Second games of the FIDE World Cup's First Round were played on September 11 in Khanty-Mansiysk.

The World Cup newcomer Johan-Sebastian Christiansen (Norway) delivered a major sensation by knocking out one of the rating favorites, Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Poland). The Norwegian won both games of the match.

Another unexpected result was observed in a match between Daniil Yuffa (Russia) and David Navara (Czech Republic): the Russian checkmated his experienced opponent and won the match 1.5-0.5.

The following players advanced to the Second Round upon winning both games in their matches: Ding Liren (China), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alexander Grischuk, Dmitry Jakovenko (all from Russia), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan), Wesley So, Lenier Dominguez, Jeffrey Xiong (all from USA), Pentala Harikrishna, Nihal Sarin (both from India), Niclas Huschenbeth (Germany), and Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran).

The following players advanced with a win and a draw: the Russians Sergey Karjakin, Peter Svidler, Vladislav Artemiev, Daniil Dubov, Nikita Vitiugov, Ernesto Inarkiev, Evgeniy Najer, Anton Demchenko, Kirill Alekseenko, Alexandr Rakhmanov, Andrey Esipenko (he defeated the former World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov), Levon Aronian, Sergei Movsesian (both from Armenia), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Santosh Vidit, Baskaran Adhiban (both from India), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), Maxim Rodshtein (Israel), Samuel Sevian (USA), Wei Yi (China), Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbekistan), Gawain Jones (England), Rinat Jumabayev (Kazakhstan), Ivan Cheparinov (Georgia), and Alireza Firouzja (Iran).

S.P. Sethuraman (India) managed to come back in a match with Tamir Nabaty (Israel). Constantin Lupulescu also managed to level the score after losing the first game to Igor Kovalenko (Latvia). Vladimir Fedoseev (Russia) lost the second game to Surya Ganguly (India), allowing the opponent to tie the score. S.L. Narayanan (India) also came back against David Anton Guijarro (Spain). In the longest game of the day, the Iranian Ehsan Ghaem Maghami defeated Yu Yangyi (China). All these players will continue on tie-break tomorrow.

Two draws occurred in the following matches: Gelfand-Lu Shanglei, Nakamura-Bellahcene, Piorun-Abasov, Sarana-Predke, Safarli-Shankland, McShane-Delgado Ramirez, Adams-Aravindh, Amin-Tabatabaei, Bu Xiangzhi-Xu Xiangyu, Tomashevsky-Petrov, Wang Hao-Pridorozhni, Bok-Saric, Andreikin-Mekhitarian, Mareco-Sjugirov, Parligras-Nisipeanu, Matlakov-Abdusattorov, Le Quang Liem-Alexandrov, and Gupta-Korobov.

The tie-break of the first round with 23 matches will be played on Thursday, September 12.

Tie-break Pairings 

   

   



   

  




The competition is organized by the Government of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug – Ugra, International Chess Federation (FIDE), Ugra Chess Federation, and Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation.

General partner – Gazpromneft-Khantos LCC.

Official airline – Utair.

Official partners of the competition: OJSC Rostelecom, Ugra Chess Academy, Russian Chess Federation, AB InBev Efes and PJSC Rosneft.

FIDE official partner – JSCo “RZD”.

General media partner – News Agency TASS.

Media partners – Match TV, World of Chess social network, OTRK “Ugra”, Ugra-news.ru, “News of Ugra” regional newspaper, “AIF-Ugra” newspaper.


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Text by Eteri Kublashvili