World Cup 2011: Round 3 Tiebreaks
Most of the key favorites made it through - Karjakin defeated So, Mamedyarov beat Fridman, Ponomariov beat Ni Hua (with difficulty), Grischuk beat Feller and Svidler beat Nguyen. That doesn't mean that all the favorites, or even all the 2700s, made it through. After Vallejo bounced back from his horrible loss in the first game to beat Bruzon with Black in the rematch, I think most commentators expected Vallejo to finish the job in the tiebreaks. Instead, Bruzon proved his resilience and bounced the 13th seed out of the tournament.
Another upset was Vachier-Lagrave's loss to Bu Xiangzhi, and perhaps the shocker of the event so far was Michael Adams' loss to Peter Heine Nielsen. Adams' rating isn't quite what it was a few years ago, but he has had a good year and he has been incredibly successful in these big knockout events in the past.
There were other results too, but I'll just note here that the one American involved in tiebreaks today lost - Alexander Ivanov went down to Igor Lysyj.
Now that there are "only" 32 players left, I'll give the full pairings for round 3. (Two notes. First, the higher-rated player is listed first; second, it's organized to let you predict future pairings as well - the winner of the first match in each pair plays the winner of the second; the winner of the first quartet plays the winners of the second, and so on.)
Karjakin - Polgar
Dominguez - Lysyj
Kamsky - Nepomniachtchi
Svidler - Caruana
Ponomariov - Efimenko
Le Quang Liem - Bruzon
Gashimov - Tomashevsky
Nielsen - Parligras
Ivanchuk - Sutovsky
Bu Xiangzhi - Gupta
Radjabov - Bacrot
Jakovenko - Jobava
Mamedyarov - Zherebukh
Navara - Moiseenko
Grischuk - Morozevich (definitely premature!)
Vitiugov - Potkin
Links: Event website (with excellent video coverage) here, TWIC round summary here, Wikipedia brackets here.
Reader Comments (2)
I think calling Adams' elimination "perhaps the shocker of the event so far" underestimates Peter Heine Nielsen. He doesn't play often (in strong events) but he's Anand's long-term second for a reason. Adams' successes in knockout events were a while ago: semifinal in 1999 and 2000, final (against Kasimdzhanov) in 2004. Then he didn't participate in 2005, was eliminated by Carlsen in 2007 (nothing to be ashamed of) and didn't participate in 2009 because the World Cup collided with London.
Leko-Shankland was at least as shocking, probably more so because the rating gap was bigger and the match didn't go into tiebreaks. In both cases, the loser is a former world top (top 10) player who may now be past his prime, notwithstanding Adams' recent successes in weaker events such as British championship and Swiss Opens.
BTW, Parligras-Nielsen may well be the most intriguing match of round 3. Both were victims of the questionable tiebreak system at the European Championship who still made it to the World Cup - Nielsen got a wildcard, Parligras benefitted from the fact that some players declined their invitations. Both overperformed so far, Parligras even more so as he beat Yu Yangyi and Almasi. Does the winner of the match have a chance against the winner of Gashimov-Tomashevsky? If he pulls another stunt, he joins the "tourist league" of Akopian, Nisipeanu and Khalifman back in 1999 ... .
[DM: The "Anand's second" argument isn't very good, unless you're willing to dub Nakamura's long-time second, NM Kris Littlejohn, a world-class player. Anyway, while both Parligras and Nielsen have earned their way to this round and I can see the appeal of the back story of how they got here, I find their pairing among the least intriguing of the remaining matches - something like a dead spot in the brackets. They're both fine GMs, especially Nielsen, but neither's an up-and-comer or (judging by the ratings) has any serious chance to win the event. Of course, subsequent events could prove me wrong and I'll eat my helping of crow!
Btw, Khalifman was *not* one of Kasparov's "tourists", though Akopian and Nisipeanu were.
Finally, I probably agree with you about Leko's early out being at least at the same level, though Leko has never been a specialist in these events and just came back after a whole year off.]
Well done Nielsen as Adams is really tough to beat. In a way I'm not surprised though as Nielsen had something prove. Remember the issue around qualification (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7143). Eventually he got a Wild Card place from FIDE.