For those that didn't see it, and want to test themselves, here is the position from Shimanov v Kamsky after 19. ... Rh6. White to play and win:



If you can't find it, don't beat yourself up, Shimanov didn't either. And played 20. Rf2 instead. Hint: Rf2 is wrong. It creates this position - black to play and win:

As far as games that I think I'll be able to learn the most from, this Wei Yi/Shirov ending looks extremely instructive for players of my level (maybe trivial to you FM types?). At one point he had rook+5 pawns vs. rook+bishop, and the computer had him around +1.00. Now he has rook+3 pawns vs. rook+bishop and the computer is saying +2.33. Good lesson on how valuable it is to have connected advanced pawns. Three pawns threatening to queen is more valuable than 5 pawns not. Obvious, when you say it that way, but the details of how the ending has played out are something I'll want to look very closely at, and I expect to learn a lot from.

go wei yi, go granda \o/ (my poor bracket)

This Wei Yi guy is quite a shocker. He even said that his sacriface (or rather exchange; bishop for 3 pawns) wasn't part of his preparation and he played the whole game very quickly and confidently.

Kamsky did end up losing, wow. Scroll through the engine evals on that one. Nuts.

Bob - that second position, the knight should be on h5

Weird, I used the pgn straight from the official site, so didn't bother to error check. I'll clean it up.

Edit: Fixed

Wang Hao mentioned that Wei Yi is really a 2700+.
If Mamedyarov wins then the next round should be very interesting.

trouble for the g-star raw posterboy

I mean let's not go overboard though. He's not "really" a 2700+ until he at least starts consistently posting performance ratings in that range. Sure through the World Cup so far he's at 2739 performance, but in his last three major events in China he's scored 50% in all three, against opponents averaging 2617, 2492, and 2621. And in his last twelve games against players rated below 2600, he's +4, =5, -3. He's a phenom, and I won't be surprised if he gets his rating to 2700 faster than anyone else in history, and he's playing above 2700 level this week, but it's still premature to say that's actually his true strength.

I'd love to see him win again next round. Obviously Mamedyarov would be a huge measuring stick, but it's not like Matlakov is any slouch at 2676 either. Another 1.5/2 against him would be enough to make these first two rounds look a lot less like positive variance, and a lot more like "true strength".

LOL at the chessworldcup site.

In the window where you get the live feed and can follow any game you want in the browser. This is the second round, How is it that when you got to certain games instead of having the image of the player you have a question mark? I can see the first round maybe not having all the pics but by the second.

Odd

Fun fact - there are still two players that had all their games end in decisive results. M. Vachier - Lagrave has won all 4 games, while Jobava has won 4 and lost 2. Fighting spirit!

Also, missing Qxh2+ in Kamsky's game is pretty LOL at this level..

Here's a really good article from IM Bryan Smith on some endgames from the first round. I really like his articles.

http://www.chess.com/article/view/th...soslash-part-1

Kobalia trying to draw all games and win armageddon?

Was just about to post the same thing, wlrs. Agreeing to a draw after 12 moves as white? Geez.

HAMMER!!!

Edit: I would so love to see Hammer vs. Wei Yi in Round 4, guaranteeing that one of them makes it to the quarterfinals. They'll just have to knock off Kamsky and Mamedyarov, respectively, to make it happen. I'm using my "one time".

Well, that didn't work. Needless to say, Kramnik crushed him with white in the next game.

Not as bad as Dubov agreeing to a draw with white after black had made only 7 moves - when he had ALREADY drawn his game as black, and had a chance to try to end the match right there with the white pieces.

Didn't notice that until you pointed it out. What the heck?

Thought: is there anything more fun to watch than these tiebreak games in the world cup? This is just awesome.

Yeah a nice way to start early Friday night, watching these and the athletics world champs in Moscow

I also agree. It's very entertaining.

ooh armageddoooon coming (i think). at the stage of drinking vodka+grapefruit juice now where it's lucrative to play 1-minute and poker. next stage of drunkenness: dancing seems like a good idea
edit: oops its not armageddon yet

One blitz game with white, win and advance? 10 move draw! Dubov clearly just REALLY thinks his best chance is in Armageddon I guess.

Edit: He does have black in Armageddon, right? I suppose if you drew two classical games, then two G/25s, then two G/10s, and then two G/5s, draw odds would feel pretty promising.

Actually Ponomariov is going to have the black pieces.