Author: Shubham Kumthekar

The Round 5.2 of the FIDE World Cup 2015 witnessed World No. 4 Nakamura and French No. 1 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave getting knocked-out of the competition. With Nakamura requiring a win on demand against an in-form Eljanov, the former could only manage a draw against Eljanov’s accurate play and as such, had to exit the competition.

Giri – Vachier-Lagrave
The game took off with MVL’s favourite Grunfeld Defence, with the Dutch GM choosing a calm approach against it. In fact, the opening battle ended favourably for Giri as he emerged with a slight advantage. Giri kept on pressurising MVL and the game soon went into a better endgame for White, which was anything but easy to win. However, Giri displayed impeccable technique which led to the French GM breaking under pressure. Giri duly grabbed his chances and rounded up the matters on move 69.

Thus, Giri and Eljanov have advanced to the Semi-Finals of this prestigious event whilst the other two match-ups – Wei Yi-Svidler and Karjakin-Mamedyarov – will be decided today in the Tie-breaks.

The Round 5.1 of the FIDE World Cup 2015 witnessed only one decisive game in which Pavel Eljanov swiftly overcame Hikaru Nakamura. Amongst the drawn games, Svidler – Wei Yi and Vachier-Lagrave – Giri turned out to be pretty sedate affairs while the Mamedyarov – Karjakin encounter proved quite interesting, with Mamedyarov even possessing the better chances for a decent part of the game.

Eljanov-Nakamura
With an in-form Eljanov pitted against the strong American, this match-up was expected to be a close call. However, the Ukrainian Grandmaster continued his fine run of form in this tournament as he defeated the World No. 4 player without allowing him even a single chance for counterplay. This convincing win takes Eljanov’s tally of victories in the Classical games in this tournament to 7, by far the highest.

The Round 4 Tie-Breaks started off with 4 matches, 3 of which were decided in the ’25+10′ Rapid games. Anish Giri, Pavel Eljanov and Sergey Karjakin overcame Radoslaw Wojataszek, Dmitry Jakovenko and Dmitry Andreikin respectively. However, the Chinese derby – Wei Yi vs Ding Liren – went a round further while providing a lot of action.

Wei Yi – Ding Liren
After scoring a win each in the Classical format, the two Chinese players entered the tie-breakers. Quite contrary to the general expectations, the first 3 games in the tie-breaks ended peacefully, although they were not at all short of excitement. However, Wei Yi scored an all-important victory in the second game of the ’10+10′ rapid round, despite being worse for a major part of the game, to knock-out his compatriot and book a spot in the 5th Round of this prestigious event. The 16 year old Chinese Grandmaster will next face Peter Svidler in the ‘Round of 8’.

Round 5 Pairings:

Vachier-Lagrave vs Anish Giri

Wei Yi vs Svidler

Mamedyarov vs Karjakin

Eljanov vs Nakamura

The Round 4.2 of the FIDE World Cup 2015 saw some big guns getting knocked-out. With 4 players requiring a ‘win on demand’ to stay alive in the competition, only Wei Yi could register a victory. The remaining 3 players – Topalov, Caruana and Adams – could only draw their respective games, and as such, were knocked out of the tournament.

Wei Yi – Ding Liren
After an almost flawless opening and middlegame, Wei Yi was right on the course to a convincing victory in the endgame. However, that was when lightning struck as Wei Yi made a couple of errors and the resulting position was almost equal. But Ding Liren failed to capitalize on the drawing chances and Wei Yi went on to win a crucial game. As a result, the Wei Yi – Ding Liren match-up has now entered the tie-breaks.

Wesley So – Vachier-Lagrave
After failing to make the most of the White pieces, Vachier-Lagrave had a tough task with the black pieces in the second game of the mini-match. Matters further worsened for MVL as Wesley So held a comfortable advantage in the middlegame, thanks to MVL’s poor pawn structure. However, Wesley So blundered on the 22nd move and MVL duly grabbed his opportunity. The Frenchman went on to convert his slight material advantage accurately, thus winning an all-important game which helped him book a place in the ‘Round of 8’.

A total of 4 match-ups will be decided in the Tie-Breaks.

The Round 4.1 of the FIDE World Cup 2015 turned out to be a round of exciting top-level chess with Mamedyarov, in particular, hogging the limelight for his dashing victory over Caruana.

Mamedyarov-Caruana
The game took off quite interestingly with Mamedyarov sidestepping Caruana’s King’s Indian/Grunfeld with 3.Bg5. Soon, a complex battle ensued, with the position resembling a King’s Indian of sorts, albeit with black’s f-pawn missing. However, Caruana misplayed the position by allowing a further weakening of the Kingside which helped Mamedyarov launch a dangerous offensive on Caruana’s King. The American GM failed to keep Mamedyarov’s pieces at bay and went on to resign on move 39. A superb victory for the local hero!

Svidler-Topalov
In the currently topical 3…Nd7 line in the Moscow Variation against the Sicilian, Topalov opted for a Hedgehog setup. However, Svidler simply occupied a lot of space and Topalov’s position lacked breathing space for his pieces. The Bulgarian GM made desperate attempts to get back into the game, but Svidler’s energetic play denied any real chances to the former. As a result, the game ended in a convincing victory for Svidler on move 65.

Meanwhile, Nakamura outplayed Adams while Ding Liren overcame Wei Yi in a ‘back-and-forth’ game. The rest of the games ended peacefully.

The FIDE World Cup 2015 witnessed its third Armageddon game in as many rounds, and this time, it was the match-up between Nakamura and Nepomniachtchi that went down to the wire.

Nakamura-Nepomiachtchi
After a string of back and forth results in the rapid and blitz playoffs, Nakamura, playing with the black pieces, prevailed over Nepomniachtchi in the Armageddon game to book a 4th round date against Michael Adams.

However, the most important result of the day was Vladimir Kramnik, the 2013 World Cup Champion, getting knocked out of the World Cup. Interestingly, it was Andreikin, the runner up at the 2013 World Cup, who overcame Kramnik to storm into the ‘Round of 16’.

Meanwhile, Topalov, Wesley So, Adams, Vachier-Lagrave and Svidler turned out to be the remaining 5 qualifiers from the tie-breaks.

The 2nd game of the 3rd round of the FIDE World Cup 2015 saw eminent players like Grischuk, Ivanchuk and Leko getting knocked-out of the competition, albeit against strong 2700+ Grandmasters.

Jakovenko-Ivachuk
To everyone’s amazement, Ivanchuk self-destructed right out of the the opening and went on to lose in an almost one-sided battle.

Eljanov-Grischuk
With Grischuk requiring a win with the black pieces against someone of Eljanov’s strength to stay in contention, it was always going to be a challenging task. However, in an attempt to maintain complexity in the position, Grischuk was simply left worse. Eljanov took advantage of the same and went on to win a convincing game. It must be noted that Eljanov has been in tremendous form so far, winning all his matches with a 2-0 scoreline.

In other important results, Yu Yangyi and Leko were knocked out by Karjakin and Giri respectively.

Meanwhile, the Indian Challenge at the World Cup came to an end with Sethuraman failing to equalize the scores against Mamedyarov after the second game resulted in a dry draw.

A total of 7 matches go into the tie-breaks, with the most surprising of them being Lu Shanglei vs Topalov. The Chinese youngster is rated 2599 at the moment while Topalov is ranked 3rd in the world with a whooping 2816.