World Cup: Adams, Karjakin, Vovk Win On Demand

Three players who started the FIDE World Cup's second round with a loss managed to level the score on Tuesday: Michael Adams, Sergey Karjakin and Yuri Vovk. Karjakin was praised by none other than Magnus Carlsen on Twitter.

All photos courtesy of FIDE.

The playing hall will again see a large number of players for the tiebreak of the second round. Having arrived in sunny Baku, this journalist will be able to follow the action in the playing hall.

For 17 players, the World Cup ended after the second classical game in round two, and 17 are in round three while enjoying a rest day. Some 15 more players will leave, and 15 continue the fight after today's action. 

Let's start the report with the top seed, as he played quite a nice second game. With Black Topalov didn't mind drawing in 11 moves, and then he decided the match as White.

What a great moment it was when he went 24.Rg1! Zhigalko was too afraid to open the g-file and gave up a pawn, but lots of other tactics followed.

Some of the players who drew quickly in game one repeated this in game two. Sam Shankland and Hikaru Nakamura quickly decided to go to the tiebreak, just like Anish Giri/Alexander Motylev and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu/Peter Svidler.

Fabiano Caruana had won his Black game against Rauf Mamedov and a draw with White got him into the third round. Gadir Guseinov did so even quicker; he got an advantage in a King's Indian and allowed David Navara to exit with dignity:

Three of the players who needed a win managed to do so. Sergey Karjakin was not in a hurry: he went for an ending with rooks and opposite-colored bishops, and equal pawns. The way he outplayed Onischuk there was praised by the world champion on Twitter.

@SergeyKaryakin shows how to win ob demand! #class #chessworldcup

— Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) September 15, 2015

@MagnusCarlsen thank you, Magnus! Well, I used your idea from the game against Alekseev, but still was not very impressed with my position;)

— Sergey Karyakin (@SergeyKaryakin) September 15, 2015

Never write off Michael Adams. The English GM has been a top player for decades, and has reached the world championship semifinals three times — or four, if you count the 2004 World Championship in Tripoli, which he lost to Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

After losing the first game to Viktor Laznicka, Adams crushed his opponent the next day. Here's the game, annotated by GM Dejan Bojkov:

Wesley So has the most impressive score of all: 4.0/4. [Update: Pavel Eljanov too!] Also in the second round he won 2-0, and look at that second game. Is this a player in great shape or not? Do we have a favorite for the title here?

Yuri Vovk was the next one to win on demand, and like Karjakin he took his time. The Ukrainian reached a slightly better ending and displayed good technique there:

Peter Leko is not part of the “elite circuit” anymore, but who has forgotten how close he was to becoming world champion? The Hungarian made good use of his training match with Li Chao last month, and eliminated another Chinese player:

In the all-Indian match it was not Pentala Harikrisha, but S.P. Sethuraman who reached round three. After a draw in the first, he tore down his compatriot's Berlin Wall:

Of the four Armenian players who made the trip to Azerbaijan, only Levon Aronian still has a chance to emerge as the winner. Gabriel Sargissian was ousted by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who also defeated the Berlin but with the quiet 5.Re1 line:

Rest day tomorrow before the third round, disrupted by https://t.co/7p3P9jFA2e and watching tiebreaks! Life at its fullest!

— MVL (@Vachier_Lagrave) September 15, 2015

2015 World Cup | Round 2 Results