2013 World Cup: Round 1, Day 1
Given the 1 vs. 128, 2 vs. 127...64 vs. 65 pairings formula FIDE uses for the World Cup, significant upsets are relatively unlikely. In fact, only one of the 38 players rated over 2700 lost, and that was 16th seed Alexander Morozevich, who lost with Black to 2524-rated Canadian GM Bator Sambuev. Morozevich was in good shape in a complicated position, but a serious error late in the game turned the tables.
A bit below the 2700 mark there were some notable upsets though. Judit Polgar (2696) lost to Isan Reynaldo Ortiz Suarez, Vladimir Akopian (2691) lost to Ngoc Truong Son Nguyen, and Andrei Volokitin (2688) lost to a player with only two names - Ray Robson of the U.S.A.
Transitioning to the other American results, Nakamura won pretty easily against his opponent, rated more than 300 points below him, but two boards down Gata Kamsky only managed a draw (albeit with Black) against Lou Yiping. Alexander Onischuk defeated Eduardo Iturrizaga, and in a semi-upset Alejandro Ramirez drew with the 2700+ rated Evgeny Tomashevsky, though with White.
That was the good news for the U.S.; now for the bad news. The four other Americans all lost to 2700+ rated opposition: Larry Christiansen, Gregory Kaidanov, Alexander Shabalov and Conrad Holt lost to Laurent Fressinet, Alexander Areshchenko, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Nikita Vitiugov, respectively.
With 64 games to choose from there were plenty deserving careful attention, but the interests of brevity I'll note just three, which you can replay here. Two have been mentioned already: Morozevich's upset loss and Robson's impressive win, in which he built on good preparation with a very nice combination. The third game I'll note is the young Russian star Daniil Dubov's win over Sergey Fedorchuk, which ended with a spectacular mating combination.
Just a reminder: day 2 continues the first round, as the players switch colors and do it all over again. All players who are ahead after day 2 get the next day off; those who are tied play rapid (and if necessary, blitz) tiebreaks to decide who advances to the next round. Full results here, or more conveniently, here.
Reader Comments (5)
Hi Dennis,
Thanks for the interesting report, and for the 3 interesting games/analysis. Unfortunately, I am unable to view the board in any of the big 3 browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and IE 9). I can see the move list and your comments, but I cannot see the board and pieces. It's difficult to benefit from your hard work because of this glitch.
As for Monday's results: Yay Ray Robson! Yay Hikaru! And Yay Anna Ushenina--what an upset over Svidler!
[DM: The boards are back up now. I'm with you on Robson, but while I understand what Nakamura did - I like rating points too - it's still something I can't really cheer. (Now if he needed to do that to save or win the match, I'm with you.) As for Ushenina, Svidler just blundered in an equal position.]
Just a small FYI. It appears that the online PGN viewer you're using is broken at the moment. The images needed to display the board won't load here.
[DM: Should be up now.]
I am not sure if Naka was playing on because of rating points. I think it was more of an ego thing. Also in the post-match interview, Nakamura said he would have accepted a draw if Cori had left her King on f6 or g7.
It's not like Naka isn't famous for grinding out dead drawn positions, even if I'm sure there was some consideration in Naka not wanting to give up half a point to somebody rated that much lower.
Hi Dennis -
The viewer is still not working. I do see arrows magically appear when I click a move...but no board and no pieces.
[DM: I don't know what to tell you - whenever I've checked in response to your queries, it's there.]