Radjabov vs Sakaev:
"the Rp-R was always a draw".
That might well be but the Rp-Rpp was a win for white!
53 Ka3!! whatever black plays, white can always take the a4 pawn the next move with either K or R while simultaneously reaching a theoretical won position

OMG Savchenko- Wang Yue 95. c5....??? Haha!

@ Rob Schoorl: I don't really understand what's so funny about 95. c5 ... It seems to be the only practical chance for white.

Nice pairing tree. I like it has the ELO for each player

@ Titus: Yes, it seems that both GMs made serious mistakes in that endgame. Actually I'm quite shocked to see how little modern GMs know about rook endgames, the most appalling example being Tregubov-Akobian (2nd game). Any club player should be able to hold that. Gashimov-Stellwagen from Novi Sad was also horrible, of course. I'm not sure that nerves are an excuse. There are some basic techniques that you must simply know by heart.

Isn't it a draw if white waits with a rook move?

Highly unpredictable World Cup so far, is proving very entertaining! I voted for Radjabov in the poll, but he's done no better than last year; another surprising early exit, though considering the immense strength in depth of players this is perhaps not so disastrous. Plus also the favourite, according to the voters at least, Ivanchuk, leaves at the same stage.

Along with Morozevich being eliminated, with the fate of Svidler and Shirov (among others) remaining uncertain Kamsky must surely be pleasantly surprised at his marginally improved chances of retaining the title and having another attempt at the World Championship. ;)

@ Rob Schoorl: Not at all! Black simply plays 95...Rf1+, transposing into a winning pawn endgame. Please at least make the effort to analyse the position a little bit before you make fun of someone. Haha yourself...

@ Crouchyboy: (While I'm at it, last post for tonight:) Kamsky has another attempt at the World Championship anyway since he's already qualified for the Candidates Tournament. He's playing the World Cup "just for fun" (and money, of course).

@gg

Where do Kanand, Kponomariov and Karonian fit in then? None of them was outdside top 10.

and ratings too for kamsky.now he's back at 2700.

Nice Wesley! A great achievement!

woah this tournament is tough

"I voted for Radjabov in the poll, but he’s done no better than last year; another surprising early exit, though considering the immense strength in depth of players this is perhaps not so disastrous."

This is a great point. When board 32 features Nisipeanu and Polgar that's depth! There will be many very strong 2695+ players left in the 3rd round so I think 1 of them will win it. I predicted Kamsky before the start and I'll stick to my guns.

pay close attention to Wang Hao!!!

I really agree about the discussion about many good chessplayers. Reading about rating inflation earlier, I still can't believe that the increasing strength brought by Internet chess, computers, didactic trends, and popularization (which may not be relevant due to influx of also poor players) doesn't reflect itself in the competition. Rather, I believe that if higher ranked players were not protected by any practice or rating barriar, maybe the average top rating would sink.

For instance, look at Michael Tals games from 1970 at chessgames.com. No one would survive in the top competition with that kind of play today.

In some of the games I followed the players were down to less than a minute in complicated positions, probably harsh to talk about serious mistakes in for example Radjabov-Sakaev, the former played an excellent endgame with very little time on the clock but missed the winning line on move 53 (and it wasn't that easy to see with seconds left).

The fun thing with looking at the game on the Chessbomb site was that several kibitzers were complaining about why Radjabov was so impolite (and worse things than that) that he refused to offer draw, and that at the moment when he had a winning position and both players had less than a minute on the clock. It isn't always Chessbomb's 8 ply evaluations should be believed in too religiously, but this was one of the better examples of it.

The knockout winner is often a player well outside of the top ten, with a traditionally successful K-name, like Khalifman, Kasimdzhanov or Kamsky. Maybe time for Karjakin this time?

WESLEY, PROVE TO THE WORLD THAT WE CAN DO IN CHESS NOT ONLY IN BOXING. GOD BLESS.

Aren't you making too much fuss about Wesley So? Ivanchuk is Ivanchuk and So is a promissing 2640 rated youngster on it's way up. It really wasn't 'that big' of a surprise that So eliminated Ivanchuk. I'm much more surprised by Laznicka eliminating Morozevich 2-0 and Sakaev eliminating Radjabov.

But the biggest surprise of them all is Yu Yangyi. I've never heard of him before, he is only 2527, and he seemingly effortlessly eliminated Movsesian (2718) and Bartel (2618). And the most surprising part is that he outplayed them(!!!), leaving them no chance (for example So gave Ivanchuk chances to turn things around). Yu didn't progress because his two opponents would blunder, he outplayed them!

"Where do Kanand, Kponomariov and Karonian fit in then? None of them was outdside top 10."

Kponomariov was #20 when the event started in 2001, Karonian #10 in 2005, and, well Kanand was Kanand. Still rather common that players ranked a bit from the top wins the knockout:

Khalifman #46
Kasimdzhanov #44
Ponomariov #20
Kamsky #17
Aronian #10

Anand is the exception to that rule though.

When Pono won it the knockout took two months to be completed, so once he had reached the final he had also advanced to 7th on the world ranking thanks to scoring so well in the event, but he started as #20. In those days the knockouts were stronger than now, Pono competed against players like Anand and Topalov, while Khalifman won ahead of for example Kramnik and Topalov.

Heh, you can't count the ones who weren't playing.

In 1998 Anand was 2nd seed (actually he was #1 seed since Kramnik withdrew shortly before the start)
In 1999 Khalifman was 36th seed.
In 2000 Anand was 1st seed
In 2001/02 Ponomariov was 19th seed (but the final was 1 month later when he was 50 points higher rated)
In 2004 Kasimdzhanov was 28th seed (actually 26th since Morozevich and milov didn't play)
In 2005 Aronian was 3rd seed
In 2007 Kamsky was 11th seed.

Don't miss Wang Yue's fighting spirit to win after 100 moves!. He was playing the last 40 moves with less than 1 minute in the clock.

Peter,
Hoe zit dat nu precies? Als ik CVO aan wil schaffen, moet ik gewoon eenmaal 25E overmaken en dan krijg ik elke kalenderweek voor een jaar lang een nummer van CVO? Beginnend vanaf het moment dat ik het aanvraag. En voor een komend jaar gewoon weer 25E overmaken?
Lijkt me namelijk erg interessant! Maar moet natuurlijk wel beetje weten hoe het zit..
grtn

"you can’t count the ones who weren’t playing"

Still four of the six latest knockout winners haven't been seeded in the top ten among the actual participants, and three of six were seeded 19th or lower. Kasim, Khalif, Pono and Kamsky have never been close to win the bigger round robins like Corus and Linares. Since three of the six top seeded players are out already after the second round chances are good that it will be another surprise winner this year.

It hasn't looked that easy for the remaining top seeds either. Amonatov almost eliminated Gelfand, Svidler won the must win game to stay in the event, against Nyback, and Pono has to work quite hard to beat what ought to be an exhausted Akobian. Maybe only Gashimov has been really impressive of the top seeded players in the first rounds.

Before the tournament they were surprise winners yes, but with hinsight there were not that surprising, in my opinion.

Khalifman had his peak in that period (in 1998 and 2000 he was eliminated by the eventual winner - Anand - both times narrowly in tie-breaks), end of 2001 Ponomariov exploded and shoot up to the elite club (and stayed around 2720, 2730 ever since), in 2004-2005 Kasimdzhanov had his best years, in 2005 Aronian was becoming super elite, Kamsky had his 2nd spring in 2007, and Anand is simply Anand - no surprise there.

I don't think this time it will be any different - it will be either won by top player, or a player who is on it's way to the top, or a player who is at career peak.

Ivanchuk declares the end of his professional career!!!

http://ugra-chess.ru/eng/interv_10.htm

Will he really quit, or is he just frustrated by an early exit?

What happened in the last of Caruanas games? He can't win from the position I saw, only on time?

it is the words of man in despair.you should not take them too seriously.i'm sure he will continue to play in professinal level.

@Muadhib

"it will be either won by top player, or a player who is on it’s way to the top, or a player who is at career peak"

:-) La Palisse

One can say that, no matter who wins it! (It would even sufice the part "a player who is at career peak")

Some dark horses to watch: Motylev, Areschenko, and Yu Yangi.

3rd round:

1 Gelfand, Boris (ISR) Polgar, Judit (HUN)
2 Gashimov, Vugar (AZE) Li, Chao b (CHN)
3 Yu, Yangyi (CHN) Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime (FRA)
4 Caruana, Fabiano (ITA) Alekseev, Evgeny (RUS)
5 Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) Jobava, Baadur (GEO)
6 Ponomariov, Ruslan (UKR) Motylev, Alexander (RUS)
7 Jakovenko, Dmitry (RUS) Areshchenko, Alexander (UKR)
8 Wang, Yue (CHN) Bacrot, Etienne (FRA)
9 Laznicka, Viktor (CZE) Bologan, Viktor (MDA)
10 Svidler, Peter (RUS) Naiditsch, Arkadij (GER)
11 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar (AZE) Wang, Hao (CHN)
12 Shirov, Alexei (ESP) Tomashevsky, Evgeny (RUS)
13 Sakaev, Konstantin (RUS) Vitiugov, Nikita (RUS)
14 So, Wesley (PHI) Kamsky, Gata (USA)
15 Karjakin, Sergey (UKR) Navara, David (CZE)
16 Eljanov, Pavel (UKR) Malakhov, Vladimir (RUS)

Two of the four chinese will play the two frenchman;
The other two chinese play the two azeri;
There are 3 matches Russia-Ukrain;
It's posible to have 8 (of the 9) russians out of 16 players in the next round!
In fact, the minimum nacionalities on the 4th round is 5:
- RUS 8
- CHN 4
- CZE. 2
- Two from { ISR, HUN } and { PHI, USA }
It would imply, for instance, that none of the four ucranians would survive.

But of course I prefer not :-)
(The maximum is 12 countries in round 4, from the 15)

Go Gata!!

Correction: 13 is the maximum number of countries we could find on next round's 16 players.

One of the two Viktors (Laznicka or Bologan) will not be Vicktor against the other!

Ok, I'm not detecting more extremely important informations to report, right now ;-)

Gelfand vs Polgar. Her run is over.

@Michael: haha@me indeed;) I was looking to quick and superficial. Now I looked more careful and couldnt find a draw at the end of the game. Black can avoid all stalemates I think. My apologies to Mr. Savchenko!;)

@ Kamsky fan:
Hmmm not so sure about that... take a look at this blog kevinspraggett.blogspot.com ...you'll find some interesting observations about Gelfand's not so stellar play in the first two rounds (he got through, but he had a couple of lucky breaks!). I think Polgar is going to give him much more of a fight and wouldn't be surprised if HIS run is the one over!

BTW: tell Kamsky to watch out for So, he's been SO good SO far!