Tbilisi In Shock: Carlsen, Kramnik, Nakamura Out
A huge shock was felt at the FIDE World Cup today as some of the biggest names in the tournament got knocked out: Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik and Hikaru Nakamura.
The other players leaving the World Cup after today are Alexander Onischuk, Vladislav Artemiev, Paco Vallejo and Yuryi Kuzubov. Anton Kovalyov had already left Tbilisi yesterday.
Bu Xiangzhi, Peter Svidler, Vassily Ivanchuk, Daniil Dubov, Wesley So, Vladimir Fedoseev, Maxim Rodshtein and Wang Hao have advanced to the fourth round without needing a tiebreak.
One player who lost yesterday levelled the score: Maxim Matlakov, vs Levon Aronian. Of the 16 matches in this round, eight went into tiebreaks.
Anish Giri died a thousand deaths today. Several times he was about to resign his game with S.P. Sethuraman, and say goodbye to the World Cup. He had already worked out the first thing he would do: go to the room of his second GM Erwin l'Ami—not his own, where wife and son were waiting—and kick Erwin out.
"I wanted to be alone," said Giri.
But the Dutchman did not resign. He sailed his ship through all the dangers, missed a forced draw along the way, sailed further, and a bit further than necessary with his safe haven already in sight, but made it in the end.
"I messed up in the opening," said Giri. He had also missed 24.Rg3 and 25.Rxg6, but by then he didn't have faith in his position anyway. From that moment it was survival mode for the Dutchman. Because of all the turmoil he completely missed a queen trade on move 64, but he got the needed draw a bit later anyway.
Tomorrow Giri and Sethuraman will play a tiebreak for a match in round four against Vassily Ivanchuk, who defeated Vladimir Kramnik with the black pieces today. Kramnik, who won the World Cup in 2013 in Tromsø (beating Ivanchuk 1.5-0.5 along the way!) couldn't cope with the unpredictable Ukrainian this time.
"He played in a very aggressive way with 13.h4 and 14.c4," said Ivanchuk. "It gave me some counterplay, but the position was very complicated. I don't know where he made a mistake, or where I made a mistake. It was a big fight."
Ivanchuk suggested an alternative for his opponent on move 21, because it was there that Kramnik had sacrificed a pawn which he would never see back. The winner wasn't sure from which point he was winning.
He might be the best player in the world, but beating an in-form Bu Xiangzhi with the black pieces turned out to be a mission impossible. Magnus Carlsen could not level the score today, had to settle for a draw and is out of the World Cup.
Source: https://www.chess.com/news/view/tbilisi-in-shock-carlsen-kramnik-nakamura-out
The other players leaving the World Cup after today are Alexander Onischuk, Vladislav Artemiev, Paco Vallejo and Yuryi Kuzubov. Anton Kovalyov had already left Tbilisi yesterday.
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| Carlsen couldn't beat Bu, and is packing his bags. | Photo: Chess.com/Maria Emelianova. |
One player who lost yesterday levelled the score: Maxim Matlakov, vs Levon Aronian. Of the 16 matches in this round, eight went into tiebreaks.
Anish Giri died a thousand deaths today. Several times he was about to resign his game with S.P. Sethuraman, and say goodbye to the World Cup. He had already worked out the first thing he would do: go to the room of his second GM Erwin l'Ami—not his own, where wife and son were waiting—and kick Erwin out.
"I wanted to be alone," said Giri.
But the Dutchman did not resign. He sailed his ship through all the dangers, missed a forced draw along the way, sailed further, and a bit further than necessary with his safe haven already in sight, but made it in the end.
"I messed up in the opening," said Giri. He had also missed 24.Rg3 and 25.Rxg6, but by then he didn't have faith in his position anyway. From that moment it was survival mode for the Dutchman. Because of all the turmoil he completely missed a queen trade on move 64, but he got the needed draw a bit later anyway.
Tomorrow Giri and Sethuraman will play a tiebreak for a match in round four against Vassily Ivanchuk, who defeated Vladimir Kramnik with the black pieces today. Kramnik, who won the World Cup in 2013 in Tromsø (beating Ivanchuk 1.5-0.5 along the way!) couldn't cope with the unpredictable Ukrainian this time.
"He played in a very aggressive way with 13.h4 and 14.c4," said Ivanchuk. "It gave me some counterplay, but the position was very complicated. I don't know where he made a mistake, or where I made a mistake. It was a big fight."
Ivanchuk suggested an alternative for his opponent on move 21, because it was there that Kramnik had sacrificed a pawn which he would never see back. The winner wasn't sure from which point he was winning.
He might be the best player in the world, but beating an in-form Bu Xiangzhi with the black pieces turned out to be a mission impossible. Magnus Carlsen could not level the score today, had to settle for a draw and is out of the World Cup.
Source: https://www.chess.com/news/view/tbilisi-in-shock-carlsen-kramnik-nakamura-out
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