Instructive chess in Khanty-Mansiysk

On the first day of the World Cup's third round, especially Gelfand and Vachier-Lagrave won very nice and instructive games with White against Polgar and Yu Yangyi respectively. Wesley So slayed another giant: Gata Kamsky. David Navara defeated Sergei Karjakin while Vugar Gashimov was incredibly lucky to escape with a draw against Li Chao.

The FIDE World Chess Cup takes place November 20th-December 15th inn Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. It's a seven-round knockout with six rounds of matches comprising two games per round. The final seventh round consists of four games.

Round 1 (November 21-23): 128 players	Round 5 (December 3-5): 8 players
Round 2 (November 24-26): 64 players	Round 6 (December 6-8): 4 players
Round 3 (November 27-29): 32 players	Round 7 (December 10-14): 2 players
Round 4 (November 30-December 2): 16 players

The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from move one. Games start at 15:00h local time (11:00 CET).

Round 3, day 1

After sending Vassily Ivanchuk home, Wesley So impressed again today: he defeated World Cup 2007 winner Gata Kamsky with the Black pieces. The 16-year-old Philippine grandmaster is doing very well so far in Khanty-Mansiysk, but he's still very realistic about his play: "Honestly I was lucky when playing against Ivanchuk. I admire this chess player and I know that he plays far better than me. In the first game he was in time trouble and maybe that is why I was lucky. The second game was a draw, but Vassily had a real chance to win at some point during the game."



Like against Ivanchuk, So defeated Kamsky using the French Defence. However, this time So wasn't lucky; he simply played a very good game. He already surprised Kamsky in the opening (15...Qb5 was new) and when the American didn't go for 22.Nxa4, 23.Ra1 and 24.Rxa7, So got the upper hand. 24...f6! was very strong and 31...d4! killing.

David Navara was the only other player resonsible for a small upset in today's round. He beat Sergei Karjakin from a Ruy Lopez ending that didn't look that terrible for Black, but in reality White's advantage was considerable. The way Navara continued to play actively in the endgame reminded a bit of some of Kasparov's games. However, it was a big mistake by Karjakin that decided the game: 36...f4, where 36...cxd4 wasn't that terrible for Black. Navara could have forced instant resignation with 39.Nf7+ but the way he did it was also winning.



Polgar really needs to check her Queen's Indian, because the way Gelfand reached a nice advantage out of the opening wasn't exactly hocus pocus. 16.Qd1! was a deeply calculated exchange sacrifice that Polgar probably shouldn't even have taken (18.Ne5 instead of 18.Ng5 is also strong). 23.Rd1! was nice and 26.Rb1!! brilliant - White has time to threaten b4-b5! The technical phase was a pleasure to watch as well.

But also Vachier-Lagrave played a true model game today in our opinion, against Yu Yangyi. Not 11.c3 but 11.c4 is the move in the 9.Nxd5 Svesh these days, and White soon had a technical position with a backward d-pawn in the Black camp as the only weakness, which meant a second target had to be created on the kingside. White's miniplan on moves 27-29 eventually weakened the g6 square which became useful later in the game. The position after move 47 is a textbook example of the difference between active and passive pieces, and a small combination was hanging in the air.



Sakaev seems to have been caught by Vitiugov's preparation; after sacrificing a small exchange he soon dropped a normal exchange. Jakovenko had a very easy day too against Areshchenko - Black didn't resign too early; it's absolutely hopeless already (e.g. 29...Rg7 30.a4!). Mamedyarov nicely outplayed Wang Hao and in the last decisive game, Ponomariov defeated Motylev. The Ukrainian seemed to be avoiding theory a little (not a bad idea against super-theoretician Motylev, a former second of Ponomariov) and got a slightly better ending, but giving the pawn on b5 that easily was a surprising choice by Motylev.

Bacrot was in a good mood today and went all or nothing against the solid Wang Yue (and his solid Petroff). The Frenchman took a lot of risks (what about 25...f6?) and sacrificed a bishop on g7, which Rybka doesn't believe because of 28...Nd6. In the end Bacrot didn't get all and not nothing either, because his attack was enough for a perpetual.



Gashimov had an angel on his shoulder today. At several points the world's number 6 player was cleaely lost. First, the Azeri GM went for a known to be dangerous pawn grab against the nowadays rare 6.f4 Najdorf. But Li Chao missed 25.Qd8.



Then a slip of the finger allowed 45.Bxf5!, but Li Chao missed 47.Qxh5. And then later on in the game Li Chao missed 72.h7, and perhaps even still 73.Rc2 might be winning. The Chinese must be having trouble sleeping tonight...

All photos by Galina Popova | courtesy of FIDE

Games round 3, day 1

Game viewer by ChessTempo


Players in bold have reached the third round; players in italics have been eliminated.

Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7
Shabalov (2606)
	Navara (2707)
Navara (2707)
Karjakin (2723)
	Karjakin (2723)
Timofeev (2651)
Sakaev (2626)
	Sakaev (2626)
Radjabov (2748)
Vitiugov (2694)
	Vitiugov (2694)
Milos (2603)
Cheparinov (2671)
	Bologan (2692)
Bologan (2692)
Morozevich (2750)
	Laznicka (2637)
Laznicka (2637)
Milov (2652)
	Mamedyarov (2719)
Mamedyarov (2719)
Wang Hao (2708)
	Wang Hao (2708)
Ganguly (2654)
Meier (2653)
	Vachier-Lagrave (2718)
Vachier-Lagrave (2718)
Yu Yangyi (2527)
	Yu Yangyi (2527)
Bartel (2618)
Amonatov (2631)
	Gelfand (2758)
Gelfand (2758)
Polgar (2680)
	Polgar (2680)
Nisipeanu (2677)
Iturrizaga (2605)
	Jobava (2696)
Jobava (2696)
Grischuk (2736)
	Grischuk (2736)
Tkachiev (2642)
Sandipan (2623)
	Jakovenko (2736)
Jakovenko (2736)
Rublevsky (2697)
	Areshchenko (2664)
Areshchenko (2664)
Sasikiran (2664)
	Bacrot (2700)
Bacrot (2700)
Wang Yue (2734)
	Wang Yue (2734)
Savchenko (2644)
Akobian (2624)
	Ponomariov (2739)
Ponomariov (2739)
Motylev (2695)
	Motylev (2695)
Najer (2695
Li Chao (2596)
	Li Chao (2596)
Pelletier (2589)
Gashimov (2758)
	Gashimov (2758)
Zhou Jianchao (2629
Caruana (2652)
	Caruana (2652)
Dominguez (2719)
Alekseev (2715)
	Alekseev (2715)
Fressinet (2653)
Khalifman (2612)
	Tomashevsky (2708)
Tomashevsky (2708)
Shirov (2719)
	Shirov (2719)
Fedorchuk (2619)
Nyback (2628)
	Svidler (2754)
Svidler (2754)
Naiditsch (2689)
	Naiditsch (2689)
Onischuk (2672)
Zhou Weiqi (2603)
	Kamsky (2695)
Kamsky (2695)
Ivanchuk (2739)
	So (2640)
So (2640)
Inarkiev (2645)
	Eljanov (2729)
Eljanov (2729)
Malakhov (2706)
	Malakhov (2706)
Smirin (2662)

Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN