World Cup R3.2: Polgar eliminates Karjakin, Morozevich throws in towel

Judit Polgar eliminated top seed Sergei Karjakin from the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk. The Hungarian drew here second game with the black pieces comfortably to reach a score of 1.5-0.5. Alexander Morozevich and David Navara both surprised the chess world; the former needed to win his white game against Alexander Grischuk and duly offered a draw after twelve moves while the latter offered a draw against Alexander Moiseenko, a few moves before a forced mate.

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.

Round 3.2

The second day of the World Cup's third round was a crazy one, really crazy. It started already about an hour into the round, when at the board of Alexander Morozevich and Alexander Grischuk the pieces were already put back into their starting position. While commentators GM Konstantin Landa and WGM Anna Sharevich had just started commenting upon this game, it took them a while to realize what had happened. At that point several players were looking at this board; Baadur Jobava, who was sitting next to it, looked surprised, Bacrot turned around to look what happened, Radjabov walked to the board, Dominguez came by and checked one of the score sheets... As it turned out, Morozevich had offered a draw after twelve moves! At the press conference Grischuk said:

As much as you or anyone else I'm surprised, much more than any of you. No idea what happened. First I thought I misheard it, I thought I was still sleeping or dreaming, I still cannot understand what happened and why.

Landa asked Grischuk if he had asked his opponent about it.

I don't think it's very correct to ask immediately,

Grischuk replied and then decided to show his white game of the day before, which he described as "one of the most interesting games I played in recent years." The biggest story, however, was the game Moiseenko vs Navara. At move 55, the Czech GM had reached a winning ending with Black: queen vs rook and e-pawn (on e3). At move 73 Navara won the e-pawn, so queen vs rook remained. According to the tablebase, from the starting position it was a mate in 25 but Navara at first didn't make much progress: at move 106 it was still 21 moves to mate with perfect defence. After that things went much better and on move 114 the following position was reached: Moiseenko-Navara Khanty-Mansiysk, 2011 Here the game finished, and to everyone's surprise the result turned out to be a draw. Thanks to WhyChess we know that GM Sergey Shipov, who is in Khanty, posted on the Crestbook forum (the emphasis is Shipov's):

I talked to Moiseenko after his game against Navara – they DREW! What happened was as follows: in the first time trouble Navara accidentally touched one of his pieces and if he moved it he’d lose a piece. Moiseenko pardoned him that touch in a short dialogue. It seems a sense of guilt weighed on David and then, having achieved a won position, he considered it wasn’t possible for him to win and offered a draw. All in all, they’re going to play tiebreaks tomorrow. David Navara and Alexander Moiseenko are the noblest representatives of the chess world. Let’s remember their names…

However, this is not the whole story. You can still watch the incident in the video from the organizers, where at 16:01:55 (right after the press conference with Judit Polgar) we see an overview shot, and at 16:01:58 David Navara makes a move. The interesting thing is that it's hardly visible that Navara touches a piece that he doesn't play; instead he makes a move without hesitation. Therefore, if he did touch a different piece while executing this move, it couldn't have been deliberate. And this is the key word, as we can read in the FIDE regulations:

Article 4.3 "(...) if the player having the move deliberately touches on the chessboard (...) one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched which can be moved.”

In the video it is clear that Moiseenko didn't just 'pardon' Navara; he first points out to his opponent that he touched a different piece (an act by Moiseenko that is questionable, taking into account the rules) and then apparently says 'let's play on'. The first thing Navara does (so not his opponent!) is call for the arbiter, who tells them to continue. Apparently Navara couldn't stop thinking about the whole incident and felt it was morally wrong much to win a game in which he had done something wrong (which wasn't the case). Navara, who possesses a strong sense for justice combined with the highest form of modesty, proved once again that he is a remarkable and wonderful person, but someone needs to explain to him that in Khanty it's about winning. :-) Judit Polgar comfortably drew her black game with Sergey Karjakin using the Open variation of the Ruy Lopez. This way the Hungarian qualified for the next round, and eliminated the top seeded player, with remarkable ease. At the press conference she said:

Of course I'm incredibly happy and I think I also played pretty well and I took my chances. I put a lot of pressure on Sergey. I have to calm down tomorrow to be ready for the next round!

Judit's trick? Her husband is staying at home taking care of the kids (the oldest just started school) and this way "I can stay calm knowing that everything is going well at home". As the famous saying goes, behind every great woman... ;-) Vassily Ivanchuk is still in the competition. He levelled the score against Emil Sutovsky, who used a remarkable strategy with White: play as aggressively as possible! Sutovsky-Ivanchuk Khanty-Mansiysk, 2011 [Notes by Arne Moll] 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. f4 Nf6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. e5 Nfd7 7. h4 The sharpest possible way to answer the Pirc. 7... c5 8. h5 cxd4 9. hxg6 dxc3 10. gxf7+ Rxf7 11. Bc4 e6 12. Ng5 cxb2 13. Bxb2 Qa5+ 14. Ke2 14...Nf8 A new move, but hardly an improvement. Theory recommends 14... d5 and Black should be OK. 15. Nxf7 Kxf7 16. f5!? A bold attempt, but probably not an entirely correct one. The materialistic 16. Qxd6 Nc6 17. Raf1 looks more promising, although Black seems to survive after 17... Kg8 18. Rf3 Bd7 19. f5 Qa4. 16... Bxe5! Simple and strong. Now White's attack looks kind of artificial; for the rest see the game viewer below. Bu Xiangzhi and Abhijeet Gupta seemed to be steering to a second draw, and thus a tie-break, until the following happened. Bu Xiangzhi-Abhijeet Gupta Khanty-Mansiysk, 2011 [Notes by Arne Moll] 60...Kh5?? Horrible. Both Kh6 and Kf4 still led to a draw. 61. f4 Opening up the deadly diagonal d1-h5 for the bishop. Black resigned.

Games round 3.2

Game viewer by ChessTempo

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