Favourites Tumble In World Cup

Four of the top rated players at the 2009 Chess World Cup faced grave danger after losing the first game of their second round matches yesterday, and only Peter Svidler managed to survive - for now.

Svidler won with White against Tomi Nyback to force a playoff tomorrow, but Alexander Morozevich, Teimour Radjabov (pictured) and Vassily Ivanchuk were all unceremoniously dumped out of the competition by lower rated opposition.

FIDE's 128-player KO competitions may not allow the cream to rise to the top, but they certainly provide upsets and excitement for chess fans.  Whoever wins the World Cup will, of course, be a great chess player; but they will also need some good fortune along the way.

None of this is meant to take anything away from Viktor Laznicka, Konstantin Sakaev and Wesley So.  Hearty congratulations to them on achieving their great upsets!

The full match scores for round 2 to date are shown below.  Exactly half of the matches were tied after the 2 regular time-control games and will therefore play-off tomorrow to decide the results. 

If you would like to look ahead, to predict who will meet who in future rounds, the best brackets can be found at Wikipedia, here.