as the queens are on the board White is generally doing very well. Carlsen’s well-known endgame technique did the rest, achieving qualification for the next round, in which he will face Andrey Esipenko, who defeated him recently at Tata Steel. It’s always a pleasure to hear from the World Champion himself so don’t forget to check out a brief interview he gave to us after the tiebreak. Nikita Vitiugov is a really tough player and the two classical games with Peter Svidler are a testament to his flawless play. But Svidler is a tough nut to crack and the first rapid was a joy to watch. He decided to repeat the line that Carlsen used in his classical game against Wojtaszek. However, Vitiugov deviated with a piece sacrifice for a pawn and the initiative. It was quite complex most of the time but eventually, the compensation fizzled out and Svidler took the point home with an attack of his own. The idea 37.Kg4, 38.Kh5 and the bishop sac on g7 (37.Kg4 Rg1+ 38.Kh5 Kg8 39.Rd8+ Bf8 40.Bxg7 Kxg7 41.f6+ Kg8 42.Ne3 h6 43.Nf5 hxg5 44.Ne7+ Kh7 45.Rxf8 1-0), played nearly instantly by Svidler, was one of the most exciting moments of the round. Having qualified for the next round, Svidler popped into the press center for a brief chat. But the “surprise” of the round – and clearly of the tournament – is the outstanding performance of Serbian prodigy Velimir Ivic. Still only 18 and clearly underrated with 2581, he has taken down Robert Hungaski (2514), Francisco Vallejo Pons (2710) and Matthias Bluebaum (2669) all by 1,5-0,5 score, and this afternoon he qualified to the fifth round by defeating the really tough Russian player Dmitry Andreikin (2724) by 2-0 in the tiebreaks for a total score of 3-1. After such a run an interview was clearly in order and he was kind enough to give us his thoughts on his performance so far. Both Alexander Grischuk and Etienne Bacrot were able to advance to the next round with clear 1,5-0,5 wins over Anton Korobov and Pavel Ponkratov respectively. However, Vasif Durarbayli, Sergey Karjakin and Andrey Esipenko all had to qualify in the 10/10 games, after their opponents held their own in the first series of 25/25 rapids. Esipenko was especially happy with the result of his match against Daniil Dubov, as the latter has generally been a very difficult opponent for him. We got a chance to talk to him after the round and confirm that his English is improving rapidly! We can expect some fantastic games from the 1/8 finals pairings, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Carlsen, Magnus (2847) – Esipenko, Andrey (2716)Bacrot, Etienne (2678) – Piorun, Kacper (2608)Grischuk, Alexander (2778) – Duda, Jan-Krzysztof (2738)Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi (2726) – Durarbayli, Vasif (2625)Ivic, Velimir (2582) – Fedoseev, Vladimir (2696)Martirosyan, Haik M. (2632) – Tabatabaei, M. Amin (2613)Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime (2749) – Karjakin, Sergey (2757)Svidler, Peter (2714) – Shankland, Sam (2709) One of the most interesting tiebreaks in the women’s group was the match between Kateryna Lagno and Bibisara Assaubayeva. Would the young Kazakhstan prodigy be able to continue her excellent run of play in the rapid games against the two-times European Women’s Champion? The key game of the match was the first one. With Black, Lagno was pressing all the way but Assaubayeva defended with a stalemate fortress which, for some time, seemed to be enough for a draw. However, eventually, Lagno was able to break down the fortress and force mate. With White in the second game, she kept it simple and secured the pass to the next round. She gave us her thoughts on her performance and also on her upcoming match against Tan Zhongyi. The other three tiebreaks were hard-fought. On board one, Aleksandra Goryachkina defeated Antoaneta Stefanova quite convincedly with a clear 2-0 score in the first two rapid games while Nana Dzahnidze and Dinara Saduakassova (pictured below) sealed the deal in the second series of 10/10 games against their opponents Polina Shuvalova and Alina Kashlinskaya respectively. The quarterfinals in the Women’s World Cup are served and they will be very exciting. Goryachkina, Aleksandra (2596) – Saduakassova, Dinara (2483)Dzagnidze, Nana (2523) – Muzychuk, Anna (2527)Kosteniuk, Alexandra (2472) – Gunina, Valentina (2437)Tan, Zhongyi (2511) – Lagno, Kateryna (2559) Off the board, we interviewed Henrik Carlsen, the World Champion’s father, who kindly gave us his thoughts on his son’s performance here – “up and down, although that’s to be expected” – and his views on his opponent Ian Nepomniachtchi – “many years a friend, now an opponent” – in the upcoming World Championship final in Dubai, scheduled for November. We also had the chance to catch up with FIDE’s Fair Play Officer for the World Cup, Bojana Bejatovic, from North Macedonia. In a brief interview, Bojana explained her duties here and gave us a clear idea of the safe playing environment in which the players are performing. Round 5 – 1/8 finals for the open group and quarterfinals for the women’s group – are scheduled for tomorrow Sunday July 25th at 3 pm. Pairings of the round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal,
Round 04 Game 02: Wojtaszek forces tiebreak with Carlsen
Fedoseev, Shankland, Vachier-Lagrave and Vidit advance. Friday, July 23nd, 2021 – This afternoon’s round promised to be lively and it definitely wasn’t disappointing. After yesterday’s results, several players had to win on-demand to equalise their matches and force the tiebreak, while many others had an aggressive game and a win in mind precisely to avoid the tie and get an extra free day to regroup. Also, some players may obtain the right to play in the next Grand Prix series, as long as they reach the quarter-finals. With regard to the Women’s Cup, an added benefit for reaching semifinals is the direct qualification to the future Women Grand Prix Series, the final dates of which will be decided very soon. The first player to finish his game in the open section was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. After a solid draw yesterday with Black, he faced a very risky albeit fashionable variation of the Sicilian which his opponent, Praggnanandhaa, had prepared for today. The key idea of the game was the Frenchman’s positional queen sacrifice (planned on move 24.Kb2), which Maxime thought about for nearly 10 minutes. It worked out well and now he will face the winner of the tiebreak between Artemiev and Karjakin. After the game, Maxime popped into the studio for a brief interview. Meanwhile, in the playing hall, the World Champion Magnus Carlsen was having the time of his life, attacking his opponent’s kingside with great energy. At some point it seemed that he was crushing Radoslaw Wojtaszek, however, his own kingside was also battered up by now, so it was touch-and-go. Radoslaw Wojtaszek – Magnus Carlsen The key moment of the game was move twenty-five when Carlsen chose 25.Bc2 instead of 25.Rxh7 which is +10 according to the computer engine. As always, it’s hard to speculate what the World Champion might have missed, and today he wasn’t available for an interview. Our best guess is that he didn’t see the crushing 30.Bc2+ followed by 31.Rh8! idea in the following long variation: 25. Rxh7 fxg6 26. Qxg6 Rf1+ 27. Rxf1 Qxd5+ 28. Kg1 Qd4+ 29. Rf2 d5 30. Bc2 Bc5 31.Rh8+ Kxh8 32. Qh7# but of course it could be any of the other complicated lines that might have occurred. Magnus discussed some variations with his opponent after the game. He seems to be pointing to the h7 square in this fantastic photo by Eric Rosen, one of the event’s two official top-notch photographers. Obviously, tomorrow’s tiebreak between these two players will be very exciting. Kacper Piorun is one of the lesser-known players that are slowly but surely making a name for themselves in Sochi. Today he qualified for the fifth round – his best performance to date – by eliminating one of the pleasant surprises of the tournament, Javokhir Sindarov. The Polish grandmaster was kind enough to pop in to the press centre for a small interview in which we also discovered that he is a 5-time World Champion…. In solving! Uzbekistan’s pride, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who eliminated Giri in the previous round, was on the verge of being eliminated himself when he lost yesterday with White against Vasif Durarbayli. However, needing to win today with Black on-demand, he took advantage of his opponent’s slightly passive opening play to achieve a very good middlegame, that transitioned into a clearly better endgame. His opponent defended tenaciously and only after five tough hours of play Nodirbek was able to take the point home and force what will definitely be one of the most interesting tiebreaks tomorrow. Even though he was quite tired he found time to come to the press centre for a quick interview. After quite a peaceful round, things heated up today in the Women’s group, as several players had to win on demand to stay in contention for the top prize. None less than six of the eight games had a winner, a high percentage indeed. Number one seed Aleksandra Goryachkina lost painfully yesterday to Antoaneta Stefanova but today she made a comeback with a nice win to force the tiebreak. This evenly-matched encounter will definitely be closely followed tomorrow afternoon. Also winning on-demand was Nana Dzagnidze, forcing the tiebreak against her opponent Polina Shuvalova. Nana Dzagnidze – Polina Shuvalova After 17.Bxh6! she was already winning, as the main idea behind the piece sacrifice is that 17…gxh6 18.Rad1 attacks the queen and after 18…Qxc4 19.Qh5! followed by Re4 gives White an unstoppable attack. Nana went into details of this exciting game in the press center. Finally, four match-ups that finished in a draw yesterday had a decisive score today. Valentina Gunina, Anna Muzychuk and former World Champion Zhongyi Tan all won their games with good endgame technique, while Alexandra Kosteniuk created a fantastic double exchange sacrifice that wiped her opponent off the board. All these players advance to the next round. Alexandra gave us her thoughts in the post-game interview. Pairings of the fourth round tiebreaks, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
Round 04 Game 01: Wojtaszek holds Carlsen to a draw
Hard-fought games in the Galaxy Centre. Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 – A total of 301 players competed in the first round of the World Cup ten days ago, but only 48 of them returned this afternoon for the fourth round, among them the world champion Magnus Carlsen, still in full contention. There are still 32 players left in the open group and 16 in the women’s group. The ceiling & wall panels of the playing venue allowed the organisation to resize the game area to create a superior game-space ratio for the players, avoiding uncomfortable situations that had occurred on previous editions of this same event. At this stage of the World Cup, all the players are world-class candidates, many of them the best players of their countries: it’s impossible to find an “easy” game in this round. As usual, all eyes were focused on the board one game between Poland’s number two player Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Magnus Carlsen. Radoslaw Wojtaszek – Magnus Carlsen The key moment of the game was move 27 for Black, when 27…Ndxe5! initiates a long variation in which Black sacrifices a lot of material for a direct attack on White’s king. One can never know with world-class players but maybe Carlsen couldn’t see a direct win and preferred the game line, which is also strong but allows White’s defensive queen sacrifice idea, which kept the game more or less balanced. After a few moves, a draw was agreed although the final position is still quite complex. Wojtaszek went through these variations for us in a brief post-game interview. In another tremendously exciting game, French top grandmaster Etienne Bacrot was able to pull ahead in the mini-match by defeating his opponent, the tough Russian 2630 player Pavel Ponkratov. Etienne Bacrot – Pavel Ponkratov The key position occurred after 25.Ne5! Rxb2 with total chaos on the board. White was nearly always winning but it was quite tricky. After the fireworks faded, Bacrot took home the point and came to the press-centre to give us his thoughts on the game. Afterwards, he popped into the studio with FIDE World Cup commentator GM Almira Skripchenko to go over the variations in a must-see video clip. Another very strong player that hasn’t been mentioned yet in these reports is Iranian number three, M.Amin Tabatabei who took down India’s number two Pentala Harikrishna – who out-rates him by more than 100 points – in a very nice positional game which ended in a well-played knight ending. However, in his post-game interview, Amin was very cautious about the rest of the match as he knew that tomorrow would be a very tough game. The last game to finish produced an unexpected result. After a tricky move order from his opponent in the opening, USA grandmaster Sam Shankland came out on the worse end and was even close to losing. However, he eventually equalised and the game was heading for a draw. But suddenly his opponent, Rinat Jumabayev – who defeated Caruana in the previous round – played too ambitiously and fell into a difficult position. Shankland’s well-known endgame technique did the rest. Even though he was visibly exhausted he was kind enough to find time to give us his impressions in a brief interview. In general, this afternoon’s round was very exciting, with hard-fought games. Although many of them ended in a draw pending tomorrow’s rematch – quite a few high-rated players had Black today – some other players were able to chalk up their first win and will return to the board tomorrow with a big advantage to qualify for the next round. Together with Bacrot, Shankland and Tabatabei the following players scored the full point: Vasif Durarbayli, Vladimir Fedoseev, Haik Martirosyan, Kacper Piorun and Vidit Gujrathi. The fourth round in the women’s section was quite peaceful although most of the games were hard-fought. Without a doubt, the surprise of the round was top-seed Aleksandra Goryachkina losing to former female World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova. Although the rematch has yet to be played tomorrow, the Bulgarian grandmaster has a good opportunity to go through to the quarter-finals, at the same time eliminating the number one player of the section. Antoaneta Stefanova – Aleksandra Goryachkina The key moment of the game was the tactical mistake made by Goryachkina on move 26…Qxc5?? (26…Re5 was probably equal). After 27.Rc1 the knight on c4 is pinned and will be lost. Again, one can only speculate on what the top Russian grandmaster missed: maybe that after 27…Re-d3 (played quickly) the knight can’t be captured because of 28…Rd1 winning, but both 28.Kh1 and also 28.b4! are winning for White. Chess is such a difficult game! Stefanova happily went through the game for us in a brief interview. The only other decisive outcome in the women’s group was Polina Shuvalova defeating Nana Dzagnidze. All the rest of the eight games ended in draws and will be decided between tomorrow and the tie-breaks on Saturday. Pairings of the second game of the fourth round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: Eric Rosen and Anastasiia Korolkova About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July 12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up). Organisers: International Chess Federation (FIDE), Chess Federation of Russia, Russian Ministry of Sports, and Government of Krasnodar Krai. Partners: Gazprom – general partner Nornickel – general partner PhosAgro – general partner Chessable – event’s partner Aeroflot – CFR’s partner Educational centre “Sirius”
Liaocheng China celebrates International Chess Day with Grand Chess Cultural Festival
Liaocheng City (China), responded to FIDE’s initiative by organizing a grand chess cultural festival to mark International Chess Day, including an online chess puzzle campaign, kids tournaments, Ferris wheels chess games, chess seminar, etc. Today Liaocheng opens the chess cultural festival and officially starts various activities to promote chess and International Chess Day. Liaocheng organizer invited chess fans in China to play online tactic puzzles on a chess APP from 19-21 July. Thousands of chess fans united to reach 720,000 points by answering chess puzzles with 1 puzzle 1 point. The theme is “pawn will help promotion”, meaning every chess fan will contribute if he or she is willing to take part in and cooperate with others. Another interesting activity was “Chess Poster Show”. Liaocheng designed many beautiful chess posters dedicated to International Chess Day and freely mail to 100 chess clubs in different cities in the nation. 100 Chess clubs, joining the campaign, posted photos or videos of these posters on their social media channels to promote International Chess Day in their city. Different chess tournaments also started on this Day, both OTB and online involving both professionals or amateurs. The winners got a chance to play at the highest altitude in Liaocheng city Ferris wheel. Former Women’s World Champion, Xie Jun (pictured below) hosted a chess seminar in Liaocheng talking about chess history, chess education, etc. Through live broadcasting, people were free to attend the seminar. Hundreds of school principals, trainers and parents have attended.