World Cup R3: So knocks out Kamsky

Wesley So did it again. On the second day of the World Cup's 3rd round he drew with Gata Kamsky and so the 16-year-old Philippine GM reached the 4th round, and the World Cup 2007 winner is out. Polgar levelled the score against Gelfand and Karjakin and Areshchenko did the same against Navara and Jakovenko respectively.

The FIDE World Chess Cup takes place November 20th-December 15th inn Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. It's a seven-round knockout with six rounds of matches comprising two games per round. The final seventh round consists of four games.

Round 1 (November 21-23): 128 players	Round 5 (December 3-5): 8 players
Round 2 (November 24-26): 64 players	Round 6 (December 6-8): 4 players
Round 3 (November 27-29): 32 players	Round 7 (December 10-14): 2 players
Round 4 (November 30-December 2): 16 players

The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from move one. Games start at 15:00h local time (11:00 CET).

Round 3, day 2

Many times the Dutch soccer team was close to winning the World Cup, and almost always we lost to the eventual winners. This doesn't make it any more bareable, but at least there's some logic in it! Perhaps Vassily Ivanchuk will be comforted a little by the fact that after he lost to Wesley So, the Pinoy grandmaster also kicked out Gata Kamsky. Again he needed only a draw in the second game, and this time he offered a draw, probably out of respect for his famous opponent, in a position that still offered winning chances.

The other finalist of two years ago, Alexei Shirov, did reach the 4th round. He beat Tomashevsky in not so popular but highly theoretical line of the Ruy Lopez, where White ends up with a small exchange in return for a pawn. After some manoeuvering Tomashevsky blundered on move 40, allowing 41.Bd6! which wins on the spot (41...Rf7 42.Rb7!+-).



Areshchenko, Karjakin and Polgar prolonged their stay in Khanty-Mansiysk for at last another day. Areshchenko lost to Jakovenko the day before but played an excellent game with the White pieces; reaching a better bishop ending out of a Scotch Opening and converting it on move 61. The way Polgar defeated Gelfand was quite spectactular; we know the Hungarian lady is deadly when attacking, but unfortunately we don't see it that often anymore these days. But this game was a classic, perhaps not fully correct, but that's not important. Karjakin's win against Navara was pretty impressive stuff too.

Vitiugov drew with Sakaev and reached the next round, just like Ponomariov did against Motylev, Mamedyarov against Wang Hao and Vachier-Lagrave against Yu Yangyi. There are quite a lot of tiebreaks to be played on Sunday.

All photos by Galina Popova | courtesy of FIDE

Games round 3, day 2

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7
Shabalov (2606)
	Navara (2707)
Navara (2707)
Karjakin (2723)
	Karjakin (2723)
Timofeev (2651)
Sakaev (2626)
	Sakaev (2626)
Radjabov (2748)
		Vitiugov (2694)
Vitiugov (2694)
	Vitiugov (2694)
Milos (2603)
Cheparinov (2671)
	Bologan (2692)
Bologan (2692)
Morozevich (2750)
	Laznicka (2637)
Laznicka (2637)
Milov (2652)
	Mamedyarov (2719)
Mamedyarov (2719)
		Mamedyarov (2719)
Wang Hao (2708)
	Wang Hao (2708)
Ganguly (2654)
Meier (2653)
	Vachier-Lagrave (2718)
Vachier-Lagrave (2718)
		Vachier-Lagrave (2718)
Yu Yangyi (2527)
	Yu Yangyi (2527)
Bartel (2618)
Amonatov (2631)
	Gelfand (2758)
Gelfand (2758)
Polgar (2680)
	Polgar (2680)
Nisipeanu (2677)
Iturrizaga (2605)
	Jobava (2696)
Jobava (2696)
Grischuk (2736)
	Grischuk (2736)
Tkachiev (2642)
Sandipan (2623)
	Jakovenko (2736)
Jakovenko (2736)
Rublevsky (2697)
	Areshchenko (2664)
Areshchenko (2664)
Sasikiran (2664)
	Bacrot (2700)
Bacrot (2700)
Wang Yue (2734)
	Wang Yue (2734)
Savchenko (2644)
Akobian (2624)
	Ponomariov (2739)
Ponomariov (2739)
		Ponomariov (2739)
Motylev (2695)
	Motylev (2695)
Najer (2695
Li Chao (2596)
	Li Chao (2596)
Pelletier (2589)
Gashimov (2758)
	Gashimov (2758)
Zhou Jianchao (2629
Caruana (2652)
	Caruana (2652)
Dominguez (2719)
Alekseev (2715)
	Alekseev (2715)
Fressinet (2653)
Khalifman (2612)
	Tomashevsky (2708)
Tomashevsky (2708)
		Shirov (2719)
Shirov (2719)
	Shirov (2719)
Fedorchuk (2619)
Nyback (2628)
	Svidler (2754)
Svidler (2754)
Naiditsch (2689)
	Naiditsch (2689)
Onischuk (2672)
Zhou Weiqi (2603)
	Kamsky (2695)
Kamsky (2695)
		So (2640)
Ivanchuk (2739)
	So (2640)
So (2640)
Inarkiev (2645)
	Eljanov (2729)
Eljanov (2729)
Malakhov (2706)
	Malakhov (2706)
Smirin (2662)

Links

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