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Limit on surprises.

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     Boris Gelfand and Ruslan Ponomariov will play the World Cup. World Chess Cup, taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk, came to the final stage: the final meet Boris Gelfand and Ruslan Ponomariov.

Кубок Мира 2009

     Ten years' experience of offspring Ilyumzhinov - knock-out system with the best players in the world - already overgrown its traditions. Even in the format of the World Cup knock-out system boycotted most contenders for the top title. Other, less "pay" grand masters, they could not afford to ignore the very generous prizes, and gradually acquired the status of the tournament the World Cup, where the chess public real interest was the performance of 15 - 20 grandmasters, draw in the top five. Other participants are the extras, although not excluded, and surprises.

     As for the current World Cup, then it did not play the first five principal defendants in the fight for world title (Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Carlsen and Hakobyan), and surprises, as usual, have ended in the quarterfinals. In the last eight each of the grand masters could expect to win the tournament, but the "knock-out" every time halves of applicants.

     Semifinal pairs Gelfand - Karjakin and Malakhov - Ponomariov appeared almost equivalent, with a particularly interesting was the confrontation in the first pair, where they met chess players of different generations. But the intrigue has dissipated in the first game, when Gelfand, playing black, is on the 11th move of his young opponent stunned surprise "long" maneuver queenside rook. After the black rook moved to the kingside, Karjakin was forced to weaken the protection of the king and lost a pawn.

     Already on the 20th move of the game was virtually decided. In the second game Sergei needed was a victory, and black, and it is implied in his debut and risk selection. However, players from practicing the classic style of play, it is difficult to expect something extraordinary, and it turned out that one of the most promising new generation of players not yet ready to confront the veteran. Going to the well-known, but unpromising position in the Queen's Gambit, dared to take Karjakin "poisoned" pawn and was crushed. Incidentally, this happened to him at the previous World Cup, when he also was stopped in the semifinals by Alexei Shirov.

     In the second pair of preference Ruslan Ponomariov, who in "knockout" is traditionally strong. Suffice it to recall him winning the world championship in 2002 in Moscow. Later, at the World Cup in 2005 here in the Khanty-Mansiysk, he reached the final where he lost to Levon Aronian. Yet in his fight with Vladimir Malakhov could predict the transfer of the main events on the "fast" in chess tie-break. For them it is usual thing, because in five previous matches they had played three tie-breaks. It happened. In the first game Ponomariov, playing white, had no objection to an early exchange of queens with the transition into an equal endgame, and the second party is not at risk Malakhov, who signed the peace on the 27th move. A tiebreaker Ponomariov lost the first game but then won the remaining three and reached the final.
     The final match consists of four parties with classical time control, today played the first batch.

      Oleg Stetsko


Last Updated on Tuesday, 03 August 2010 06:32  
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