Liem clinches final place against So
Wesley So will face Liem Quang Le in todays’s Chessable Masters final after a frantic end to the semi-finals. Vietnamese star Liem survived an incredible comeback from Levon Aronian to finally edge past the world number 5 in an Armageddon tiebreaker. It was a sensational end to a topsy-turvy match. Liem had appeared to be cruising to a first Meltwater Champions Chess Tour final having won the first match yesterday and taken himself to the brink of victory today. But in Game 3, the wobble started. Liem only needed a draw to seal it yet appeared to get an attack of nerves. It proved crucial as Aronian turned the position around to pull a point back. The Armenian still needed to win the final game to stay in it – but, incredibly, he did it again as Liem tilted. With momentum going into the blitz playoff, Aronian went on the attack again before the two faster games ended in tense draws to send the semi into an “Armageddon” decider. When it came to the crunch, however, Aronian just could not keep up with the speed and lost on time – the first time-loss on the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Liem was overjoyed with the result saying, “these really are another level”. Liem will play So, the American, after he downed 23-year-old Russian Vladislav Artemiev 3-1. So said afterwards that Artemiev had put a lot of pressure on him. He said his opponent had proved himself “a very strong and very practical player”. Artemiev had rocked the Skilling Open winner by starting off with a win in Game 1 after the American made a big blunder. But So immediately stormed back in the second to level the score 1-1. Two draws followed as Artemiev was unable to respond. Todays’s final kicks off again at 17:00 CEST. All matches in the Chessable Masters are hosted in chess24.com’s playzone and available to watch on the platform’s Twitch and YouTube channels for free. The Chessable Masters is the penultimate leg of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour before the Finals event in San Francisco, where the ultimate winner will be crowned the world’s best online chess player. For further information, please contact: Leon Watson, PR for Play Magnus Groupleon@chessable.com+44 7786 078 770
Duda dominates in Sochi World Cup
“It was totally unrealistic but I am really happy to have won” Friday, August 6th, 2021 – “Huge congratulations to Duda for winning the World Cup. Considering the line of opponents, he beat in the last four rounds, never losing a game — then obviously never being in a must-win or desperate situation — is a massive achievement. So, he is a richly deserved winner” was what World Champion Magnus Carlsen had to say about his opponent’s magnificent performance. Unbeaten in 18 games against world-class opponents, including the current World Champion and a former World Cup winner, with a rating gain of 18 points – he is now number thirteen in the world – Poland’s 23-year-old Jan-Krzysztof Duda has made history by winning the 2021 World Cup. “I was also touched by all the local chess fans who were wishing me good luck each day, thank you to all of them” were his final words just after receiving the winner’s trophy, at the prizegiving. Attending the ceremony were the Deputy Minister of Sport of the Russian Federation, Alexey Morozov, the Minister of Sport of Krasnodar Krai, Alexey Chernov, the Executive Director of the Russian Chess Federation, Mark Glukhovsky as well as FIDE Vice-Presidents Nigel Short and Lukasz Turlej who gave the trophy to the winner and officially closed the tournament. During the ceremony, the winners of the Gazprom Brilliancy Prize (a special trophy sponsored by a General Partner of the World Cup) were announced. In the open competition, the best game of the tournament is Fedoseev – Carslen, the first game of the match for third place. The award is given to the World Champion Magnus Carlsen. In the women’s tournament, the best game is Goryachkina – Stefanova, the second game of the fourth round. The prize is awarded to Alexandra Goryachkina. Jan-Krzysztof’s journey began by defeating Paraguay GM Guillermo Vazquez (2527) in the second round by a 1.5-0.5, followed by two more wins against USA GM Samuel Sevian (2647) and Iran GM Pouya Idani (2614), with the same score. A very tough match followed in the 1/8 finals against top Russian GM Alexander Grischuk (2778), which Duda took down in the tiebreaks by 2.5-1.5. In the quarters he defeated India’s number two player GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2726) by a clear 1.5-0.5 score, leading him up to the clash with the World Champion in the semi-finals. Duda prevailed again in the tiebreak, defeating Norway GM Magnus Carlsen (2847) by 2.5-1.5, leaving him in a great position to fight for the win in the final against Russian GM Sergey Karjakin (2757), whom he defeated by 1.5-0.5. Born in Poland in 1998, 23-year-old Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2738) was always considered a chess prodigy. World Under-10 Champion in 2008, European Under-14 Champion in 2012 and Grand Master at the age of 15 are just some of his many achievements as a kid. He topped these successes up by performing brilliantly in two top events in his own country, winning the European Rapid Chess Championship and achieving second place in the European Blitz Chess Championship, both at the end of 2014. The President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, awarded him the Silver Cross of Merit in 2016 for his sports achievements and contributions to popularizing chess. In 2018 he was already the best Polish player and the number one ranked junior in the world and that year he also won the Polish National Championship. Thanks to these results, at the beginning of 2019 he became the first-ever Polish chess player to exceed the 2800 rating barrier in Blitz. On October 10th 2020, he made the news once again. He defeated Magnus Carlsen at the Altibox Norway Chess tournament, putting an end to the World Champions’ unbeaten 125-game streak in classical chess. His main strength as a player has always been his intuition: as a young talent, he studied Kasparov’s “My Great Predecessors” book series. However, he still thinks he can improve in calculation. Outside chess, he enjoys listening to classical music such as Beethoven and Mozart and he is also a Queen fan. He even won a reality show in Poland called “The Brain” in 2017. He is currently a student at the University School of Physical Education in Krakow and keeps himself in good shape with excellent nutrition and daily swimming routines. With this win, he has qualified for the 2022 Candidates tournament where he will get the opportunity to fight for the chance to play against the World Champion for the title. More information, the full tournament tree, 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. Photo: David Llada and Eteri Kublashvili About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July12th (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). The full tournament tree, 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. 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”
Liem Quang Le stuns Aronian to put himself on brink of final
A blistering display from Vietnam’s speed chess superstar Liem Quang Le put Levon Aronian on the brink of being knocked out of the Chessable Masters. Liem, the reigning Asian Champion and a former World Blitz winner, was at his tricky, fiery best to shoot down the in-form Armenian 3-1. Aronian had been installed as a pre-tournament favourite after winning last month’s Goldmoney Asian Rapid. Yet in Liem, he has come across a razor-sharp opponent who has found his killer instinct. Liem finished the 38-year-old off in stunning style with a queen sacrifice checkmate in a wild final game. Aronian now has a mountain to climb tomorrow and needs to win the four-game match just to take it to tiebreaks. Aronian said afterwards: “Definitely my opponent played better than me today. Something went wrong.” In the other semi, US star Wesley So also has one foot in the final after crushing Vladislav Artemiev. The young Russian was on top in the first game but accepted a draw by repetition when he looked to have the edge. The decision came back to haunt him as the 23-year-old then found himself under pressure in Game 2. Artemiev had to pull off an impressive save to survive. In Game 3, So then broke through to take the lead and held on for a draw in the final game to win the match 2½-1½. Artemiev was gracious in defeat admitting he played “without chances” today. “I’m unhappy now, but I feel like it was logical result because Wesley played very strong,” he said. Today’s semi-final matches kick off again at 17:00 CEST. All matches in the Chessable Masters are hosted in chess24.com’s playzone and available to watch on the platform’s Twitch and YouTube channels for free. The Chessable Masters is the penultimate leg of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour before the Finals event in San Francisco, where the ultimate winner will be crowned the world’s best online chess player. For further information, please contact: Leon Watson, PR for Play Magnus Groupleon@chessable.com+44 7786 078 770
155 Teams Registered for Online Olympiad 2021
We are pleased to publish the final entry list for the Online Chess Olympiad 2021. We will have 155 teams, divided into four divisions, with squads of Russia, the USA, China, India, Ukraine at the top of the list. Federations may change their submitted roster until 1200 UTC, 7 days before they are scheduled to play in the Online Olympiad for the first time, after which their squad composition will be fixed. This means the deadlines are as follows: Division 4 – Friday, 13th August 1200 UTC; Division 3 – Friday, 20th August 1200 UTC; Division 2 – Thursday, 26th August 1200 UTC; Top Division – Wednesday, 1st September 1200 UTC Visit the official website of the FIDE Online Olympiad (http://onlineolympiad.fide.com) to find the latest updates, documents, and information about the event. Chess.com will be again the hosting platform for this event that, on its inaugural edition, became one of the highlights of 2020. Once again, the event will consist of two stages: the “Divisions stage”, and the Play-offs stage with the top eight teams qualified from Stage 1 battling in knockout format. The games will be broadcast live with multilingual expert commentary on the on the FIDE’s official Youtube channel and by Chess.com. The second edition of the Online Olympiad will receive the support and sponsorship of the Shenzhen authorities, which include the Shenzhen Longgang District Culture and Sports Bureau, the Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, Shenzhen Chess Academy, Shenzhen Pengcheng Chess Club. Simaland, the Russian wholesale online store and proud sponsor of the Candidates tournament 2020-21, will also be a partner for the Online Olympiad 2021.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda wins 2021 World Cup
The Polish number one defeats Sergey Karjakin in the final Thursday, August 5th, 2021 – The famous Russian hockey player Sergei Tolchinsky, forward of the Avangard KHL club, made the symbolic first move in the game of the final match between Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2738), representing Poland and GM Sergey Karjakin (2757), playing for Russia. After the ceremony, Tolchinsky popped in to see us at the press centre and revealed his intentions: “I felt the tension when I played the first move. I wanted to help Sergei Karjakin by moving Duda’s h2-pawn, but for some reason, he didn’t oblige (laughs)”. In the end, 1.d4 was played on the board and Karjakin repeated the solid Semi-Tarrasch Queen’s Gambit line that he used successfully against Fedoseev in the semi-finals. But Duda had also already faced this defence in his tough match against Alexander Grischuk in Round of 16. Duda’s move 12.Bxf6 is a novelty according to my database, improving on an old game played in Beijing by Anish Giri. After a few exchanges, the Polish grandmaster achieved a very small edge in the endgame: not much, but enough to press during many moves. The exhaustion could be seen on Karjakin’s face: low on time, gradually his position went downhill until there was nowhere to hide. Clearly, 26…Na5? was the final blunder but his position was already far from salvation. The 2021 World Cup champion was tremendously happy but before celebrating he came to the press center for his final post-game interview with FIDE Press Officer for the World Cup, IM Michael Rahal. In the match for third place between World Champion GM Magnus Carlsen (2847), playing for Norway, and GM Vladimir Fedoseev (2696), representing Russia, a Caro-Kan defence was played, a strange albeit solid choice by the Russian after losing the first game yesterday. Carlsen was definitely taken by surprise and he used up five full minutes before deciding to play the Advance variation with the 4.c4 aggressive line, which according to the database Fedoseev had never faced before. Very soon the position was out of the books and when Carlsen went for the aggressive 13.Qg4 attacking the pawn on g7, Fedoseev made a big defensive mistake. It just wasn’t his day. He decided to give up his castling rights and from then on Carlsen just increased the pressure all over the board. The engines suggest that 13…Bf5 was possible, the point being that 14.Qxg7 Rg8 15.Qxh6 Black has 15…Qxd4 with a complicated game ahead. Carlsen’s position was so dominant that on move twenty-four he sacrificed another exchange (24.f5!). “Utter domination” was being used by the online following: the World Champion was enjoying himself. Fedoseev correctly declined the invitation, but Carlsen initiated the second wave of the attack with the pawn thrust 27.d5 and 29.d6. Fedoseev might have been able to defend better but the attack was always pushing through. The World Champion finished off the game with another exchange sacrifice (“funnily enough, on the same square as yesterday” he said later) and forced a nice final position, in which his opponent’s rook is caged in. Carlsen opened up in the tournament’s final post-game interview, in which he talked about his result in the event and his plans for the immediate future. The closing ceremony and prizegiving will be held at the Galaxy Centre on Friday August 6th at 3pm. More information, the full tournament tree, 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: David Llada and Eteri Kublashvili About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July12th (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). The full tournament tree, 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. 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”
Big guns storm into semis
Wesley So fended off Jorden Van Foreest‘s spirited challenge today to move safely in the Chessable Masters semis. The US Champion overcame his Dutch opponent with two wins and a draw to set up a mouth-watering match against the Russian Vladislav Artemiev. But it took a marked step up in form and a lucky break in the third game for So to manage it. Van Foreest was crushed on Day 2, but he battled hard and had chances. So congratulated his opponent afterwards and acknowledged 22-year-old Van Foreest could have won the last game. So, however, now goes into another semi-final and can entertain serious thoughts of overhauling World Champion Magnus Carlsen’s overall lead in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. So is the only player who can stop Carlsen and needs to win this event and better Carlsen in the next. Meanwhile, as So looked imperious so did Levon Aronian, the winner of the Goldmoney Asian Rapid. Aronian battered Azerbaijan’s number 1 Shakrhiyar Mamedyarov over the two quarter-final matches and went through today 2-1. Aronian was still not happy. The 38-year-old said his first two games were “very sloppy” but his third “worked out nicely”. He added: “Sometimes I feel like I’m a complete patzer and then I think, if I am a complete patzer then what do some guys who are not very good at chess think?” Vietnam’s Liem Quang Le was the first player through to the semis when he knocked out 18-year-old Alireza Firouzja with two games to spare. Liem, a former World Blitz Champion, steamrollered Firouzja 2-0 to book a spot in a Tour semi-final for the first time. He will face Aronian for a place in the final. The final match to finish was Artemiev’s tight tussle with the American speed demon Hikaru Nakamura. The pair were neck-and-neck going into the final game having drawn all four encounters yesterday. Artemiev took control but Nakamura hung on to take the match to tiebreaks. After the pair traded wins in the blitz section, the quarter-final went down to a tense armageddon shootout. It was Artemiev who held his nerve to claim a big scalp and knock out the American. Tomorrow’s first semi-final matches kick off at 17:00 CEST. For further information, please contact: Leon Watson, PR for Play Magnus Groupleon@chessable.com+44 7786 078 770
Carlsen in sacrifice mode crushes Fedoseev
Karjakin and Duda draw an uneventful first game Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 – Norwegian World Champion GM Magnus Carlsen (2847) was highly motivated today. Eliminated from the World Cup final in the tiebreaks yesterday afternoon, but still undefeated in classical games – boasting a +5 rating improvement – a win over Russian GM Vladimir Fedoseev (2696) would definitely bring back his edge. His opening choice – the King’s Indian defence – was already a statement: he was going for the kill. Fedoseev didn’t back down at all: his third move 3.h4! clearly put Magnus off-balance. “A very good choice” said Carlsen after the game. Carlsen went into deep thought and after sixteen minutes chose one of the most principal continuations, deviating from a previous Fedoseev game which went 5…Na6. The fight was on. “My ideas today were generally connected with sacrifices” was the Norwegian’s mentality. The key moment of the game came on move sixteen: Vladimir Fedoseev – Magnus Carlsen in a typical King’s Indian middlegame, Carlsen decided to unbalance the position. The fantastic sacrifice idea 16…f4! followed by 17.Bxf4 Bd7 18.Nd1 Rxf4! reminded World Cup commentator GM Nigel Short of some of Tigran Petrosian’s games: the exchange sacrifice was one of his trademark positional gems. Fedoseev accepted the gauntlet and began to defend. However, even an exchange and a pawn up, his position was very hard to play: all his pieces were bottled up on the kingside and Carlsen was dominating the dark squares. The Russian grandmaster tried to give back the exchange but Carlsen kept declining: his bishop was much stronger than the rook. You don’t often see a zugzwang position with so many pieces on the board. Finally, on move forty Carlsen recovered the sacrificed material, at the same time keeping all his positional advantages and Fedoseev gave up his hopeless position immediately. Carsen will play White tomorrow in the second game. A very content World Champion gave us his thoughts in a brief post-game interview. Former 2015 World Cup winner GM Sergey Karjakin (2757), representing Russia, opened the game with 1.d4 and his opponent in the final GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2738) from Poland, defended with the Vienna system, which has brought him quite a lot of success in this event. Karjakin followed the steps of a previous game between Magnus Carlsen and Jan-Krzysztof Dua, from the Tata Steel event in 2019, introducing a novelty on move 11.Rd1. Duda didn’t seem very impressed and quickly defended his extra pawn with 11…Bd7. Even though Duda’s move is very logical, it might have caught Karjakin by surprise, because he thought for seventeen minutes before going for a three-fold move repetition. We caught up with him after the game and he was kind enough to explain his thought process. Obviously, Duda was very happy with the outcome of the game: a draw with Black at this level is generally a very positive result, especially taking into account that his opponent had an extra day to prepare for the game. In his post-game interview, he mentioned that he was surprised by his opponent’s opening choice. He will play the second game tomorrow with White. Text: Michael Rahal, FIDE Press Officer press@fide.com Photo: David Llada and Eteri Kublashvili About the tournament: Scheduled to take place from July12th (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). The full tournament tree, 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. 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”
Van Foreest shocks So but American hits back
Dutch destroyer Jorden Van Foreest came close to felling top seed Wesley So in a start to the knockouts that came full of fire. The 22-year-old threw everything at his American opponent and inflicted a crushing 19-move win over him in Game 2. But it was not enough to take the lead as the super-solid So hit back and then kept Van Foreest at bay in the final game – just – to escape Day 1 with a 2-2 draw. Van Foreest and So will go into battle again with everything resting on a one-match shootout and tiebreaks if necessary. So said afterwards: “It was really a very bad day for me, or maybe Jorden just played really very well.” In the other quarters, Armenia’s Levon Aronian wrestled the advantage from Azerbaijan’s Shakrhiyar Mamedyarov with a classy 2.5-0.5 win with a game to spare. Aronian must now be considered the hot favourite to progress today. Vietnam’s Liem Quang Le won two games to take the first match against 18-year-old hotshot Alireza Firouzja. The youngster will fire back today. Liem said he was better prepared for the Tour after coming into this event “fresh and ready for the fight”. The match between speed demon Hikaru Nakamura and Vladislav Artemiev, the runner-up in the Goldmoney Asian Rapid, ended in four draws. Nakamura had a big chance to get a win in Game 3 but missed it. They resume with everything resting on a simple shootout today. The knockouts continue tomorrow. Kick-off is at 17:00 CEST. All matches in the Chessable Masters are hosted in chess24.com’s playzone and available to watch on the platform’s Twitch and YouTube channels for free. The Chessable Masters is the penultimate leg of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour before the Finals event in San Francisco, where the ultimate winner will be crowned the world’s best online chess player. For further information, please contact: Leon Watson, PR for Play Magnus Groupleon@chessable.com+44 7786 078 770
Luis Engel Hanna Marie Klek win German Masters 2021
Luis Engel and Hanna Marie Klek came as winners of the German Masters 2021. The chess forum in Magdeburg brought together hundreds of local players competing in various tournaments from July 23 to July 31: German Championships, German Women’s championships, German Senior championships (+ 50 / + 65), German Blitz Championships, German Women’s Blitz Championships, German Senior Blitz Championships (+ 50 / + 65), German Senior Rapid Championships, German Cup Championships and the most prestigious German Masters (open and women). Photo: Official website The ninth-rated resident of Hamburg, Luis Engel caused a minor sensation convincingly winning the 10-player round-robin German Masters with a round to spare. Rasmus Svane, Georg Meier and Andreas Heimann (the only unbeaten participant who, nevertheless, did not make it to the podium due to inferior tiebreaks) finished 1.5 points behind the winner and tied for second place. Final standings 1 GM Engel Luis 6½ 2 GM Svane Rasmus 5 3 GM Meier Georg 5 4 GM Heimann Andreas 5 5 GM Kollars Dmitrij 4½ 6 GM Fridman Daniel 4½ 7 GM Blübaum Matthias 4½ 8 GM Graf Alexander 3½ 9 IM Parvanyan Ashot 3½ 10 GM Braun Arik 3 Photo: Arne Jachmann In the Women’s Masters, Hanna Marie Klek (pictured above) was coming to the final round a full point lead over Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky and sealed the deal finishing 1.5 points ahead of her main competitor who settled for silver. Five players tied for second place with Melanie Lubbe taking bronze thanks for better tiebreaks. Final standings: 1 WGM Klek Hanna Marie 7 2 WGM Voicu-Jagodzinsky Carmen 5½ 3 WGM Lubbe Melanie 5 4 WIM Mütsch Annmarie 5 5 WFM Ziegenfuß Antonia 5 6 WIM Sieber Fiona 5 7 IM Kachiani-Gersinska Ketino 4 8 WGM Michna Marta 3½ 9 FM Schneider Jana 3 10 FM Schulze Lara 2 Meanwhile, Jonas Rosner (pictured below) came out on top in the German championship and earned his spot in German Masters 2022. Photo: Frank Hoppe Check out the full results on the official website.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda defeats WC Magnus Carlsen
He will face local hero Sergey Karjakin in the World Cup final Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 – The tie-break between GM Magnus Carlsen (2847) and GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2738) began at 3 pm sharp with the first move ceremony, played by Alexander Vlasov, the Vice-Governor of the Krasnodar Region. Almost 8000 students in 35 municipalities of the region are involved in chess training and the World Cup is a huge boost to this program. Duda won the toss and opened the first 25/10 game with 1.e4. Carlsen replied with 1…e5, as in all of his games here, but went for the Berlin Wall variation with 3…Nf6 for the first time in the World Cup. Play developed slowly, following a 2007 game between Hou Yifan and Krisnan Saskiran. Carlsen deviated with 13…c5 and after a few exchanges equalised the position completely. According to the engine, 19.c4 instead of 19.Qb1 might be an improvement but it still doesn’t seem very much. The position remained balanced, although Magnus did have a small advantage on the clock. However, further exchanges left both players with no chance of fighting for a win and the draw seemed to be the most likely result. However, Carlsen is a tricky player and he tried 27…Qc2 followed by 28…Qb3, sacrificing the c5 pawn for some fun tactics, just when both players were approaching the 5-minute barrier on the clock. But Duda found the solid solution (30.Re3!) and a draw was agreed by three-fold move repetition immediately afterwards. In the second 25/10 game, Carlsen opted for the 3.Bb5+ side-line against Duda’s Sicilian defence. The opening soon transposed into a French-type pawn structure in which Black is generally fine, having exchanged light-squared bishops. Duda tried out the relatively new 12…Bb4 novelty instead of the usual 12…Be7, but it’s not a big deal as long as White doesn’t exchange minor pieces. Both players began to manoeuvre on the queenside until Duda proposed the exchange of queen’s with 21…Qb5! which Carlsen declined. Meanwhile, Carlsen had started to expand on the kingside but it did seem a bit slow. Finally, Duda went for light-square domination, starting with 27…Na7! and gradually out-played the World Champion by forcing the correct exchanges. With both of the players very low on time, the bishop ending was madness: the engine’s evaluation was going up and down on every move but it was always Duda who was pressing, due to Carlsen’s bad bishop combined with his pawn structure. With hardly any time left, Carlsen made the final mistake by playing 62.Bc1? allowing Duda to force the zugzwang position. When the a-pawn was lost it was clear that Carlsen was in the ropes. A few moves later he resigned and an ecstatic Duda advanced to the final, in addition to securing a spot in the 2022 Candidates tournament. He was kind enough to come along to the press center and give his thoughts on the match. After two draws in the classical games, the tiebreak match for third and fourth place in the women’s group was also held today. Ukraine GM Anna Muzychuk (2527) won the toss and played with White in the first game. Her opponent, Chinese GM Tan Zhongyi (2511) defended with the Petroff, her pet defence in this event. Muzychuk went for the fashionable 5.Nc3 option, leading to a position with opposite-side castled kings. By means of 12.h4-h5 she launched a vicious attack on Tan’s king, sacrificing a pawn for the attack. But Zhongyi Tan kept her calm, drove back the attack and gradually finished her development. The turning point was White’s 23.Qh2? (instead, 23.Bg5 was better, with a probable ¡draw by move repetition), and from there on it looked like Black’s attack on the queenside was stronger. Muzychuk had already spent most of her time and was under serious pressure, both on the board and on the clock – at some point, Tan had seventeen minutes left against Muzychuk’s thirty seconds. After stabilizing the position and netting a second pawn, the Chinese GM started pushing her h-pawn passer. By a strange twist of fate, it was game over. In a must-win situation, Muzychuk went for the double-edged Albin Counter Gambit in the second game. Her third move 3…Ne7 (instead of the regular 3…d4) is a blitz idea played by GM Aleksandr Shimanov – one of the World Cup commentators. However, 9….b5? was definitely a blunder and after a few moves, Muzychuk was already in trouble. On move twelve, with 12.Qxa7! she was already clearly winning, as Black loses too much material if the queen is captured. Zhongyi Tan could have gone for the brilliancy prize if she had found 15.Ne5!! but her move repetition in a winning position was more than enough to seal the deal and win the third prize trophy in addition to direct qualification to the 2022 Women’s Candidates tournament. The prize-giving for the Women’s World Cup took place after the end the round, with the presence of FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, the Deputy Head of the City of Sochi, Vladimir Morozov, the Executive Director of the Russian Chess Federation, Mark Glukhovsky and the main arbiter of the tournament Laurent Freyd. Alexandra Kosteniuk, Aleksandra Goryachkina and Tan Zhongyi (winner, runner-up and third place finisher) received their awards along with some other delightful presents from the tournament sponsors. The full tournament tree, 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