128 men and women (and children) enter. One emerges victorious (but two earn berths in next year's World Championship Candidates Tournament).

Round one started today. Today's games are the first of two that constitute round one, the players will switch colors tomorrow. It's too early to get a sense of who's going to win it all, but it's a great day to watch for upsets!

Decisive upsets so far (some games still in progress at the time of this post):

#113 Bator Sambuev (2530) 1-0 over #16 Alexander Morozevich (2736)
#101 Mark Paragua (2569) 1-0 over #28 Dmitry Jakovenko (2713)
#87 Isan Reynaldo Suarez Ortiz (2612) 1-0 over #42 Judit Polgar (2696)
#85 Ngoc Truong Son Nguyen (2625) 1-0 over #44 Vladimir Akopian
#83 Ray Robson (2628) 1-0 over #46 Andrei Volokitin (2688)
#81 Ivan Popov (2632) 1-0 over #48 Markus Ragger (2680)
#75 Daniil Dubov (2638) 1-0 over #54 Sergey Fedorchuk (2667)
#70 Bassem Amin (2650) 0-1 over #59 Eltaj Safarli (2660)

Plus no shortage of people holding draws against their much higher rated opponent today, and giving themselves a puncher's chance tomorrow (or in the tiebreaks).

Morozevich was the only top twenty seed to lose, but #8 seed Gata Kamsky, #12 seed Wang Hao, and #14 seed Michael Adams all drew against IMs - though they all have white tomorrow so they're still in pretty good shape to get out of round 1 without facing tiebreaks.

Radjabov, playing again, drew a 2543 in his first game. And 14-year-old GM Wei Yi, in the tournament as a wild card, drew his super-GM opponent (Nepomniach).

Those are all the particularly interesting results I've picked out so far. If you have any others, share 'em!

Edit: Oh yeah, Hou Yifan drew Alexei Shirov - with black. So she's got a decent opportunity tomorrow.

Robson's win was game of the round IMO, Re1 was super clever, and h4 is a great way to finish.

Lawrence Trent and Susan Polgar are the commentators of the live stream.

World cup is always my favourite tournament to follow. One of the rare occasions when players who are not rated above 2700 get a chance to play with the very best. And the system is great as well, makes the whole thing even more exciting.

Few upsets today but as Dan said Robson's win against Volokitin was a highlight of the day. Re1 was brilliant, hard to find such a move without alot of imagination.

When did super-GM opponent (Nepomniach become a super GM? I appreciate most of your posts OP. You are a vital part of this chess subforum.

Ty for all you do OP

Agree with mightytiny, thank you for starting this thread. I didn't realize this was going on and will now be glued to the computer.

I'm always fascinated by those huge upsets, and there was no shortage in the first round.

My understanding is that "Super-GM" is an informal unofficial title for anyone rated 2700+. At times I've even seen it used to refer to people *formerly* rated 2700. Please correct me if I'm wrong, and have been misusing the term.

I think your usage is correct. Well, I say that because I use it the same way, so maybe we're both wrong

I just went to the event's website for the first time, and it looks fantastic. I love the way they have the live game feature set up so you can just scroll down and check out any board. Very cool. Round 2 starts in 40 mins from now (as I post this) and I can't wait.

Hou Yifan scores a quick draw with Shirov and gets a shot at tie-breaks tomorrow. Not many results yet, though, just two hours into the round. I love all the games that are essentially Armageddon rules (anywhere where white won in round one).

Edit: Oh yeah, Giri and Ponomariov took quick draws to advance to round two at 1.5-0.5

Svidler is completely lost against Ushenina. Apparently there will be some interesting rapid games tomorrow.

Ushenina beat Svidler and they are moving to the playoffs.

What the f..?

Svidler blundered, simply as that. Good game by Ushenina as well tho.

lol svidler

Ray Robson wins again, moves on to the next round with a 2-0 match victory. Too early to chant "USA, USA!"? Maybe I should hold off until Kamsky is in round two, he drew yesterday and has an advantage - but not necessarily a winning one - in his game today. He might have to go to tie-breaks against his IM opponent.

Meanwhile, Wei Yi is 14 years, 2 months, and 10 days old. And he just beat Nepo cleanly with the black pieces to advance to round two. Got an edge early, slowly improved it to a winning position, and then converted smoothly despite heavy time pressure. I show his live rating at 2560 now, and to the best of my knowledge noone has ever had a published rating over 2600 prior to their 15th birthday. Seems like he could be the first if his next nine months are anything like what he did today.

Edit: Wesley So, 2610 on the October 2008 list, published 9 days prior to his 15th birthday. Which of course takes absolutely nothing away from Wei Yi's accomplishment.

Adams held to a second draw, will have to go to tie-breaks with an IM.

Ivanchuk talking is hilarious to watch

Robson went 2-0 against Volokitin? Geez.

Nakamura squeezes blood from a stone. His endgame technique is insane. His explanation in the post-mortem indicates that it's not trivial to draw even an opposite colored bishops ending against him.

Link to the nakamura post game?

http://new.livestream.com/cisha/wcc2013

Check round 1 game 2 part 4 at about 38:00 or so.

Half an hour until tiebreaks start. Cannot wait. REALLY pulling for Ramirez to upset Tomashevsky. Alejandro has been on fire lately.

Rd1 tiebreak in progress now http://www.chessworldcup2013.com/live. First day listening to Susan Polgar & Trent's commentary, not impressed with Susan so far. Nothing concrete, just general babble :/

Ok, perhaps Trent is responsible for calculating and Susan doesn't really calculate anything but instead just knows where the pieces go and how to evaluate