Peter Svidler Reaches World Cup Final

Peter Svidler qualified for the 2011 World Cup final by beating Ruslan Ponomariov with the black pieces in the second game of their semi-final match.

Svidler played his beloved Grünfeld Defence and it served him well. He sacrificed the exchange for excellent compensation, his beautiful pair of bishops dominating the game and shepherding his passed pawns home.

In the other semi-final Alexander Grischuk survived yet more time trouble to successfully build a fortress and keep out Vassily Ivanchuk's queen.  Their match goes to rapid tie-breaks tomorrow.

All smiles...Peter Svidler reaches the World Cup final

Grischuk and Ivanchuk face tie-breaks tomorrow

The semi-final scores:

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. Tie-breaks are at a rate of 25 minutes plus 10 second increment, then 10 minutes plus 10 second increment, then 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.

Photo from the official website.