The World Cup field is down to the last eight. The fourth round saw several close encounters and a couple went down to the wire. Judit Polgar, who knocked out top-seed Sergei Karjakin in Rd 3, came back from the dead in Rd 4. After losing the first game to Perez Lenier Dominguez. she won the second to force a tiebreak. Then they traded wins in four rapids and drew the first blitz before Judit won the second blitz tiebreak.
Ruslan Ponomariov had a similarly rocky ride against another Cuban, Lazaro Bruzon-Batista, before winning the second blitz. Vugar Gashimov squandered an early lead and had to fight the rapids to beat Peter Hiene Nielsen. Sasha Grischuk made a combeback against friend, second and Euro champion Vlad Potkin. After losing game 1, Grischuk equalised in game 2, and then beat Potkin in the rapids.
Ivanchuk was also pushed to a tiebreak but put it across Bu Xiangzhi 2-0 in rapids, without much fuss. Svidler displayed formidable form to manage a 2-0 shutout of Gata Kamsky in normal time while Radjabov beat Jakovenko.
David Navarra, who had been previously involved in a wonderful display of reciprocal sportsmanship versus Alexander Moiseenko, beat the young Jaroslav Zherebukh 2-0 in normal time.
Navarra had accidentally nudged two pieces in a third round game versus Moiseenko. Moiseenko declined to demand an imposition of the “touch move rule”, which would have meant instant victory in that position.
Navarra then achieved a completely won position, and offered a draw when he could have forced checkmate in two! He beat Moiseenko in the tie-break. There was a minimum of $20,000 riding on the result so, one can quantify the opportunity cost of behaving ethically.
The QF pair-offs are Svidler-Polgar, Ponomariov-Gashimov, Ivanchuk-Radjabov and Navara-Grischuk. There’s now around $1.6 million on the table in prize money and three Candidate spots are also at stake. So, the pressure mounts. These are all super GM pair offs among highly experienced campaigners and it would very difficult to make predictions. Do check in for the splendid live HD video coverage.
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The Diagram, BLACK TO PLAY (Lenier Domingueez Vs Polgar, WC Rd4, Blitz Game 2) is from the key tiebreaker. Polgar found the sledgehammer 19. - Nxf3 !! The point is that 20. Nxf3 Qxc2+ and 20. Bxc7 Nxe1 21. Bf4 Nxc2! lose and white’s position collapses.
White tried 20.Qg3 e5! Now 20. Qxf3 Rxd4 and 20. Be3 Nxd4 are convincing enough and the threat of mate on c2-d1 still hangs in the air. After 21.Bg2 exf4 22.Qxf3 Rxd4 23.Nxd4 Bxf3 24.Bxf3 Nd7 it's just a mopping-up operation with 25.Rhe1 Bf6 26.Nc6 Ne5 27.Nxe5 Qxc2+ 28.Ka1 Bxe5 29.Rb1 f6 30.Be4 Qd2 31.Bf5 Bxb2+ (0-1)
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player