Monday, November 23, 2009

FIDE World Cup 2009

The World Championship cycle for 2009-2011 had started last Saturday with the beginning of the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, which incidentally will also be the host of the 2010 Chess Olympiad.

It was fun and slightly nerve wracking to follow the games at Playchess server. I was particularly interested in the games of the Asian players who are up against some of the world's best. I followed a number of participants from this year's Dato' Arthur Tan tournament as I wanted to see how their games would go.

The most amazing match for me was the young Chinese sensation Yu YangYi seeded at 113th!. He won the first game against Sergei Movsesian (16th seed) and in the second game I thought he had a possible second win. The game ended in a draw and YangYi is through.

Another Chinese ,Zhou Jianchao , also knocked out his more fancied opponent. In this case it is at the expense of the Armenian GM Rauf Mamedov.

In the 2007 DATMO first round, I was paired against and unknown and untitled Filipino named Darwin. I was beaten easily and Darwin went on to become a grandmaster a year later. This is the talent that Philippines have. Anyway GM Darwin Laylo lost the first game against David Navara, but came back strongly to win the second and tie the match. Tie-breakers will be played today.

Other notable matches are Li Chao drawing both games against Gabriel Sargissian, Negi Parimarjan against Vadim Milov, Le Quang Liem also goes into tiebreakers with Vladislav Tkachiev (yes, that Tkachiev)

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