World Cup R2 tie-break: Adams, Vachier-Lagrave & Vallejo eliminated

On Friday the tie-breaks of the World Cup's second round were played, and Michael Adams, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave & Paco Vallejo are the strongest players who were eliminated.

General info

The 2011 FIDE World Cup is a 128-player knock-out taking place August 27-September 20 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia. The tournament delivers three participants for the next Candidates tournament/matches, as part of the new World Championship cycle. Except for the final, all rounds have 2-game matches at the FIDE time control: 90 minutes for 40 moves followed by 30 minutes to finish the game, with a 30-second increment from the first move. In case of a 1-1 tie, on the third day of the round there's a tie-break with rapid games and if necessary blitz games and an Armageddon. More info here.

Tie-break round 2

The second tie-break day was a rather short one, with no less than 11 of the 13 mini-matches being decided in the two rapid games already. As the official website notes, neither player of those six who lost the first game was able to strike back, and four of them lost the second game as well. Alexander Grischuk, Etienne Bacrot, Yaroslav Zherebukh and Alexander Moiseenko won 2-0 against Sebastien Feller, Anton Filippov, Ruben Felgaer and Ernesto Inarkiev respectively. Ian Nepomniachtchi and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov won their first games convincingly and then secured their promotion with draws against Alexander Riazantsev and Daniel Friedman respectively. On top board, Sergey Karjakin drew his black game with Wesley So and then beat the Philippine in an Advance Caro-Kann. Afterwards Karjakin revealed that Alexander Motylev, after getting eliminated, stayed in Khanty as his second. Motylev had played the exact variation earlier in the tournament, against Drozdovskij, and so the two were well prepared. So said he had only looked at the classical games of that match, and so he missed a few details... 2009 World Cup finalist Ruslan Ponomariov had some difficult moments in the second rapid game, after the first had ended in a draw. Ponomariov-Ni Hua Khanty-Mansiysk, 2011 Black has just taken a pawn on g6, on move 55, and so he has until move 105 to try and win this position. Dutch readers will immediately recognize the ending from the famous game Timman-Velimirovic, Interzonal 1979 (with reversed colours). The whole country was analysing this endgame for a week (due to multiple adjournments), stimulated by the newspaper articles by GM Donner. Without the existence of tablebases, Timman had to use endgame manuals. He had only packed one of Chéron's endgame books in his suitcase, but luckily it was the one that included this ending. However, Chéron had analysed it for to a win in... more, much more than fifty moves. Without glancing at the book Timman's second Ulf Andersson managed to find a way to win it faster, but still not in less than fifty. In Schaakbulletin, Timman wrote:

Somehow I had to think of Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. In fifty moves around the chess board, to end up grabbing the little fellow on a3, keeping away the enemy king... we had to succeed.

And they did; they found a way to win in all lines under fifty move (and later the tablebase would confirm that it was possible). Because Velimirovic didn't defend perfectly, it only took 39. While searching for 'Timman-Velimirovic' in our own search bar in the top right corner, just to see whether we had mentioned it before, we noticed the following. The exact ending hasn't appeared in recent top games, but with the pawns one rank higher, it has! You might want to compare it with the games Kramnik-Ponomariov (!), Tal Memorial 2009 (analysed here by GM Dimitri Reinderman) and Giri-Andreikin, Biel 2010 (annotated here by IM Robert Ris). Not knowing his classics ;-) Ni Hua didn't manage to win it and Ponomariov escaped from elimination. In such cases it's useful to know the rules:

The player who has the move may stop the clock and consult the Arbiter’s score sheet and if his next move will produce a threefold repetition of position (...), or the 50 moves rule (...), he himself must write the intended move on the score sheet and claim the draw if he wants. A player can also claim a draw according to articles 9.2b and 9.3b of the Technical Regulations. If the claim is found to be correct, the game is immediately ended as a draw. If the claim is found to be incorrect, the Arbiter shall add three (3) minutes to the opponent’s remaining time and the game continues with the intended move in accordance with Article 4 of the Technical Regulations. A maximum of two (2) incorrect claims for a draw can be made by each player. If a player makes a 3rd incorrect claim, the arbiter shall declare the game lost for this player.

In the first blitz game, Ponomariov crushed his opponent with the white pieces and then held a draw with Black. In the only other mini-match that reached the 10 minutes + 10 seconds increment time control, Peter Svidler defeated Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son 2-0. Michael Adams is one of the most successful players ever in knock-out events. However, this time he didn't get further than the second round. With Black the Englishman held a draw, but then he went down in a Sicilian. Adams-Nielsen Khanty-Mansiysk, 2011 32... Na3+! 33. bxa3 Qc4 34. Bxe3 Qxa2+ 35. Kc1 dxe3 0-1 Pairings round 3: Polgar (HUN) - Karjakin (RUS) Ivanchuk (UKR) - Sutovsky (ISR) Zherebukh(UKR) - Mamedyarov(AZE) Ponomariov (UKR) - Efimenko (UKR) Tomashevsky (RUS) – Gashimov(AZE) Grischuk (RUS) - Morozevich (RUS) Bacrot (FRA) - Radjabov (AZE) Kamsky(USA) –Nepomniachtchi (RUS) Caruana (ITA) - Svidler (RUS) Jakovenko (RUS) - Jobava (GEO) Potkin (RUS) - Vitiugov (RUS) Parligras (ROM) - Nielsen (DEN) Le Quang Liem (VIE) - Bruzon (CUB) Navara (CZE) - Moiseenko (UKR) Gupta (IND) - Bu Xiangzhi (CHN) Dominguez (CUB) - Lysyj (RUS)

Games round 2.3

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Photos © FIDE | Official website

Links

• Official website
• Live games
• Games in PGN via TWIC