The World Champion Magnus Carlsen is taking thinks very seriously: it’s clear that he has come here to win. The World Cup is one of the few events that Carlsen doesn’t yet have in his trophy case. This afternoon he made the first step to qualify for the fourth round by defeating his team-mate Aryan Tari with the white pieces.
Tari was actually doing very well but low on time he blundered 38…Bd4? 39.Rb5 a4? 40.Ne7+ and he had to resign because he was either losing a piece or on the bad side of an Anastasia mate (with Rh5). Instead of 38…Ad4, Tari could have played 38…a4 and although he is a pawn down, he might be able to hold the double rook ending.
Everyone was happy to see Fabiano Caruana back on the stage after his win by forfeit in the second round. Although he was only able to get a draw (with Black against Rinat Jumabayev) he was relatively content with the result, having the White pieces tomorrow.
Fabi was kind enough to pop-in for a brief interview in which he explained his thoughts on the game and confirmed that he was feeling great.
Top-ten player Alexander Grischuk also made a huge step to qualify for the next round by defeating Argentina’s number one Alan Pichot with White. The intermediate move 17.Bf4! may have escaped Pichot’s attention but it left him in a very delicate position.
Although Grischuk’s king had to make the walk to f3 he had everything under control and soon created a mating net which proved definitive. The top Russian player explained his thoughts in a brief post-game interview.
The all-Indian encounter between Santosh Vidit against Baskaran Adhiban also proved to be a fighting game. Adhiban was doing well in a King’s Indian until he blundered a pawn with 19…e4, maybe due to an oversight. Vidit played it safe and actively relocated his pieces, netting a second pawn and went on to win.
Adhiban will have to go all-out tomorrow for a win but, as Vidit was quick to say in the postgame interview, “Adhiban goes all-out no matter the score”.
Other important results this afternoon were: Dubov-Malakhov (1-0), Van Foreest-Piorun (0-1), Oparin-Karjakin (0-1), Vitiukov-Shirov (1-0) and the main surprise result Martirosyan-Mamedyarov (1-0)
In the women’s group the main favourite Aleksandra Goryachkina is still on 100% having defeated Olga Badelka with White. Today she played a solid Catalan opening, achieving a small positional plus after the opening. Later in the game she opened the a-file and penetrated into her opponent’s position with her heavy pieces, winning a pawn and converting in the endgame.
Joining her on 100% is the older of the two very strong Muzychuk sisters, Anna. Today’s win over Pauline Guichard – with Black - gives her very good chances to qualify for the fourth round. She gave her thoughts on the game in a brief post-game interview.
Other important results this afternoon include Kashlinskaya-Galliamova (1-0), Dzagnidze-Yip (0-1), Cramling-Kosteniuk (0-1), Gunina-Harika (1-0), Tan-Sebag (1-0) and Munguntuul-Lagno (0-1).
All these players have the advantage going into the second game of the third round. Their opponents will have to win on-demand tomorrow in the Galaxy Centre in Sochi to force the tie-breaks.
Pairings of the second game of the third round, live games and PGN files can be found on the World Cup website alongside a great amount of other interesting information such as daily videos, a complete photo collection and other useful data.
Scheduled to take place from July12th (Round 1) to August 6th (finals), the 2021 FIDE World Cup will gather together in Sochi (Russia) 309 of the world’s best chess players, with 206 of them playing in the Open World Cup (and 103 participants in the first ever Women’s World Cup.
The top two finishers in the tournament, aside from World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is also participating, will qualify for the 2022 Candidates Tournament, in addition to winning the 110.000 USD first prize (80.000 USD for the runner-up).
Partners:
Gazprom– general partner
Nornickel– general partner
PhosAgro– general partner
Chessable– event’s partner
Rosatom– event’s partner
Aeroflot– CFR’s partner
Educational centre “Sirius”
