Eljanov marches on

One of the criticisms of the World Cup format is that the matches (2 games) are too short to be a fair reflection on the strength of the respective players. A first game loss in a match between players of near equal strength is almost always fatal, while the safe option of draw-draw results in the lottery of rapid chess.
While this is true for most matches, one player is simply winning his matches and moving on to the next round. Pavel Eljanov started the event with 2-0,2-0,2-0 before easing up with in round 4, tying 1-1 with Jakovenko. However he won the first set of rapid matches 1.5-0.5, and then eliminated Nakamura 1.5-0.5 is round 5. He is +7 in the classical games (7 wins, 3 draws) , which is 4 points better than the remaining players!
Here is the first game of his match against Nakamura, where he gave up 2 pieces for R+2 pawns. To borrow from computer chess R+P v 2 minors generally favours the minors by half a pawn, but R+2P is around half a pawn better for the R. This seemed to be confirmed in this game, where Eljanov looked better after the swap, but still had to work to finally convert.


Eljanov,Pavel (2717) - Nakamura,Hikaru (2814) [E06]
FIDE World Cup 2015 Baku AZE (5.1), 23.09.2015

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Qc2 a6 8. a4 Bd7 9. Qxc4 Bc6 10. Bg5 Bd5 11. Qc2 Be4 12. Qc1 h6 13. Bxf6 Bxf6 14. Rd1 a5 15. Nbd2 Bh7 16. Nb3 c6 17. Qc3 Be7 18. Nc5 Qc7 19. Ne5 Na6 20. Nxb7 Qxb7 21. Bxc6 Qc7 22. Bxa8 Qxc3 23. bxc3 Rxa8 24. Nc6 Bd8 25. Nxd8 Rxd8 26. f3 Rc8 27. Ra3 Bg6 28. Kf2 Rb8 29. Rd2 f6 30. Raa2 Rb3 31. Rab2 Rxc3 32. Rb5 Bc2 33. Rxa5 Nc7 34. Ra7 f5 35. a5 Kh7 36. Rb7 Rc4 37. Rb6 Ba4 38. a6 Bc6 39. a7 Bd5 40. Ra2 Rxd4 41. Rc2 Na8 42. Ra6 Rd1 43. h4 h5 44. Ke3 Rg1 45. Kf4 Rg2 46. Rd6 Rg1 47. Rc8 Ra1 48. Kg5 Rxa7 49. Rdd8 g6 50. Rh8+ Kg7 51. Rcg8+ Kf7 52. Rxg6 Ra6 53. Rh7+ Kf8 54. Kxh5 Nb6 55. Kg5 Nc4 56. h5 Nd6 57. Rf6+ Kg8 58. Rd7 1-0