Shankland Upsets Leko In World Cup
The 2011 Chess World Cup kicked off today in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia with the first games of the opening round of matches.
The top seeds mostly performed well against their out-rated opponents, although #9 seed Peter Svidler had to settle for a draw against his 2493 Elo rated opponent Darcy Lima of Brazil.
Alexander Morozevich was also held to a draw by Stelios Halkias of Greece (2600 Elo).
However, the biggest upset of the day came from Chess.com's own Sam Shankland who beat Peter Leko with the black pieces to give himself a real chance to qualify for the second round.
Another upset saw Alexandr Fier beat Wang Yue of China with the white pieces.
Sam Shankland got off to a winning start in the World Cup
The results of the first day in full: (even numbered seeds played white)
| Seed | Name | Nat | Name | Nat | Seed | |
| 1 | Karjakin,Sergey | RUS | 1-0 | Kaabi,Mejdi | TUN | 128 |
| 2 | Ivanchuk,Vassily | UKR | 1-0 | Steel,Henry Robert | RSA | 127 |
| 3 | Mamedyarov,Shakhriyar | AZE | 1-0 | Ibrahim,Hatim | EGY | 126 |
| 4 | Ponomariov,Ruslan | UKR | 1-0 | Gwaze,Robert | ZIM | 125 |
| 5 | Gashimov,Vugar | AZE | 1-0 | Hansen,Eric | CAN | 124 |
| 6 | Grischuk,Alexander | RUS | 1-0 | Genba,Vladimir | RUS | 123 |
| 7 | Radjabov,Teimour | AZE | 1-0 | De La Paz Perdomo,Frank | CUB | 122 |
| 8 | Kamsky,Gata | USA | 1-0 | Di Berardino,Diego Rafael | BRA | 121 |
| 9 | Svidler,Peter | RUS | ½-½ | Lima,Darcy | BRA | 120 |
| 10 | Jakovenko,Dmitry | RUS | 1-0 | Salem,A.R. Saleh | UAE | 119 |
| 11 | Vitiugov,Nikita | RUS | ½-½ | Bezgodov,Alexei | RUS | 118 |
| 12 | Almasi,Zoltan | HUN | 1-0 | El Gindy,Essam | EGY | 117 |
| 13 | Vallejo Pons,Francisco | ESP | 1-0 | Cori,Jorge | PER | 116 |
| 14 | Navara,David | CZE | 1-0 | Kabanov,Nikolai | RUS | 115 |
| 15 | Vachier-Lagrave,Maxime | FRA | ½-½ | Rahman,Ziaur | BAN | 114 |
| 16 | Dominguez Perez,Leinier | CUB | 1-0 | Moradiabadi,Elshan | IRI | 113 |
| Bye | Ivanov,Alexander | USA | 112 | |||
| 18 | Leko,Peter | HUN | 0-1 | Shankland,Samuel L | USA | 111 |
| 19 | Moiseenko,Alexander | UKR | ½-½ | Esen,Baris | TUR | 110 |
| 20 | Le,Quang Liem | VIE | 1-0 | Megaranto,Susanto | INA | 109 |
| 21 | Adams,Michael | ENG | 1-0 | Paragua,Mark | PHI | 108 |
| 22 | Shirov,Alexei | ESP | 1-0 | Leon Hoyos,Manuel | MEX | 107 |
| 23 | Jobava,Baadur | GEO | 1-0 | Guliyev,Namig | AZE | 106 |
| 24 | Caruana,Fabiano | ITA | 1-0 | Pridorozhni,Aleksei | RUS | 105 |
| 25 | Nepomniachtchi,Ian | RUS | 1-0 | Ortiz Suarez,Isan Reynald | CUB | 104 |
| 26 | Bacrot,Etienne | FRA | ½-½ | Robson,Ray | USA | 103 |
| 27 | Wang,Yue | CHN | 0-1 | Fier,Alexandr | BRA | 102 |
| 28 | Tomashevsky,Evgeny | RUS | 1-0 | Zhao,Zong-Yuan | AUS | 101 |
| 29 | Efimenko,Zahar | UKR | ½-½ | Babula,Vlastimil | CZE | 100 |
| 30 | Malakhov,Vladimir | RUS | ½-½ | Felgaer,Ruben | ARG | 99 |
| 31 | Sutovsky,Emil | ISR | ½-½ | Vorobiov,Evgeny E. | RUS | 98 |
| 32 | Movsesian,Sergei | ARM | 1-0 | Hou,Yifan | CHN | 97 |
| 33 | Polgar,Judit | HUN | 1-0 | Corrales Jimenez,Fidel | CUB | 96 |
| 34 | Fressinet,Laurent | FRA | 1-0 | Jumabayev,Rinat | KAZ | 95 |
| 35 | Eljanov,Pavel | UKR | ½-½ | Zherebukh,Yaroslav | UKR | 94 |
| 36 | Berkes,Ferenc | HUN | 1-0 | Mareco,Sandro | ARG | 93 |
| 37 | Andreikin,Dmitry | RUS | ½-½ | Kazhgaleyev,Murtas | KAZ | 92 |
| 38 | Morozevich,Alexander | RUS | ½-½ | Halkias,Stelios | GRE | 91 |
| 39 | Zhigalko,Sergei | BLR | 0-1 | Filippov,Anton | UZB | 90 |
| 40 | Riazantsev,Alexander | RUS | 1-0 | Bluvshtein,Mark | CAN | 89 |
| 41 | Motylev,Alexander | RUS | ½-½ | Drozdovskij,Yuri | UKR | 88 |
| 42 | Wojtaszek,Radoslaw | POL | 1-0 | Pashikian,Arman | ARM | 87 |
| 43 | Potkin,Vladimir | RUS | ½-½ | Shulman,Yuri | USA | 86 |
| 44 | Nielsen,Peter Heine | DEN | ½-½ | Postny,Evgeny | ISR | 85 |
| 45 | Grachev,Boris | RUS | ½-½ | Romanov,Evgeny | RUS | 84 |
| 46 | Inarkiev,Ernesto | RUS | 1-0 | Salgado Lopez,Ivan | ESP | 83 |
| 47 | Mamedov,Rauf | AZE | ½-½ | Gupta,Abhijeet | IND | 82 |
| 48 | Kobalia,Mikhail | RUS | ½-½ | Lysyj,Igor | RUS | 81 |
| 49 | Bologan,Viktor | MDA | 1-0 | Socko,Bartosz | POL | 80 |
| 50 | Bu,Xiangzhi | CHN | 1-0 | Adly,Ahmed | EGY | 79 |
| 51 | Onischuk,Alexander | USA | ½-½ | Ivanisevic,Ivan | SRB | 78 |
| 52 | Bruzon Batista,Lazaro | CUB | ½-½ | Quesada Perez,Yuniesky | CUB | 77 |
| 53 | Yu,Yangyi | CHN | 0-1 | Parligras,Mircea-Emilian | ROU | 76 |
| 54 | Korobov,Anton | UKR | 1-0 | Zhou,Jianchao | CHN | 75 |
| 55 | Harikrishna,P. | IND | 1-0 | Rodshtein,Maxim | ISR | 74 |
| 56 | Li,Chao b | CHN | ½-½ | Nguyen,Ngoc Truong Son | VIE | 73 |
| 57 | Kasimdzhanov,Rustam | UZB | 1-0 | Nisipeanu,Liviu-Dieter | ROU | 72 |
| Bye | Negi,Parimarjan | IND | 71 | |||
| 59 | Feller,Sebastien | FRA | 0-1 | Iordachescu,Viorel | MDA | 70 |
| 60 | Timofeev,Artyom | RUS | ½-½ | Azarov,Sergei | BLR | 69 |
| 61 | Ni,Hua | CHN | ½-½ | Khairullin,Ildar | RUS | 68 |
| 62 | Fridman,Daniel | GER | ½-½ | Lupulescu,Constantin | ROU | 67 |
| 63 | Alekseev,Evgeny | RUS | ½-½ | Ragger,Markus | AUT | 66 |
| 64 | So,Wesley | PHI | ½-½ | Ding,Liren | CHN | 65 |
The winner, runner-up and third placed player in the World Cup will qualify for the Candidates tournament to determine a challenger for the winner of the Anand v Gelfand world championship match next year.
Each round starts at 15:00 local time (09:00 UTC). The schedule:
| Round | Regular games | Tiebreaks | Players |
| 1 | 28–29 Aug | 30-Aug | 128 |
| 2 | 31 Aug–1 Sept | 02-Sep | 64 |
| 3 | 3–4 Sept | 05-Sep | 32 |
| 4 | 6-7 Sept | 08-Sep | 16 |
| Q-Final | 9–10 Sept | 11-Sep | 8 |
| Semi-Final | 12–13 Sept | 14-Sep | 4 |
| Final | 16–19 Sept | 20-Sep | 2 |
The time control for the regular games is 40 moves in 90 minutes followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30 second increment from the start.
Rapid games are at 25 minutes plus 10 second increment, and if scores are still level then 10 minutes plus 10 second increment, 5 minutes plus 3 second increment, and finally sudden-death 5 min v 4 min with a 3 second increment after move 60.
The official website with live coverage and commentary in Russian and English is here.
