World Cup Round one

[Hal Bond]

Any upsets predicted in the first round of the World Cup? Mark B has as good a chance as any Canadian has had. I like Corrales against Polgar.

GM Karjakin, Sergey RUS - 128 IM Kaabi, Mejdi TUN
2 2 GM Ivanchuk, Vassily UKR - 127 FM Steel, Henry Robert RSA
3 3 GM Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE - 126 Ibrahim, Hatim EGY
4 4 GM Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR - 125 IM Gwaze, Robert ZIM
5 5 GM Gashimov, Vugar AZE - 124 IM Hansen, Eric CAN
6 6 GM Grischuk, Alexander RUS - 123 IM Genba, Vladimir RUS
7 7 GM Radjabov, Teimour AZE - 122 GM De La Paz Perdomo, Frank CUB
8 8 GM Kamsky, Gata USA - 121 IM Di Berardino, Diego Rafael BRA
9 9 GM Svidler, Peter RUS - 120 GM Lima, Darcy BRA
10 10 GM Jakovenko, Dmitry RUS - 119 GM Salem, A.R. Saleh UAE
11 11 GM Vitiugov, Nikita RUS - 118 GM Bezgodov, Alexei RUS
12 12 GM Almasi, Zoltan HUN - 117 GM El Gindy, Essam EGY
13 13 GM Vallejo Pons, Francisco ESP - 116 GM Cori, Jorge PER
14 14 GM Navara, David CZE - 115 GM Kabanov, Nikolai RUS
15 15 GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime FRA - 114 GM Rahman, Ziaur BAN
16 16 GM Dominguez Perez, Leinier CUB - 113 GM Moradiabadi, Elshan IRI
17 17 GM Wang, Hao CHN - 112 GM Ivanov, Alexander USA
18 18 GM Leko, Peter HUN - 111 GM Shankland, Samuel L USA
19 19 GM Moiseenko, Alexander UKR - 110 GM Esen, Baris TUR
20 20 GM Le, Quang Liem VIE - 109 GM Megaranto, Susanto INA
21 21 GM Adams, Michael ENG - 108 GM Paragua, Mark PHI
22 22 GM Shirov, Alexei ESP - 107 GM Leon Hoyos, Manuel MEX
23 23 GM Jobava, Baadur GEO - 106 GM Guliyev, Namig AZE
24 24 GM Caruana, Fabiano ITA - 105 GM Pridorozhni, Aleksei RUS
25 25 GM Nepomniachtchi, Ian RUS - 104 IM Ortiz Suarez, Isan Reynald CUB
26 26 GM Bacrot, Etienne FRA - 103 GM Robson, Ray USA
27 27 GM Wang, Yue CHN - 102 GM Fier, Alexandr BRA
28 28 GM Tomashevsky, Evgeny RUS - 101 GM Zhao, Zong-Yuan AUS
29 29 GM Efimenko, Zahar UKR - 100 GM Babula, Vlastimil CZE
30 30 GM Malakhov, Vladimir RUS - 99 GM Felgaer, Ruben ARG
31 31 GM Sutovsky, Emil ISR - 98 GM Vorobiov, Evgeny E. RUS
32 32 GM Movsesian, Sergei ARM - 97 GM Hou, Yifan CHN
33 33 GM Polgar, Judit HUN - 96 GM Corrales Jimenez, Fidel CUB
34 34 GM Fressinet, Laurent FRA - 95 GM Jumabayev, Rinat KAZ
35 35 GM Eljanov, Pavel UKR - 94 GM Zherebukh, Yaroslav UKR
36 36 GM Berkes, Ferenc HUN - 93 GM Mareco, Sandro ARG
37 37 GM Andreikin, Dmitry RUS - 92 GM Kazhgaleyev, Murtas KAZ
38 38 GM Morozevich, Alexander RUS - 91 GM Halkias, Stelios GRE
39 39 GM Zhigalko, Sergei BLR - 90 GM Filippov, Anton UZB
40 40 GM Riazantsev, Alexander RUS - 89 GM Bluvshtein, Mark CAN
41 41 GM Motylev, Alexander RUS - 88 GM Drozdovskij, Yuri UKR
42 42 GM Wojtaszek, Radoslaw POL - 87 GM Pashikian, Arman ARM
43 43 GM Potkin, Vladimir RUS - 86 GM Shulman, Yuri USA
44 44 GM Nielsen, Peter Heine DEN - 85 GM Postny, Evgeny ISR
45 45 GM Grachev, Boris RUS - 84 GM Romanov, Evgeny RUS
46 46 GM Inarkiev, Ernesto RUS - 83 GM Salgado Lopez, Ivan ESP
47 47 GM Mamedov, Rauf AZE - 82 GM Gupta, Abhijeet IND
48 48 GM Kobalia, Mikhail RUS - 81 GM Lysyj, Igor RUS
49 49 GM Bologan, Viktor MDA - 80 GM Socko, Bartosz POL
50 50 GM Bu, Xiangzhi CHN - 79 GM Adly, Ahmed EGY
51 51 GM Onischuk, Alexander USA - 78 GM Ivanisevic, Ivan SRB
52 52 GM Bruzon Batista, Lazaro CUB - 77 GM Quesada Perez, Yuniesky CUB
53 53 GM Yu, Yangyi CHN - 76 GM Parligras, Mircea-Emilian ROU
54 54 GM Korobov, Anton UKR - 75 GM Zhou, Jianchao CHN
55 55 GM Harikrishna, P. IND - 74 GM Rodshtein, Maxim ISR
56 56 GM Li, Chao b CHN - 73 GM Nguyen, Ngoc Truong Son VIE
57 57 GM Kasimdzhanov, Rustam UZB - 72 GM Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter ROU
58 58 GM Akopian, Vladimir ARM - 71 GM Negi, Parimarjan IND
59 59 GM Feller, Sebastien FRA - 70 GM Iordachescu, Viorel MDA
60 60 GM Timofeev, Artyom RUS - 69 GM Azarov, Sergei BLR
61 61 GM Ni, Hua CHN - 68 GM Khairullin, Ildar RUS
62 62 GM Fridman, Daniel GER - 67 GM Lupulescu, Constantin ROU
63 63 GM Alekseev, Evgeny RUS - 66 GM Ragger, Markus AUT
64 64 GM So, Wesley PHI - 65 GM Ding, Liren CHN

[Fred McKim]

How about Shankland and Robson !

[Jonathan Berry]

How about Shankland and Robson !DING DING DING DING DING

The upset prize goes to Fred McKim, for picking Sam Shankland over Peter Leko. Runner-up to Hal Bond for picking the wrong Hungarian to lose. In fact, Hungary mostly did well on the first two days of play, winning three matches outright. But one got away.

[Hal Bond]

Well done Fred!

Mark's ending looked promising for a while but alas. I had the first 10 boards, and my table was directly in front of Eric and Gashimov.

Today we have 17 tiebreaks to settle, including Kamsky after his upset loss yesterday to Di Berardino. The Armageddon format has been altered to 5 minutes for White, 4 minutes for Black and a 3 second increment added after 60 moves. This was a suggestion I made to Makro during a discussion we had at the Topalov Kamsky match in 2009 (I doubt I was the only one thinking along these lines). I think there had been a Women's Grand Prix game where the system was found wanting.

[Hal Bond]

The tiebreaks went well. After 17 rapid matches only 7 were still tied. Following the 10+10 games I believe only 2 came down to blitz. Local Arbiters were brought in to help out and they were very good. Our main job as Arbiters during tiebreaks is to record the games - some insurance in case the DGT's don't work. There was one 3 fold claim during the rapid matches (Shulman-Potkin) which could not be supported by the scoresheet so the DGT printout was used. I'm just glad it wasn't my match!

I had covered Vallejo Pons - Cori in the first round which was decisive. Then I took over Motylev - Drozdovskij for the 10+10, using the local Arbiter as assistant. Motylev won the first game with Black so it looked like only one more game was needed. The Droz won with Black and it was blitz time. I beleive the onlt other blitz match was Denmark's Peter Heine Nielsen against Postny of Israel. Peter advanced, and my 2 blitz games were drawn.

I discussed the new Armageddon format with the Chief Arbiter Ashot Vardapetian, who thought Black would have an advantage now with a possible increment. Luckily it was the last game so Ashot observed the game, ready to make any rulings, and told me to focus on writing. My assisitant and I each wrote for one colour, as we had done for the blitz games. Motylev chose to defend with Black and he was completely unprepared for the new pace. At move 28 he had 19 seconds left and flagged 20 moves later. The last few moves were too fast to record but this did not matter.

We spent the morning preparing the hall for today's games. Wesley So squares off against Karjakin, among many exciting matches.