Nakamura accepts a draw offer he can't refuse. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Nakamura Eliminated From FIDE Chess World Cup

PeterDoggers

Updated: Dec 9, 2019, 8:14 AM | 50 | Chess Event Coverage

Hikaru Nakamura was eliminated from the FIDE World Cup after failing to win his return game with Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu. The Chinese GM Xu Xiangyu surprised again by knocking out Ernesto Inarkiev while Alireza Firouzja played a brilliant piece sacrifice.

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.

It's never an easy task to win on demand and especially when facing the Petroff defense—an opening Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu plays only occasionally.

Hikaru Nakamura did try, so much that he actually got into a completely lost position. When the players had reached move 30, Nakamura got a consolation draw offer from his opponent, which was an offer he couldn't refuse.

Boris Gelfand checks out what happened while Nakamura and Nisipeanu briefly discuss some moves. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

For the second time, the little-known Chinese GM Xu Xiangyu managed to knock out an experienced grandmaster from the tournament. After being ruthless to his compatriot Bu Xiangzhi, he also had no mercy for Ernesto Inarkiev, the European Champion of 2016 who was named after Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Xu Xiangyu, the surprise of the FIDE World Cup so far. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Choosing the Game of the Day was a tough choice between this one and the brilliant win by Alireza Firouzja. The 16-year-old Iranian rising star avoided a draw against the 23-year-old Russian GM Daniil Dubov with a stunning, long-term piece sacrifice that paid off in the end. We're only five days into this World Cup, and it has given us already quite a few beautiful games of chess.

Firouzja beats Dubov brilliantly. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Another prodigy fared less well. India's Nihal Sarin was on his way to reach the third round and had a slightly better position against Eltaj Safarli of Azerbaijan when a draw was enough.

But then Nihal blundered in a way that would have been inexplicable if not for the Indian being in heavy time trouble... but such blunders belong to players at the ends of their careers, not the beginnings!

Kudos to Safarli, though, for playing the Evans Gambit.

A huge blunder is about to occur. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

One other player managed to win on demand to force playoffs: Wei Yi defeated David Anton with the black pieces—also with some slightly daring play in the opening that led to a complicated endgame. Anton was doing fine for a long time, but two small mistakes in a row allowed the Chinese player to take control.

The top two seeds drew both their classical and will have to play the tiebreaks: Ding Liren vs. Sergei Movsesian and Anish Giri vs. Evgenyi Najer. We'll see Leinier Dominguez, Alexander Grischuk and Teimour Radjabov there as well, in a total of 15 tiebreak matches.

Maxime Vaxchier-Lagrave, Sergey Karjakin and Jan-Krzysztof Duda reached the third round by winning both of their classical games. Wesley So started with a draw but then nicely outplayed Anton Demchenko as White. He showed how to play against Black's doubled f-pawns in a Queen's Gambit Declined:

A smooth win for Wesley So vs. Demchenko. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Russian GM and world number-five Ian Nepomniachtchi also decided his minimatch in the second classical encounter with his compatriot Alexandr Predke. It was a sharp Gruenfeld with castling on opposite wings where Predke came well prepared.

After 25 moves the computer gives White an advantage of almost two pawns, but after one mistake by Predke, the tables turned completely. The correct move was to bring the h1-rook into play. As coaches of young children tend to say: You gotta let all your friends join the party!

Nepomniachtchi was in some trouble but nonetheless finished the job. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Levon Aronian, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Vladislav Artemiev, Pentala Harikrishna and Evgeny Tomashevsky held the draws they needed to reach the third round. Dmitry Andreikin, Le Quang Liem, Wang Hao and Vidit Gujrathi scored wins in the second game after drawing their first.

A number of round-three matchups are already known:

Nepomniachtchi vs. Tomashevsky
So vs. Vidit
Artemiev vs. Le
Duda vs. Andreikin

FIDE World Cup | Round 2 results

Seed	Fed	Title	Player	-	Seed	Fed	Title	Player	G1	G2	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5	TB6	TB7
1		GM	Ding Liren	-	64		GM	Movsesian	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
2		GM	Giri	-	66		GM	Najer	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
3		GM	Vachier-Lagrave	-	62		GM	Kovalenko	1-0	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
4		GM	So	-	61		GM	Demchenko	½-½	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
5		GM	Nepomniachtchi	-	69		GM	Predke	½-½	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
6		GM	Aronian	-	59		GM	Maghsoodloo	1-0	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
7		GM	Mamedyarov	-	58		GM	Kasimdzhanov	1-0	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
8		GM	Dominguez	-	72		GM	Abasov	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
9		GM	Grischuk	-	73		GM	Bok	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
10		GM	Radjabov	-	55		GM	Sjugirov	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
11		GM	Artemiev	-	54		GM	Cheparinov	1-0	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
12		GM	Yu Yangyi	-	53		GM	Adhiban	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
13		GM	Karjakin	-	52		GM	Sevian	1-0	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
14		GM	Nakamura	-	51		GM	Nisipeanu	0-1	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
15		GM	Andreikin	-	79		GM	Jumabayev	½-½	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
17		GM	Harikrishna	-	48		GM	Fedoseev	1-0	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
18		GM	Duda	-	47		GM	Nabaty	1-0	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
19		GM	Svidler	-	83		GM	Esipenko Andey	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
20		GM	Vitiugov	-	84		GM	Huschenbeth	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
21		GM	Wei Yi	-	44		GM	Anton	0-1	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
22		GM	Le	-	43		GM	Korobov	½-½	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
25		GM	Wang Hao	-	40		GM	Rodshtein	½-½	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
27		GM	Matlakov	-	38		GM	Gelfand	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
28		GM	Tomashevsky	-	92		GM	Aravindh	1-0	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
29		GM	Vidit	-	93		GM	Rakhmanov	½-½	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
30		GM	Jakovenko	-	35		GM	Jones	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
31		GM	Xiong	-	95		GM	Tabatabaei	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
32		GM	Firouzja	-	33		GM	Dubov	½-½	1-0	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
42		GM	McShane	-	106		GM	Yuffa	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
41		GM	Inarkiev	-	105		GM	Xu Xiangyu	½-½	0-1	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
90		GM	Nihal	-	103		GM	Safarli	1-0	0-1	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
49		GM	Aleksеenko	-	113		GM	Christiansen	½-½	½-½	.	.	.	.	.	.	.

Download Day 5 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.

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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.

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