FIDE World Cup R5.1: Kosteniuk, Martirosyan Only Winners
GM Haik Martirosyan defeated GM Amin Tabatabaei in the only decisive game in the open section of the FIDE World Cup on Sunday. The women's section had just one winner as well: GM Alexandra Kosteniuk survived a lost position and beat GM Valentina Gunina.
How to watch?
The games of the FIDE World Cup can be found here: Open | Women. Chess.com provides daily commentary on Chess.com/TV and Twitch.tv/chess with GM Hou Yifan, GM Ben Finegold, IM Danny Rensch, GM Robert Hess, GM Viswanathan Anand, and other guests.
Was it the matchup of stronger players, the growing tension, the drawish nature of the game, or all of the above? Whatever it was, we surprisingly saw 10 of the 12 games at the World Cup in Sochi end in draws.
Before moving on to the games, let's start with this super cute moment from the Chess.com live broadcast, where co-commentator GM Vishy Anand's son Akhil suddenly popped into the show for a bit:
Well, we all know @vishy64theking's son's favorite is...
— Chess.com (@chesscom) July 25, 2021
You win this round, @ChessKidcom 😆 #FIDEWorldCup pic.twitter.com/0MpRsaoxcD
Among the 24 players still left playing, the first two to finish were GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and GM Sergey Karjakin. The latter showed deep preparation in the Berlin endgame and equalized comfortably with a pawn sacrifice that he played after just seven seconds. Karjakin followed up with six more quick moves before spending a few minutes to close the game completely.
Chess history crash course in 3 World Champions:
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) July 25, 2021
👑Garry Kasparov has invented chess
👑Vladimir Kramnik has invented the Berlin Defense
👑Vishy Anand has invented 13...Rh6. https://t.co/BXLuLtDdTp
The 19-year-old GM Andrey Esipenko drew quite comfortably as Black against World Champion Magnus Carlsen. The game was highly anticipated because of Esipenko's win against Carlsen in Wijk aan Zee earlier this year but finished rather quickly as well. If either player was better, it was Esipenko:
Even more impressive was how GM Velimir Ivic held the draw vs. GM Vladimir Fedoseev. Using the Grunfeld, the 18-year-old Serbian GM got into a four vs. three rook endgame almost straight from the opening and successfully defended it to reach a draw on move 60.
Speaking of defense, there was also GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda keeping his cool against an attacking GM Alexander Grischuk: "To be honest, I quite liked my position the entire game," said Duda, who wanted to continue the game but couldn't find a good way to avoid the perpetual.
Arguably the most interesting of the draws was the one between GM Vidit Gujrathi and GM Vasif Durarbayli, which started with the quiet Exchange Slav but soon turned into a rather sharp middlegame. It looks like both players then overlooked a close to winning possibility for White, and later in the game, it was Black who got close to the full point:
The only decisive game could easily have finished in a draw as well. Tabatabaei, who had sacrificed a pawn before, avoided a move repetition on move 27 as he was still more active in the ensuing endgame. However, Martirosyan managed to free himself, and then his extra pawn started to tell:
Results round of 16
| Fed | Player | Rtg | - | Fed | Player | Rtg | G1 | G2 | TB |
| GM Carlsen, Magnus | 2847 | - | GM Esipenko, Andrey | 2716 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Grischuk, Alexander | 2778 | - | GM Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | 2738 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Karjakin, Sergey | 2757 | - | GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | 2749 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2726 | - | GM Durarbayli, Vasif | 2625 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Svidler, Peter | 2714 | - | GM Shankland, Sam | 2709 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Fedoseev, Vladimir | 2696 | - | GM Ivic, Velimir | 2582 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Bacrot, Etienne | 2678 | - | GM Piorun, Kacper | 2608 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Martirosyan, Haik | 2709 | - | GM Tabatabaei, M. Amin | 2613 | 1-0 | . | . |
The women's tournament is one round ahead of the open. The first day of the quarterfinals saw a great fighting game between GM Alexandra Kosteniuk and GM Valentina Gunina, where the latter was doing very well and missed several wins before eventually losing as she overpressed in a drawn endgame with queens and opposite-colored bishops:
Results quarterfinals
| Fed | Player | Rating | Fed | Player | Rating | G1 | G2 | TB | |
| GM Goryachkina, Aleksandra | 2596 | - | IM Saduakassova, Dinara | 2483 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Lagno, Kateryna | 2559 | - | GM Tan, Zhongyi | 2511 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Muzychuk, Anna | 2527 | - | GM Dzagnidze, Nana | 2523 | ½-½ | . | . | ||
| GM Kosteniuk, Alexandra | 2472 | - | GM Gunina, Valentina | 2437 | 1-0 | . | . |
The FIDE World Cup takes place in the Galaxy Leisure Complex in Sochi, Russia, until August 6, 2021. Each round consists of two classical games and, if necessary, a rapid/blitz tiebreak on the third day. The open section began round two with 128 players and the women's section, 64.
Previous reports:
- FIDE World Cup: Carlsen, Ivic Among Final 16
- FIDE World Cup: Dzagnidze, Goryachkina Force Tiebreaks; Harikrishna Out
- FIDE World Cup: Goryachkina, Harikrishna Among 10 Players In Danger Zone
- FIDE World Cup: Giri, Mamedyarov Out; MVL Survives In Armageddon
- FIDE World Cup: Caruana Knocked Out
- FIDE World Cup R3: Dzagnidze, Mamedyarov, Yu In Trouble
- FIDE World Cup: Dominguez, Firouzja Out On Wild Armageddon Day
- FIDE World Cup: Nihal, Praggnanandhaa Among Qualifiers For Round 3
- Covid-19 Hits FIDE World Cup; Aronian Withdraws
- 14-Year-Old Murzin Reaches Round 2 FIDE World Cup
- FIDE World Cup: 28 Matches Go To Tiebreaks
- FIDE World Cup Begins With Chilean Brilliance
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.”
In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!
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