World Cup R5 tie-breaks: Grischuk & Ivanchuk through
(FULL REPORT) Alexander Grischuk and Vassily Ivanchuk will face each other in the semi-finals of the World Cup after winning their round 5 tie-break matches. Grischuk won his first game against David Navara with Black and then drew the second. Ivanchuk managed to draw an ending an exchange down in the first game against Teimour Radjabov, and then the Ukrainian won the second. The other semi-final is Peter Svidler versus Ruslan Ponomariov, who already qualified yesterday. All four players will stay till the end of the tournament, because the losers of the semi-finals will play a match for 3rd and 4th place - the first three players will qualify for the next Candidates tournament.
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. |  |
Tiebreak round 5
On the shortest day so far in Khanty-Mansiysk, Alexander Grischuk and Vassily Ivanchuk defeated David Navara and Teimour Radjabov respectively. Both matches only lasted two rapid games, and so after a mere two hours everything was already over. It must have been a welcome extra few hours of rest for Grischuk and Ivanchuk, as the only rest day in this tournament is scheduled for next Thursday - the day before the finals start.
Yes, finals, plural. We remind you that the losers of the semi-finals will play a match for 3rd and 4th place at the same time when the final is being played. The reason is that the first three players will qualify for the next Candidates tournament. Therefore all four players left could finally book their return ticket for September 21st.
David Navara's elimination was the result of a short, weak phase in the first game.
Navara-Grischuk
Khanty-Mansiysk
In the next game Grischuk didn't play well and had to defend an ending a pawn down. This task wasn't difficult, though.
Grischuk-Navara
Khanty-Mansiysk
For the official website Navara was interviewed by Tamila Musaeva. Here's one quote:
Of course as every young man I like modern music. But the works of such great composers like Bah, Mozart, Vivaldi helps me to find the harmony with my inner world and sometimes to get ready to the game. I can say that these are the melodies of my soul.
Grischuk at the press conference:
In the second rapid game I was playing as bad as I was doing it during my second classical one. White did a lot in order to lose. But in this case the safety factor in my position was much higher; we had an endgame which was unpleasant for me without a pawn. But he was close to make a draw and it was very easy for me to make it.
After he had sacrificed an exchange in the middlegame, Vassily Ivanchuk was under some pressure in his first game against Teimour Radjabov. However, it seems that the game always remained within the drawing margin:
Radjabov-Ivanchuk
Khanty-Mansiysk
In the second game Ivanchuk nicely outplayed Radjabov from an equal ending.
Ivanchuk-Radjabov
Khanty-Mansiysk
And so the semi-finals will be a mini-match between Russia and Ukraine: Svidler vs Ponomariov and Grischuk vs Ivanchuk. As Thomas pointed out in the comments, these are almost the same semi-finalists as in the FIDE knock-out World Championship 2001-2002. In December 2001, Ruslan Ponomariov beat Peter Svidler to reach the final where he met Vassily Ivanchuk, who eliminated Vishy Anand. As we all know, Ponomariov surprisingly defeated Vassily Ivanchuk in the final.
Tie-break games round 5
[board]/drupal7/sites/default/files/games/worldcup11/wcup11_r5.3.pgn[/board]
| Name | G1 | G2 | R1 | R2 | r3 | r4 | B1 | B2 | SD | Tot |
| Round 5 Match 01 | ||||||||||
| Svidler, Peter (RUS) | ½ | 1 | 1.5 | |||||||
| Polgar, Judit (HUN) | ½ | 0 | 0.5 | |||||||
| Round 5 Match 02 | ||||||||||
| Ivanchuk, Vassily (UKR) | 1 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 2.5 | |||||
| Radjabov, Teimour (AZE) | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 1.5 | |||||
| Round 5 Match 03 | ||||||||||
| Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 2.5 | |||||
| Navara, David (CZE) | ½ | ½ | 0 | ½ | 1.5 | |||||
| Round 5 Match 04 | ||||||||||
| Ponomariov, Ruslan (UKR) | ½ | 1 | 1.5 | |||||||
| Gashimov, Vugar (AZE) | ½ | 0 | 0.5 |
Photos © FIDE | Official website
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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