The start of the 2019 World Cup. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

2019 FIDE Chess World Cup: 4 Upsets On 1st Day

PeterDoggers

Updated: Sep 11, 2019, 2:28 PM | 27 | Chess Event Coverage

The first day of the 2019 FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk saw four upsets as Radek Wojtaszek, Jorge Cori, Arkadij Naiditsch and Ruslan Ponomariov lost to lower-rated opponents. Two-time winner Levon Aronian was the strongest player who was held to a draw.

You can follow the games here as part of our live portal Chess.com/events. There is daily coverage by our Twitch partner, the Chessbrahs.

GMs Yasser Seirawan, Eric Hansen and Aman Hambleton are covering the tournament each day on their channel Twitch.tv/Chessbrah. Play starts at 3 p.m. local time, which is 12:00 (noon) CEST, 6 a.m. Eastern and 3 a.m. Pacific.

With a slight delay, the first round of the World Cup took off on Tuesday in a packed Ugra Chess Academy. It wasn't easy to fit in the 128 players, but luckily for the organizers (and the winners in the first round!) half of the field will be gone by Friday.

As FIDE stated on the first day of play, there will be even more players in two years from now.

#FIDEWorldCup 2021 will have 8 rounds, with 156 players in the first one. 78 winners of Round 1 + 50 top seeds will comprise the tree starting from Round 2.

As usual, both finalists will qualify to the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2022.

Full regulations:https://t.co/wp0tuj3eBo pic.twitter.com/7lNtcUxqeF
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) September 10, 2019

The delay was also caused by strict security measures: The players had to go through no fewer than three metal detectors to prevent them from having access to technological assistance during the game, such as their smartphones.

Players, including the Chinese delegation, in a queue to enter the venue. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

It's a long trip to Khanty-Mansiysk for almost all participants, and some of them are definitely suffering from jet lag. One of them is the top seed Ding Liren, who came from the U.S. (after winning the Sinquefield Cup). At least he had the luxury of playing the lowest seed.

That is FM Shaun Press, who probably traveled the most of all participants; from attending an arbiters' course in the Solomon Islands he flew to Brisbane, Dubai and Moscow before boarding his final airplane!

His initial reaction to Ding's 9...h5!? in the Closed Sicilian was correct, but soon inaccuracies started to creep in.

Vasily Filipenko, president of the Ugra Chess Federation, and Konstantin Penchukov, chairman of the city parliament, making the first ceremonial moves in Shaun Press vs. Ding Liren. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Ian Nepomniachtchi was one of the early winners, partly because he was playing super quickly again. His game was attractive, but he did give his opponent a chance to complicate things in the opening:

A mean game by Ian Nepomniachtchi. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Levon Aronian is the only player in history to have won two World Cups: the first one in Khanty-Mansiysk in 2005, and two years ago in Tbilisi. He needs to be a bit careful after he was much worse (possibly plain losing) against Essam El Gindy, the oldest player in the field:

A not too impressive start for Aronian. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Yes, winning won positions is one of the hardest things in chess. Another fan favorite, Krikor Mekhitarian of Chess.com's Portuguese-language content, had a +9 position that he couldn't convert against Russian GM Dmitry Andreikin, World Cup finalist in 2013.

Krikor Mekhitarian got incredibly close to a win. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

The highest board that saw an upset was the game between Radek Wojtaszek and Johan-Sebastian Christiansen. The latter, a 21-year-old Norwegian grandmaster, is part of a new generation of grandmasters that benefitted from the "Magnus effect" in Norway. (Frode Urkedal is another one, who started with a draw against Nikita Vitiugov of Russia.)

Christiansen played an excellent game against the winner of the 2018 Isle of Man Masters, who was struggling to find a good plan in the middlegame. It can be difficult when all your pieces are already on good squares.

Excellent play from Johan-Sebastian Christiansen. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Moving on to the next upset, there was the Indian prodigy, the 15-year-old Nihal Sarin (GM at 14 years, one month, and one day) beating a former prodigy, the 24-year-old Jorge Cori of Peru (GM at 14 years, 5 months and 15 days).

One of the FIDE president's nominees, Nihal nicely outplayed his opponent in a middlegame with opposite-colored bishops:

Nihal Sarin's play reminded some of Anatoly Karpov's great games. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

In the third upset of the day, the 27-year-old German GM Niclas Huschenbeth beat the seasoned, Latvian-German-Azerbaijani grandmaster Arkadij Naditisch, in a remarkably one-sided game. White was probably better prepared in this somewhat topical endgame and got everything he wanted after Black's 21st move.

Niclas Huschenbeth left Arkadij Naiditsch without a chance. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

In the board right next to them, another very experienced grandmaster was biting the dust against a younger opponent. The 17-year-old Andrey Esipenko beat Ruslan Ponomariov, now 35 but still famous for becoming FIDE world champion at 18 by winning a similar knockout tournament in 2002.

Esipenko kind of showed why everyone is playing the Advance Caro-Kann these days: The old main line is fine for Black.

Another former FIDE world champion did better. Rustam Kasimdzhanov, the winner of a similar event in 2004 in Tripoli (and these days mostly working as the second of Fabiano Caruana), defeated one of the few older players in the field, the Canadian-Russian GM Evgeny Bareev, who blundered a mate in four:

Romanian GM Constantin Lupulescu must have had trouble sleeping after his loss. He had a winning position, but suddenly, and completely unnecessarily, allowed a mating attack.

As Chess.com Spanish's Luis Fernández Siles pointed out, Igor Kovalenko must have been inspired by the famous game Short-Timman, Tilburg 1991.

FIDE World Cup | Round 1, Day 1 results

Seed	Fed	Title	Player		Seed	Fed	Title	Player	G1	G2	TB
1		GM	Ding Liren	-	128		FM	Press	1-0	.	.
2		GM	Giri	-	127		FM	Mohammad	1-0	.	.
3		GM	Vachier-Lagrave	-	126		IM	Anwuli	1-0	.	.
4		GM	So	-	125		IM	Duran	1-0	.	.
5		GM	Nepomniachtchi	-	124			Gan-Erdene	1-0	.	.
6		GM	Aronian	-	123		GM	El Gindy	½-½	.	.
7		GM	Mamedyarov	-	122		IM	Rakotomaharo	1-0	.	.
8		GM	Dominguez	-	121		GM	Escobar	1-0	.	.
9		GM	Grischuk	-	120		IM	Pultinevicius	1-0	.	.
10		GM	Radjabov	-	119		GM	Zisk	1-0	.	.
11		GM	Artemiev	-	118		GM	Iljiushenok	½-½	.	.
12		GM	Yu Yangyi	-	117		GM	Ghaem Maghami	1-0	.	.
13		GM	Karjakin	-	116		GM	Megaranto	1-0	.	.
14		GM	Nakamura	-	115		GM	Bellahcene	½-½	.	.
15		GM	Andreikin	-	114		GM	Mekhitarian	½-½	.	.
16		GM	Wojtaszek	-	113		GM	Christiansen	0-1	.	.
17		GM	Harikrishna	-	112		GM	Gonzalez	1-0	.	.
18		GM	Duda	-	111		GM	Henriquez	1-0	.	.
19		GM	Svidler	-	110		GM	Albornoz	½-½	.	.
20		GM	Vitiugov	-	109		GM	Urkedal	½-½	.	.
21		GM	Wei Yi	-	108		GM	Santos	½-½	.	.
22		GM	Le	-	107		GM	Aleksandrov	½-½	.	.
23		GM	Navara	-	106		GM	Yuffa	½-½	.	.
24		GM	Bu Xiangzhi	-	105		GM	Xu Xiangyu	½-½	.	.
25		GM	Wang Hao	-	104		GM	Pridorozhni	½-½	.	.
26		GM	Shankland	-	103		GM	Safarli	½-½	.	.
27		GM	Matlakov	-	102		GM	Abdusattorov	½-½	.	.
28		GM	Tomashevsky	-	101		GM	Petrov	½-½	.	.
29		GM	Vidit	-	100		GM	Pichot	½-½	.	.
30		GM	Jakovenko	-	99		GM	Martinez	1-0	.	.
31		GM	Xiong	-	98		GM	Lysyj	1-0	.	.
32		GM	Firouzja	-	97		GM	Pashikian	1-0	.	.
33		GM	Dubov	-	96		GM	Cordova	1-0	.	.
34		GM	Amin	-	95		GM	Tabatabaei	½-½	.	.
35		GM	Jones	-	94		GM	Flores	1-0	.	.
36		GM	Grandelius	-	93		GM	Rakhmanov	½-½	.	.
37		GM	Adams	-	92		GM	Aravindh	½-½	.	.
38		GM	Gelfand	-	91		GM	Lu Shanglei	½-½	.	.
39		GM	Cori	-	90		GM	Nihal	0-1	.	.
40		GM	Rodshtein	-	89		GM	Bartel	1-0	.	.
41		GM	Inarkiev	-	88		GM	Karthikeyan Mrali	½-½	.	.
42		GM	McShane	-	87		GM	Delgado	½-½	.	.
43		GM	Korobov	-	86		GM	Gupta	½-½	.	.
44		GM	Anton	-	85		GM	Narayanan	1-0	.	.
45		GM	Naiditsch	-	84		GM	Huschenbeth	0-1	.	.
46		GM	Ponomariov	-	83		GM	Esipenko	0-1	.	.
47		GM	Nabaty	-	82		GM	Sethuraman	1-0	.	.
48		GM	Fedoseev	-	81		GM	Ganguly	1-0	.	.
49		GM	Alekseenko	-	80		GM	Nguyen	½-½	.	.
50		GM	Berkes	-	79		GM	Jumabayev	½-½	.	.
51		GM	Nisipeanu	-	78		GM	Parligras	½-½	.	.
52		GM	Sevian	-	77		GM	Tari	1-0	.	.
53		GM	Adhiban	-	76		GM	Iturrizaga	1-0	.	.
54		GM	Cheparinov	-	75		GM	Adly	1-0	.	.
55		GM	Sjugirov	-	74		GM	Mareco	½-½	.	.
56		GM	Saric	-	73		GM	Bok	½-½	.	.
57		GM	Piorun	-	72		GM	Abasov	½-½	.	.
58		GM	Kasimdzhanov	-	71		GM	Bareev	1-0	.	.
59		GM	Maghsoodloo	-	70		GM	Chigaev	1-0	.	.
60		GM	Sarana	-	69		GM	Predke	½-½	.	.
61		GM	Demchenko	-	68		GM	Hovhannisyan	1-0	.	.
62		GM	Kovalenko	-	67		GM	Lupulescu	1-0	.	.
63		GM	Gledura	-	66		GM	Najer	½-½	.	.
64		GM	Movsesian	-	65		GM	Oparin	½-½	.	.

Download Day 1 PGN

The FIDE World Cup takes place Sept. 9-Oct 4 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Each round consists of two classical games and a tiebreak on the third day. The final consists of four classical games. Both finalists will qualify for the 2020 Candidates' Tournament. The total prize fund is $1.6 million (1.45 million euros). Sept. 19 and 29 are rest days. You can find more background info in our preview article.

Previous report:

7 Questions About The 2019 FIDE Chess World Cup

Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.

Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.

Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.

As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!

Company Contact and News Accreditation:

Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: PO Box 60400 Palo Alto, CA 94306

2019 FIDE Chess World Cup: 4 Upsets On 1st Day

Korobov Upsets Abdusattorov As TePe Sigeman Chess Tournament Gets Underway

BBC To Broadcast New Chess Show Decades After 'The Master Game'