Adams, Karjakin, Navara, Wang Hao Start With Losses In World Cup Round 2

Michael Adams, Sergey Karjakin, David Navara and Wang Hao started with losses and need to beat their lower-rated opponents tomorrow to stay in the FIDE World Cup.

All photos courtesy of FIDE.

The World Cup continued its grueling schedule — there isn't a single rest day until the semifinals — with 32 matches, and 64 players involved.

There won't be many players who actually formed a strategy for the full four weeks. Part of a world cup comes down to taking some rest whenever it's possible. That must have been the reason some of the players played very short draws in the first game of the second round.

• Sergei Zhigalko played the Alapin and offered a draw after just 11 moves against Veselin Topalov. The top seed accepted.
• On move 12 in an English game (the Flohr-Mikenas system) Ilia Smirin offered a draw; Teimour Radjabov accepted.
• Anish Giri offered a draw on move 17 against Alexander Motylev in a Caro-Kann Advance. Motylev accepted.
• Hikaru Nakamura offered a draw on move 18 against his compatriot Sam Shankland in what started as a Chebanenko Slav. Shankland accepted.
• Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu played the Petroff against Peter Svidler, who got nothing and offered a draw on move 18. Naturally it was accepted.
• Wen Yang versus Peter Leko was an Open Catalan. The Chinese player offered a draw on move 20; Leko accepted.
• Vitiugov didn't get much against Le Quang Liem in a 5.Bf4 Queen's Gambit Declined. A draw was agreed on move 22.
• In his pet line 6.h3 against Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son's King's Indian, Evgeny Tomashevsky offered a draw on move 23. It was accepted.

The obvious question among the fans appeared on Twitter (and it was answered sensibly as well):

Why do we have a big knock out tournament but no Sofia rule? Zhigalko-Topalov draw in 11 moves. #FIDEWorldCup

— Martin Bennedik (@bennedik) September 14, 2015

@bennedik Because it's already a brutal schedule.

— Mark Crowther (@MarkTWIC) September 14, 2015

@bennedik I don't think there should be any Sofia rule in a knock-out event like this.

— Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS) September 14, 2015

The first player to win a game was Lu Shanglei. Wasn't that one of the players facing a compatriot? Yes he was! In the Two Knights variation of the Caro-Kann he quickly got a strong attack with zero counterplay for Black:

Around the time control more games ended decisively. Another young Chinese player, who made himself famous in a relatively short time, was victorious: Wei Yi. It seems that Yuri Vovk had one chance to draw, but he went for Nd7-c5-e4 too late: 

Gadir Guseinov knocked out the higher-rated Maxim Matlakov in the first round, and has good chances to reach the second. He managed to beat David Navara today in what was easily the most spectacular encounter.

It started with a remarkable opening phase where Navara allowed known a sac on h6, and continued playing fast. White got a queen, rook and six pawns versus two rooks, a bishop, a knight and three pawns for Black.

GM Dejan Bojkov tells you what happened next:

Sergey Karjakin was another strong GM who was on the wrong side of an upset. He lost to Alexander Onischuk, who didn't have that much with White but suddenly got his pieces active. Karjakin then allowed a pin that was as deadly as a Brazilian wandering spider.

And if it wasn't enough...then Michael Adams also lost. He lost a pawn to Viktor Laznicka and never saw it back. Other players who made a good impression with smooth victories were Radek Wojtaszek (vs Vladislav Artemiev), Vassily Ivanchuk (vs Maxim Rodshtein), and Dimitri Andreikin (vs Anton Korobov).

Ding Liren played Ernesto Inarkiev, got a nice pawn center, started maneuvering some pieces towards the enemy king and then found a nice way to win. Can you see it too?

Fabiano Caruana is looking sharp so far. After scoring 2-0 in the first round, he slowly outplayed one of the local heros, Rauf Mamedov:

Cristobal Henriquez ousted Boris Gelfand in the tiebreak, but another player in his forties was too strong for him today: Julio Granda Zuniga. It's always nice to see that Réti maneuver Bc1-b2, Ra1-c1-c2 and Qd1-a1, even if White puts a pawn on d4 the very next move. 

After this game Henriquez surely knows why bishops are considered a bit better than knights in open positions:

Lazara Bruzon might have had trouble sleeping. Not only did he lose the theoretically drawn RB vs R ending to Vladimir Kramnik; as it turned out he could have postponed the checkmate with 115...Kc8, when White can't checkmate in time and the 50-move rule would have saved Bruzon.

2015 World Cup | Round 2, Day 1 Results