After the mainly peaceful round 4 standard games, the round 4 playoff day was a lot more exciting. There were 11 matches still to be decided, but 8 of them did not progress beyond the first set of games. Big names that went out included Peter Leko to Erigaisi and Pragg to Dubov (in my section) as well as MVL and Rapport.
The 3 remaining matches were all interesting, with Keymer being the next top seed to exit, at the hands of Esipenko ( who won both 10m+10s games) . As I had finished my sector I chipped in to cover the Sevian Lodici match which turned out to be amazingly dramatic. Just as it looked as though won player had all the momentum, a comeback win for the other sent it further into the playoffs. It went the full distance (by which stage we were rotating arbiters in and out!), and was settled by a single Armageddon game.
Tomorrow the tournament is down to 8 games, with the top 2 remaining seeds in the bottom quarter of the draw. Otherwise it looks like the eventual finalists (and Candidates qualifiers) could really be anyone left in the pairings.
Also starting tomorrow is the finals of the World Corporate Championships. This will be played in the morning (10am start I believe), in the same playing hall as the World Cup. One players I spoke to today was IM Ari Dale, representing Deloitte. His team has 2 IM's playing for them, and I suspect a number of other teams are equally as strong.
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