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Leko & Shirov Eliminated in Second Round World Cup

Leko & Shirov Eliminated in Second Round World Cup

News
| 12 | Chess Event Coverage

On the second day of the FIDE World Cup's second round, two famous grandmasters were eliminated: Peter Leko of Hungary and Alexei Shirov of Latvia. Leko, who lost his first game with White against Julio Granda Zuniga on Wednesday, didn't come close to an advantage with White and eventually had to accept his fate in a pawn ending. Shirov's loss today was even more unexpected as his opponent is only 14 years old, but according to China's number one player Wang Hao, Wei Yi is already playing at at least 2700 level...

"It's time for me to start studying his games," said Alexei Shirov, after he heard that he would be playing the world's youngest grandmaster in the second round of the World Cup. As it turned out, 14-year-old Wei Yi also made a good study of Shirov's games, and made good use of it. The Chinese grandmaster copied a game Bologan-Shirov, Edmonton 2005 and it was Shirov who deviated with 14...Bxd6. An ending was reached where White had three pawns for a piece, but it was rather unclear. After a few inaccurate moves, Shirov lost another pawn and from that moment he never got back into the game. Wei Yi played the endgame brilliantly and so he was responsible for Shirov's sensational exit!

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After his game, Peter Leko lamented that he "cannot play normal chess at World Cups". He could only draw his White game with Julio Granda Zuniga, and so the Hungarian is out too. "Yesterday I made a mistake on move 11, today I made one on move 10," he said, referring to 10.Qc2 which allowed 11...Nh5!. Black was (more than) OK for the rest of the game.

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Maxime Vachier-Lagrave looked a bit shaky in the first game and in fact he should have lost that one. But "the Frenchman with two names" played a model game with White against Cuba's Isan Reynaldo Ortiz Suarez (see below) and then talked to ChessVibes:

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The game between Aleksandr Shimanov and Gata Kamsky was just crazy. In a must-win situation, Shimanov started with that ancient romantic weapon, the King's Gambit! Kamsky sank into a deep thought for about fifteen minutes, took on f4 and then Shimanov even played the Bishop's Gambit with 3.Bc4 instead of the more usual 3.Nf3!

White's opening was quiet successful, and there was even a win as early as move 19. (Bxf7) as the engines point out. While that might have been a typical computer tactic, Shimanov's 20.Rf2?? was a horrific blunder and 20...Qxh2+! was surely something Kamsky should have seen. But when GM Ian Rogers asked him about it after the game, Kamsky just smiled and replied: "Really?" Shimanov, on his turn, said that he had seen it and quickly went to the toilet because otherwise his face would reveal too much! More crazy things happened, but from move 32 onwards Shimanov didn't let go of the win.

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Alexander Onischuk needed to beat Leinier Dominguez to stay in the match, and so it seemed a bit strange for the American grandmaster to agree to a draw as early as move 21. However, there was more to it: Onischuk had missed the tactic 21.b5?! axb5 22.axb5 c5! which meant that Black had time for Nf5-d6, killing all possibilities for White to make progress. Here's the game and an interview with Dominguez:

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After a draw in the first game, Nikita Vitiugov crushed Markus Ragger with the White pieces in a sharp Grünfeld. 11...e6 was a novelty by Ragger, but look how it was answered by Vitiugov:

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The many fans of Wesley So have to wait a while before they'll see their hero back in the World Championship cycle. Here's how the Filipino GM lost his first game to Evgeny Tomashevsky on Thursday:

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In the second game, So accepted Tomashevsky's invitation to play the main line of the Marshall Ruy Lopez but as it turned out the Russian had better knowledge there. In the video below he explains why (the game was drawn after 23 moves):

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Baadur Jobava needed to win and the way he did it needs to be included in this report; a fine game that started as a Grand Prix:

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Baskaran Adhiban of India celebrated his 21st birthday by beating Alexandr Fier of Brazil. The Indian grandmaster proved to be an excellent defender:

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17 players have already qualified for the World Cup's third round: Caruana, Grischuk, Nakamura, Gelfand, Dominguez, Granda, Morozevich, Vitiugov, Giri, Ivanchuk, Andreikin, Vachier-Lagrave, Wei Yi, Adhiban, Eljanov, Areshchenko and Tomashevsky. Slightly surprisingly, Aronian, Kramnik and Karjakin need to play the tiebreak on Friday, together with 27 other players.

FIDE World Cup 2013 | Round 2 Results

Match Player Title FED RTG G1 G2
Match 1
64 Lysyj, Igor g RUS 2648 ½ ½
1 Aronian, Levon g ARM 2813 ½ ½
Match 2
2 Caruana, Fabiano g ITA 2796 1 ½
63 Yu, Yangyi g CHN 2662 0 ½
Match 3
67 Kobalia, Mikhail g RUS 2651 ½ ½
3 Kramnik, Vladimir g RUS 2784 ½ ½
Match 4
4 Grischuk, Alexander g RUS 2785 1 ½
68 Swiercz, Dariusz g POL 2654 0 ½
Match 5
60 Sasikiran, Krishnan g IND 2660 ½ ½
5 Karjakin, Sergey g RUS 2772 ½ ½
Match 6
6 Nakamura, Hikaru g USA 2772 1 ½
59 Safarli, Eltaj g AZE 2660 0 ½
Match 7
71 Filippov, Anton g UZB 2630 ½ 0
7 Gelfand, Boris g ISR 2764 ½ 1
Match 8
8 Kamsky, Gata g USA 2741 1 0
57 Shimanov, Aleksandr g RUS 2655 0 1
Match 9
56 Matlakov, Maxim g RUS 2676 ½ ½
9 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar g AZE 2775 ½ ½
Match 10
10 Dominguez Perez, Leinier g CUB 2757 1 ½
55 Onischuk, Alexander g USA 2667 0 ½
Match 11
75 Dubov, Daniil g RUS 2624 ½ ½
11 Ponomariov, Ruslan g UKR 2756 ½ ½
Match 12
12 Wang, Hao g CHN 2747 ½ ½
53 Dreev, Aleksey g RUS 2668 ½ ½
Match 13
52 Bologan, Viktor g MDA 2672 ½ ½
13 Svidler, Peter g RUS 2746 ½ ½
Match 14
14 Adams, Michael g ENG 2740 ½ ½
51 Kryvoruchko, Yuriy g UKR 2678 ½ ½
Match 15
50 Granda Zuniga, Julio g PER 2664 1 ½
15 Leko, Peter g HUN 2744 0 ½
Match 16
16 Morozevich, Alexander g RUS 2739 1 ½
80 Leitao, Rafael g BRA 2632 0 ½
Match 17
48 Ragger, Markus g AUT 2680 ½ 0
17 Vitiugov, Nikita g RUS 2719 ½ 1
Match 18
18 Giri, Anish g NED 2737 1 1
47 Li, Chao b g CHN 2693 0 0
Match 19
83 Robson, Ray g USA 2623 0 0
19 Ivanchuk, Vassily g UKR 2731 1 1
Match 20
20 Radjabov, Teimour g AZE 2733 ½ ½
45 Bruzon Batista, Lazaro g CUB 2698 ½ ½
Match 21
85 Nguyen, Ngoc Truong Son g VIE 2625 ½ 0
21 Andreikin, Dmitry g RUS 2716 ½ 1
Match 22
22 Korobov, Anton g UKR 2720 1 0
43 Jobava, Baadur g GEO 2696 0 1
Match 23
87 Ortiz Suarez, Isan Reynaldo g CUB 2609 0 0
23 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime g FRA 2719 1 1
Match 24
41 Shirov, Alexei g LAT 2696 ½ 0
105 Wei, Yi g CHN 2551 ½ 1
Match 25
89 Hammer, Jon Ludvig g NOR 2605 ½ ½
25 Navara, David g CZE 2715 ½ ½
Match 26
26 Bacrot, Etienne g FRA 2714 ½ ½
39 Moiseenko, Alexander g UKR 2699 ½ ½
Match 27
102 Adhiban, Baskaran g IND 2567 ½ 1
91 Fier, Alexandr g BRA 2595 ½ 0
Match 28
28 Jakovenko, Dmitry g RUS 2724 ½ 0
37 Eljanov, Pavel g UKR 2702 ½ 1
Match 29
36 Vallejo Pons, Francisco g ESP 2706 ½ ½
29 Le, Quang Liem g VIE 2702 ½ ½
Match 30
30 Areshchenko, Alexander g UKR 2709 ½ 1
94 Felgaer, Ruben g ARG 2586 ½ 0
Match 31
34 Fressinet, Laurent g FRA 2708 ½ ½
31 Malakhov, Vladimir g RUS 2707 ½ ½
Match 32
32 Tomashevsky, Evgeny g RUS 2706 1 ½
33 So, Wesley g PHI 2710 0 ½

Held every two years, the World Cup is part of the World Championship cycle. The winner and the runner-up will qualify for the 2014 Candidates Tournament. The World Cup takes place August 10th-September 3rd in Tromsø, Norway. Photos by Paul Truong courtesy of the official website; games via TWIC.


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