The FIDE World Chess Cup is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk from November 20th to December 15th 2009. It is a seven-round knockout event with six rounds of matches comprising two games per round, with the winners progressing to the next round. The final seventh round consists of four games. 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, which is GMT +5 hours = 11:00 a.m. European time = 5 a.m. New York. The World Chess Cup is an integral part of the World Championship Cycle 2009-2011.
11/21/2009 - Day 1
Ruslan Ponomariov, who picked up from his compatriot Ivanchuk and played in an anti-viral mask, was only able to draw against Essam El Gindy of Egypt, while Alexander Grischuk did the same against Indian IM Jha Sriram. Those were two of the handful of surprises on day one of the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.
It's catching on: Ruslan Ponomariov with a anti swine flu mask. It may have thwarted the flu viruses, but it didn't help in the game – Ponomariov drew against the Egyptian GM.
11/22/2009 - Day 2
Notable the victory of the relatively unknown Chinese GM Yu Yangyi, 113th seed and rated 2527, who knocked out 16th seed Sergei Movsesian, rated 2718. The Slovakian GM had lost the first game and today got only an optical advantage in a Closed Sicilian. Movsesian is the highest-ranked victim of the first round (Leinier Dominguez Perez of Cuba is still tied with David Smerdon of Australia).
Yesterday Ponomariov could not win his white game against the Egyptian GM – and intense 47-move affair in which the Ukrainian had tripple pawns on the f-file in a rook ending. Today he played a Gruenfeld Russian System and put early pressure on his opponent, especially the d5 and b2 pawns, and then used his advanced a-pawn to settle the matter. No dramatic tiebreak games between the two this time.
After losing his game on the first day Ivan Sokolov had to win with the black pieces today. But his Ukrainian opponent GM Sergey Fedorchuk, 2619, got a good game and defeated the higher-rated Dutch GM a second time.
A comeback after losing the first game was achieved by Andreikin, Guseinov, Inarkiev, Milov, Baklan, Tregubov and Laylo from the Philippines, who beat David Navara, 155 points above him, to force the top Czech GM into the tiebreaks. A total of 19 matches go into the tiebreak phase on Monday.
GM Dusko Pavasovic, the opponent of Judith Polgar, was not able to make it to Khanty-Mansiysk in time. Their games (number 32 in the pairings) were not played, Judit won by forfeit.
11/23/2009 - Day 3
Tiebreaks: In the matches that were drawn after two regular games four tie-break games will be played, with a time control of 25 minutes for each player with an addition of 10 seconds after each move. If the score is still tied a match of two games will be played, with a time control of five minutes plus three seconds increment after each move. In case of a level score, the same match will be repeated. If still there is no winner after five such matches (total ten games), a single decisive sudden death game will be played, according to the following rules: the player who wins the drawing of lots may choose the color; the player with the white pieces receives five minutes, the opponent with the black pieces receives four minutes, with both players receiving an increment of three seconds from move 61. In case of a draw the player with the black pieces is declared the winner.
There was a bit of a surprise in the tiebreaks on Monday. For some reason people assumed that there would be two rapid chess games and were startled when, for instance after Bacrot had won two against Friso Nijboer the players started a third game. Even though we had published the four-game rule it was unclear how it had slipped into the system. It is certainly new and extremely grueling: four rapid chess game, ten blitz and then a sudden death – all this in the first round of the knockout event. Astonishing.
The big upsets were Li Chao's elimination of Gabriel Sargissian (2:2 in their rapid games, and then 2:0 in the first pair of blitz games) and Zhou Weiqi's elimination of Emil Sutovsky (2½:½ in the rapid games).
Eliminated: Israeli GM Emil Sutovsky (by china's Zhou Weiqi 2½:½ in the rapid games)