World Cup: Round 6, Day 2: See Previous Day
Boris Gelfand crushed Sergey Karjakin once again, and secured his place in the final, while Vladimir Malakhov and Ruslan Ponomariov again drew and are headed for tiebreaks. Gelfand had no trouble at all. Karjakin tried to sharpen the game with 16...h6, a new move (though he may not have known it was a new move) that led to forcing play. Unfortunately for him, the forcing play led to a winning Gelfand attack, and Black got slaughtered. If that result was dictated by the competitive situation, it's a little harder to get a handle on the Malakhov-Ponomariov game. Ponomariov came up with a very interesting novelty that led to a very unclear game, and it remained unclear all the way up to the very premature end. Why did the players agree to a draw? Ponomariov had aimed for sharp play and had achieved it, while Malakhov's position was probably slightly more promising. Whatever the case, they'll have tiebreaks tomorrow while Gelfand relaxes and prepares for the winner.
Games, with my comments, here.