Round 06 Game 01: One foot in the semi-finals for Carlsen
Shankland grinds down Karjakin in a technical ending Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 – Eight players returned to the Galaxy Centre this afternoon for Game 1 (of 2) of the sixth round of the World Cup: the quarter-finals. The stakes are really high: there is a lot in play. Not only the World Cup title and the fantastic 110.000 USD first prize: there are two spots for the 2022 Candidates tournament up for grabs, in addition to the direct qualification for the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix series. GM Emil Sutovsky (FIDE Director General) pinpointed an interesting fact on Twitter (edited): “Nobody would have guessed these eight (players). Notably, none of the five players that took part in the Candidates 20/21 tournament (Nepo and Ding didn’t play, Wang Hao quit afterwards). Well, that is a KO. And no, don’t call it a lottery!”. The women’s section enjoyed a well-deserved rest day today – it will be the open group’s turn on the 31st. Therefore, only four games were played, all of them very evenly matched. Board one – on the main stage – featured the match between GM Etienne Bacrot (2678) representing France, against World Champion GM Magnus Carlsen (2847) from Norway. Excluding blitz and rapid games (in which Bacrot has defeated Carlsen twice), the World Champion had a 6-3 track record in his favour, with no wins for Bacrot, and this statistic didn’t improve today. Carlsen played a very good game with Black, sacrificing a pawn for two bishops and the initiative in an anti-Marshall Ruy Lopez opening. Bacrot started to go astray with 24.f4?!, weakening his kingside, and a few moves later he blundered with 26.Qh3? (the move 26.f5 was better and the game goes on). Carlsen followed up by sacrificing his queen for a rook and a bishop in addition to a very strong passed pawn, and soon notched up the win and made his claim to advance to semi-finals. After the game, he analysed the different variations with GM Almira Skripchenko in the official commentator’s booth. On board two, USA top player GM Sam Shankland (2709) took on former 2015 World Cup winner GM Sergey Karjakin (2757), in the first official game between the two. After an earlier exchange of the queens, the game seemed to be heading for a draw, but Shankland did have some light-square pressure and chances to pressure a double pawn. Sam Shankland – Sergey Karjakin However, he needed a mistake and it finally came. Karjakin’s 38…f5?, allowing 39.e5, creating a strong supported passed pawn, was a game-deciding move. With excellent endgame technique and top-notch pawn-ending theoretical knowledge, Shankland was able to grind his opponent down. Sam was kind enough to share this thoughts of the game in a short interview. The former 2015 World Cup winner will now have to win tomorrow on-demand to force the tiebreak. GM Vladimir Fedoseev (2696), playing for Russia, was relatively happy with a draw with Black on board three. Both players castled queenside in a Queen’s Gambit – exchange variation -, but his opponent, GM M. Amin Tabatabaei (2613) from Iran, played for the attack on the queenside. Fedoseev sacrificed a pawn for some compensation, but Tabatabaei declined the offer and the Russian escaped unscathed. He gave us his thoughts in a brief post-game interview. Last but not least, the match between GM Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi (2726) from India and GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2738) representing Poland, will have to be decided tomorrow. Vidit went for a solid Catalan opening which gave him a very slight edge, two bishops and some squares for the knights, but Duda defended perfectly and the game ended peacefully on move 28. In the post-game interview, we questioned Vidit on his opening decision. More information on the World Cup website: Pairings of the rounds, 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 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