2025 World Cup - Day 12

 The peaceful nature of yesterdays round continued into Day 12. After 14 drawn gamess yesterday, there were a few mpre decisive games yesterday and 5 matches were decided. There weer a a couple of interesting draws (check out Aronian's game as an example, and a few interesting wins (mainly in the ending). But this still left 11 tied matches, meaning tomorrows playoff day will be a busy one.

Of course this is to be expected as players are taking a more cautious approach as they approach larger and larger paydays. As an anology from another activity, it is like being 'on the bubble' in Poker, were too large a risk gets you knocked out before the prize money begins (although a clever player can play aggressively, knowing their opponent is risk averse)  

2025 World Cup - Day 11

 Round 4 started with a significant number of drawn games. Some lasted little over an hour (Leko v Erigaisi) while some went well into the 5th hour. While all the games I was supervising ended peacefully, there were 2 games that ended in wins. One was by Lev Aronian, who played a sneaky trick in the opening. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 he played 3.a3! The automatic reaction of 3. ... d5 creates a reverse Scotch but after 4.exd Nxd5 5.Qh5! causes issues as the normal move (with colours reversed) of Nb4 is ruled out due to a3! So Lev pocketed a pawn and went on the win the game. Again it is a little surprising that it worked as it has been well known since the 60's or 70's, and was mentioned by the late Hugh E Meyers in one of his quirky opening books. 

But with 14 of the 16 games ending in a draw the odds of a significant number of playoff matches is high. Maybe players with the White pieces will push a bit harder tomorrow, or maybe they'll just halve out and head for tie-breaks.  

2025 FIDE World Cup - Day 9

 Day 9 of the 2025 FIDE World Cup saw the playoff matches for round 3. As there were only 11 matches in total, it was fairly light workday for the arbiters, although one match did go the full distance. My 3 matches were all decided in the first playoff round (2 games at 15m+10s) so I pitched in the help the other arbiters (indeed by this stage there were only 4 matches still going). This meant I got a birds-eye view of Dubov v Meier 3rd playoff game, where Dubov chose to play the Frankenstein-Dracula variation of the Vienna. Dubov looked to be winning (as theory promises) but then the game became messy, and Meir looked ok. But he blundered after a piece sacrifice from Dubov, and quickly lost.

With my arbiting duties out of the way, I left the playing hall, and missed the drama of MVL v Artemiev. They exchanged wins at 5m+5s and then exchanged further wins at 3m+2s. Both players put in fairly low bids for the Black pieces for the Armageddon playoff (under 3 minutes), with Artemiev having the winning bid, but losing the game game.

Apparently the players now believe that with the +2s increment from the start, having Black is a distinct advantage (White mus win,  Black only needs to draw). But curiously, both Armageddon games so far have been won by White. A further suggestion is to organise an 'Armageddon' tournament or tournaments, so real data can be collected to see what the optimal starting time for Black could be

Today is a rest day, which is why this post is very late. Tomorrow sees Round 4 begin, although with the departure of most of the players (only 32 players left), the playing hall has gone from being full of tables and action, to a failry empty space, with the tables all on wide side of the room.

 

2025 World Cup - Day 8

 While i thought yesterdays games were fairly cautious, today saw a number of hard fought an exciting finishes. Before the start of the 2nd day the Arbiters make predictions about the number of expected playoff games, and this time we all overestimated the number. Of the 32 matches only 11 were drawn, with 21 matches finishing decisively. 

I handled matches 2,4,6,8,10 and 12, and all matches finished with a clear winner. In some cases it was one player outplaying his opponent, but in others the pendulum of success swung back and forward.  Michael Admas made the fatal choice on winning a piece instead of keeping the exchange, and was swamped by charging pawns. Short of time Giri blundered against Donchenko and Keymer found a nice queen sacrifice to finish off Pranesh.

But the game of the round was between Wojtaszek and Fedoseev, where Fedoseev chose a line in the Owens Defence which has been known to lose for Black since I was a boy. Wojtaszek was +2 after 5 moves but the way he played the attack was very interesting to follow.

 So onto tie-breaks once again. While faster and faster games might not be the best way to determine the better player, they are very entertaining to watch. So again, set the alarm for 8:30pm (Canberra time) and tune in for the action

2025 World Cup - Day 7

 Last night and this morning saw a steady stream of players heading out of the hotel in Goa, and into taxis heading off to the airport. Such is the cruelty of knock out chess, with the number of participants down to 64 (although I did sit across from Ivanchuk at dinner tonight, even though he is no longer in the draw)

Expectations that it might be a quieter day was dispelled  by the fact that the quick finishes were decisive results, while the longer games were the drawn ones. In my section Erigaisi was the first to finish, beating Vokhidov in clinical fashion. There was some drama in the last game of mine to finish with a 'touch move' ruling required, and an incorrect repetition claim. The game eventually finished in a draw, and both players accepted the rulings that were made.

As it is late in the evening here, I will leave you with a link to the games played so far https://worldcup2025.fide.com/live/ and recommend that you play through at least a few of them. They are quite instructive in all phases (opening middlegame and endings) and are well worth studying 

2025 World Cup - Day 6

 The 2nd set of playoffs (for matched in round 2 that finished 1-1) was even more dramatic than the first set. A number of top seeds were eliminated including Hans Niemann and Nihil Sarin. With 27 matches to be decided, it was clear than a number of matches would go well into the playoffs. Michael Adams took 8 playoff games to dispatch Ivan Cheperinov, although his play in the final two 3m+2s games was immaculate. 

The Mamedov v Svane game went one game further, resulting in the first 'Bid' Armageddon game in World Cup History. In this format Whites starts with 4m+2s but both players bid a lower starting time for Black. The player with the lowest bid takes the Black pieces but has draw odds. Mamedov bid 3 mins (which was the lowest), so he started with 3m+2s, while Svane had to win the game to advance to the next round. In the end Svane did win, eliminating Mamdov.

Australia's last representative Temur Kuybokarov took 3rd seed Praggnanandhaa   all the way to 5m+3s before losing the final two games. He was on the verge of causing a big upset, being up 1-0 in the 2nd playoff match but a fight back from Prag ended Temur's tournament.

Tomorrow is the first game of Round 3. The tournament is down to 64 players with a lot of matchups being quite close in rating. I expect more drawn games than in the previous rounds, but with the Sofia rule in operation (no draw offers before move 31) they won't be easy draws  

 

 

2025 World Cup - Day 5

 The 2nd day of round 2 saw some exciting action, and some stunning upset eliminations. The 2 biggest names to go we Wesley So (5th seed) and Ian Nepomniachtchi (12th seed). Included in the list of semi-upsets (lower seeded players drawing with higher seeded players) was Temur Kuybokarov, who drew his 2nd game with Praggnanandhaa. This qill see them off to the playoffs tomorrow, with Kuybokarov hoping to bring his fast chess form that he demonstrated in round 1.

While the games in my section were mostly solid and hard fought, I only ended up with a single drawn match. I had a couple of 2-0 decisions where players tried to hard to bounce back from yesterdays loss, and a lot of 1.5-0.5 results. The two games of interest were Xiong's win over Yuffa, and Esipenko's win over Abasov. In that game, Abasov played about 20 moves of prep in the Two Knights (at lightning pace), before realising he didn't like what he was seeing. After that he was slowly outplayed, before resigning a lost endgame.

There are 27 tiebreak games tomorrow, so if you want a smorgasbord of high level quickplay chess, tuning in is a must!