World Cup Q-Finals Underway
The quarter-finals of the 2011 Chess World Cup got underway today in Khanty-Mansiysk.
Vassily Ivanchuk found a big hole in Teimour Radjabov's Dragon to win the opening game of their match. Radjabov will need to hit back immediately in the second game to stay in the competition.
Alexander Grischuk used a lot of time on the clock against David Navara but couldn't find a win, settling instead for a draw with just over a minute left (plus the 30 second increment) for 12 moves until the time control.
The other games on the opening day of the quarter-finals ended quickly. Ruslan Ponomariov achieved nothing with the white pieces and conceded a draw to Vugar Gashimov after just 14 moves. Ponomariov may well be tired after his exertions in the tie-break yesterday.
Judit Polgar had a great start to her quarter-final match with Peter Svidler, finding a cute way to force a draw with black after just 17 moves.
Vassily Ivanchuk takes one step towards the semi-finals
The quarter-final match scores after the first day:
| Name | G1 | G2 |
R1 | R2 | r3 | r4 | B1 | B2 | SD | Tot |
| Round 5 Match 01 | ||||||||||
| Svidler, Peter (RUS) | ½ | 0.5 | ||||||||
| Polgar, Judit (HUN) | ½ | 0.5 | ||||||||
| Round 5 Match 02 | ||||||||||
| Ivanchuk, Vassily (UKR) | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Radjabov, Teimour (AZE) | 0 | 0 | ||||||||
| Round 5 Match 03 | ||||||||||
| Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) | ½ | 0.5 | ||||||||
| Navara, David (CZE) | ½ | 0.5 | ||||||||
| Round 5 Match 04 | ||||||||||
| Ponomariov, Ruslan (UKR) | ½ | 0.5 | ||||||||
| Gashimov, Vugar (AZE) | ½ | 0.5 |
Chess.com will be covering the second day of the quarter-final matches LIVE at Chess.comTV, with IM David Pruess and FM Kostya Kavutskiy.
The show will start at 3 AM Pacific/6 AM Eastern/11 London Time and is FREE to ALL Members.
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 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.
Photo from the official website.
