The tie-breaks of the First Round of the FIDE World Cup were played on September 12.
A large group of participants secured the overall victory already in rapid chess: Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Evgeny Tomashevsky, Dmitry Andreikin, Maxim Matlakov, Sanan Sjugirov, Alexandr Predke (all from Russia), Benjamin Bok (Netherlands), David Anton Guijarro (Spain), Tamir Nabaty (Israel), Luke McShane (England), Igor Kovalenko (Latvia), Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Germany), Le Quang Liem (Vietnam), and Mohammad Amin Tabatabaei (Iran).
Vladimir Fedoseev (Russia), Yu Yangyi, Wang Hao (both from China), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Anton Korobov (Ukraine), and Eltaj Safarli (Azerbaijan) were more successful than their rivals in 10-minute games and also advanced to the second round.
An amazing instance of "chess blindness was evidenced in the Shankland - Safarli match. Sam had to win the 2nd 10-min rapid game at any cost but blundered a bishop in a slightly better endgame. Somehow Safarli missed this opportunity and then Shankland decided to continue his bluff leaving the bishop under attack for one more move. Safarli missed a clear win once again, but still managed to secure a draw that punched his ticket into the second round.
Bu Xiangzhi (China) suffered a rather surprising loss to his compatriot Xu Xiangyu in this stage.
Young Chithambaram Aravindh (India) defeated the experienced Michael Adams (England): after seven draws in a row, the Indian grandmaster managed to win in a second blitz game.
The dramatic match between Kacper Piorun (Poland) and Nijat Abasov (Azerbaijan) also reached the blitz stage. The players exchanged blows in rapid and 10-minute games, but Abasov proved stronger in blitz.
The competition is organized by the Government of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug – Ugra, International Chess Federation (FIDE), Ugra Chess Federation, and Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation.
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.
