CHESS#1268

Knockouts are always dicey. The World Cup saw a series of high-rated players including three of the highest class, leaving the stage. Just three of the Top Ten (Aronian, MVL and So) survived to enter the quarter finals.

The first to fall was former world champion, Viswanathan Anand in Round 2 who went down to Anton Kovalyov after making a speculative sacrifice. Kovalyov was at the centre of a controversy in Round 3. 

The Ukrainian-Argentine, who now plays for Canada, usually wears shorts and he had done so through the first two rounds without fuss. In Round 3, he was hauled up for breaking the dress code (which does not explicitly forbid shorts and can’t, in fact, ban shorts because schoolchildren play chess). This erupted into an argument where organiser, GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili, berated him for “being a gypsy”. Azmaiparashvili later clarified that he was using “gypsy” as a synonym for “homeless”. Kovalyov left Tbilisi in a huff, forfeiting the match to Maxim Rodshtein.

But even that row, distasteful as it was, ended up overshadowed by the exit of Magnus Carlsen. The world champion went down to Bu Xiangzhi who played a positional sacrifice and generated pressure until Carlsen cracked. Bu then shut down the position efficiently in the second game of Rd 3. 

A third former world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, went down to Vassily Ivanchuk though nothing Ivanchuk does will be considered surprising by his fan following. The 48-year-old is perhaps the only player universally acknowledged as a genius by every generation from Anatoly Karpov to Carlsen. Fabiano Caruana also went down to Evgeniy Najer. 

The Indian challenge also ended in Round 3. Vidit Gujrathi was winning in Game 1 versus Ding Liren but he failed to finish it and lost the tiebreaks. S P Sethuraman was completely winning versus Anish Giri and also failed to nail it down, after a series of blunders. Sethu also lost the tiebreak. 

Round 4 saw Levon Aronian break through Daniil Dubov. Ding Liren beat Wang Hao. Ivanchuk took down Anish Giri. Tiebreaks led to Peter Svidler beating Bu, Vladimir Fedoseev beat Maxim Rodshtein, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beat Alexander Grischuk, Wesley So beat Baadur Jobava and Richard Rapport won against Evgeniy Najer. 

In the Diagram, BLACK TO PLAY ( White: Carlsen Vs Black: Bu Xiangzhi, Rd 3, game1, Tbilisi World Cup 2017) , Black played the amazing 15. -- Bxh3!?  16.gxh3 Qxh3 17.Nf1 Rbe8 18.d4 f5 19.Bb3 c6 20.f4 Kh7

This is near-equal but very dynamic. White has material, black has an attack. Carlsen starts going wrong in 21.Bxd5 cxd5 22.Re3 Rxe3 23.Bxe3 g5. Now black’s winning. Play ended 24.Kf2 gxf4 25.Qf3 fxe3+ 26.Nxe3 Qh2+ 27.Kf1 Rg8 28.Qxf5+ Rg6 29.Ke1 h5 30.Kd1 Kh6 31.Nc2 h4 32.Ne1 h3 33.Nf3 Qg2 34.Ne1 Qg4+ 35.Qxg4 Rxg4 36.Nf3 Rg1+! (0-1). A spectacular finish.

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player