Chess World Cup 2017 Round 1 Tie breaks - Tblisi

 

We had 22 of the 64 round one matches going through to tie breaks. Luckily nobody had to face the gauntlet of the Armageddon game. However, of those 22 matches, 13 were decided in the first phase of two rapid games consisting of 25’ + 10”. A further 8 matches were concluded in the second phase of two rapid games consisting of 10’ + 10”. That left the single match between home town hero Baadur Jobava and Spaniard Ivan Salgado Lopez that was concluded in the third phase of the tiebreak system that consisted of two blitz games of 5’ + 3”.

With round one now completed, all of the top 16 seeds have progressed to round two. Before we analyse some of the more interesting games from the tie breaks, let’s look at how each of the top 16 seeded players scored in round one:

Magnus Carlsen (1) beat Oluwafemi Balogun 2-0

Wesley So (2) beat Joshua Daniel Ruiz Castillo 1.5-0.5

Fabiano Caruana (3) beat Kenny Solomon 2-0

Vladimir Kramnik (4) beat Changren Dai 1.5-0.5

Levon Aronian (5) beat Daniel Cawdery 2-0

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (6) beat Guanchu Liu 1.5-0.5

Hikaru Nakamura (7) beat Al Rakib Mollah Abdullah 2-0

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (8) beat Muhammad Khusenkhojaev 1.5-0.5

Alexander Grischuk (9) beat Essam El Gindy 2-0

Viswanathan Anand (10) beat Li Tian Yeoh 1.5-0.5

Liren Ding (11) beat Mohamed Haddouche 1.5-0.5

Sergey Karjakin (12) beat Anton Smirnov 3-1 in phase one of the tie breaks

Anish Giri (13) beat Nana Dzagnidze 1.5-0.5

Wei, Yi (14) beat Bator Sambuev 2.5-1.5 in phase one of the tie breaks

Nepomniachtchi, Ian (15) beat Mladen Palac 3.5-2.5 in phase two of the tie breaks

Svidler, Peter (16) beat Jakhongir Vakhidov 2-0

  

Karjakin,Sergey (2780) - Smirnov,Anton (2508)

FIDE World Cup 2017 Tbilisi (1.3), 05.09.2017

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Bd6 7.0–0 0–0 8.c4 c6 9.Re1 Bf5 10.Qb3 Na6 C42: Petroff Defence: 3 Nxe5 and unusual White 3rd moves [10...Qd7 11.Nc3 Nxc3 12.Bxf5 Qxf5 13.bxc3 b6 14.cxd5 cxd5 15.Qb5 Qd7 16.Rb1 Rc8 17.g3 Bf8 18.Bd2 1/2–1/2 (51) Vachier Lagrave,M (2796)-Caruana,F (2808) Stavanger 2017] 

11.cxd5 cxd5 12.Nc3 Nb4 The position is equal. 

13.Bxe4 dxe4 14.Nxe4 aiming for Bg5. 

14...Be6 15.Qd1 Rc8 next ...Nc2 is good for Black. 

16.Bg5 [Reject 16.Nxd6 Qxd6 17.Re2 Bg4³] 

16...Qd7N 

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16...Qb6 17.Re2 h6 18.Bh4 1/2–1/2 (31) Sherwood,R (2169) -Sukhanitskij,S (1989) LSS email 2012] 

17.Re2 [17.Nc5!? Bxc5 18.dxc5²] 

17...f6 18.Nxd6 [18.Bd2 is interesting. 18...Nd5 19.Nxd6 Qxd6 20.Re1 Qd7 21.b3] 

18...Qxd6 19.Bf4 Qd7 20.a3 Nc6 21.Rc1 Bd5 22.Rd2 Rfe8 [22...Qf5!? 23.Bg3 Na5=] 

23.h3 Bxf3 24.gxf3 Qxh3 25.d5 Ne5 26.Rxc8 Qxc8 27.d6 Qd7 28.Kg2 Ng6 29.Bg3 Nf8 30.Rc2ƒ White has good play. 

30...Ne6 31.Qd5 Hoping for Rc7. 

31...Kf8? 

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[31...Kh8²] 32.Qf5!+- Strongly threatening Rc7! 

32...Rc8 33.Rc7! Rxc7 34.dxc7 h6 35.Qc2 Qc8 36.Qd3 Kf7 37.Qd5 g5 [37...Ke8 is a better defense. 38.Qb5+ Kf7 39.Qh5+ Kg8] 

38.a4 h5 [38...Ke8 keeps fighting. 39.Qd3 f5] 

39.b4 h4 40.Bd6 b6 41.a5 bxa5 42.bxa5 a6 43.Qb3 

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 Qb8 is the strong threat. 43...Ke8 44.Qa4+ Kf7 45.Qc4 Ke8 46.Qc6+ Kf7 47.Kh2 Nd4 48.Qd5+ Ne6 49.Qf5 Qd7 

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[¹49...Kg7 50.f4 Qd7] 50.Kg1 Qc8 51.Be5 [¹51.Qh7+ Ng7 52.Bf8! Qxf8 53.Qd3] 

51...Ke7 52.Qh7+ Ke8 53.Bd6 Precision: White = 76%, Black = 31%. 1–0

Jobava,Baadur (2702) - Salgado Lopez,Ivan (2627)

FIDE World Cup 2017 Tbilisi (1.8), 05.09.2017

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.d3 Nc6 4.c3 d5 5.Qc2 a5 6.a4 C44: Ponziani Opening and Scotch Gambit 

6...Bc5 7.Be2 0–0 8.0–0 h6 9.h3 [9.Na3 Re8 10.h3 Be6 11.Re1 Qd7 12.Bf1 Rad8 13.Nb5 Bb6 1/2–1/2 (49) Jobava,B (2713) -Matlakov,M (2714) Minsk 2017] 

9...Be6 10.Re1 dxe4N 

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[10...Qd7 11.Nbd2 Bxh3 12.gxh3 Qxh3 13.d4 exd4 14.cxd4 Bxd4 15.Nxd4 Nxd4 0–1 (47) Boskovic,D (2433)-Kastanieda,G (2406) playchess.com INT 2005] 

11.dxe4 Qe7 12.Na3 Rad8 13.Bb5 Nd7 14.Be3 Bxe3 15.Rxe3 f6 16.Bc4 Bxc4 17.Nxc4 Qe6 [17...Qf7!? 18.b3 b6=] 

18.Na3 Ne7 19.Rd1 Nc5 20.b4 Rxd1+ 21.Qxd1 axb4 22.cxb4 Na6 23.b5ƒ White has good play. 

23...Nc5 24.Qc2 b6 25.a5 Ra8 26.Nc4 bxa5 

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[26...Qd7=] 27.Ncxe5!± Nd7 28.Nxd7 Qxd7 29.Qc4+ Kh7 30.e5 Qd5? [30...f5!²] 

31.Qxc7+- Qd1+ 32.Re1 Qd8 33.Qxd8 Rxd8 34.exf6 Nd5? 

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[34...Ng6 was necessary. 35.Ra1 gxf6 36.Rxa5 Rd1+ 37.Kh2 Kg8] 

35.Rd1 White is clearly winning. 

35...a4 36.f7 a3 37.Ne5 [Weaker is 37.Rxd5 Rxd5 38.f8Q a2²] 

37...a2 38.Nd7! Precision: White = 52%, Black = 41%. 1–0