FIDE World Cup Khanty Mansiysk 2011 (1.1)
Shankland shocks Leko on first day of FIDE World Cup
Mark Crowther - Sunday 28th August 2011
Peter Leko's loss with white in the final game to finish against Sam Shankland was the big shock of the day, especially as it was he that was pressing most of the time. Wang Yue will need to beat Alexandr Fier with white after being well beaten. There were wins for amongst others Karjakin, Ivanchuk, Mamedyarov, Ponomariov, Gashimov, Grischuk, Radjabov, Kamsky, Jakovenko, Almasi, Vallejo, Navara, Dominquez, Le, Adams, Shirov, Jovava, Caruana, Nepomniachtchi etc. The official video coverage with pictures and English commentary was excellent. The first day of the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk offered few real surprises. The seeding system meant that the top seed Sergey Karjakin played bottom seed Mejdi Kaabi, 2nd seed Ivanchuk played Henry Steel etc. So most surprises occurred on the lower boards where the most closely ranked players met. Indeed 13 of the top 14 seeds all won. There were some minor surprises in Darcy Lima's draw against Peter Svidler and in form Alexander Morozevich's failure to win as white against Stelios Halkios. Alexandr Fier (2566) scored the first real shock against Wang Yue. Fier simply outplayed Wang on the white side of a Slav. The major shock, and one that will be difficult to recover from, was Peter Leko's loss with white to Sam Shankland. Leko pressed for a very long time but at some point after the first time control he started to get frustrated. Then very quickly Shankland took advantage and by the time Leko thought to offer a draw his position was probably beyond fixing. Shankland is probably a little under-rated playing most of his chess in the US and Leko a little out of practice having only returned for the Olympiad. The tightness of the schedule for the French players may cost them, their national championships only finishing a couple of days ago. Vachier and Bacrot drew, Feller lost and only Fressinet won. The early rounds of the World Cup are very difficult to cover properly. Henry Steel played with good energy against Vassily Ivanchuk but was probably a lot worse throughout and eventually allowed a nice mate. Judit Polgar grabbed material at the expense of an open king but she held on to everything on the way to a nice win. Those were just a couple of games that caught my eye. The official site started reasonably well with the promise of much better to come. The downside was that it went down a couple of times during the day. But the videos and live games are on separate servers and they remained very much stable. The continuation of the video coverage that was seen in the Candidates was hugely encouraging. With so many players it was difficult to get close to the games but the filming gave a good impression of the crowded conditions that will thin considerably in the next few days. Anna Sharevich and Konstantin Landa did an excellent job in commentating in English (there was a separate Russian feed) and there was some coverage of press conferences and Anna Sharevich provided a more than acceptable translation. One could hardly ask for more.
Shankland shocks Leko on first day of FIDE World Cup
Mark Crowther - Sunday 28th August 2011
Peter Leko's loss with white in the final game to finish against Sam Shankland was the big shock of the day, especially as it was he that was pressing most of the time. Wang Yue will need to beat Alexandr Fier with white after being well beaten. There were wins for amongst others Karjakin, Ivanchuk, Mamedyarov, Ponomariov, Gashimov, Grischuk, Radjabov, Kamsky, Jakovenko, Almasi, Vallejo, Navara, Dominquez, Le, Adams, Shirov, Jovava, Caruana, Nepomniachtchi etc. The official video coverage with pictures and English commentary was excellent. The first day of the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk offered few real surprises. The seeding system meant that the top seed Sergey Karjakin played bottom seed Mejdi Kaabi, 2nd seed Ivanchuk played Henry Steel etc. So most surprises occurred on the lower boards where the most closely ranked players met. Indeed 13 of the top 14 seeds all won. There were some minor surprises in Darcy Lima's draw against Peter Svidler and in form Alexander Morozevich's failure to win as white against Stelios Halkios. Alexandr Fier (2566) scored the first real shock against Wang Yue. Fier simply outplayed Wang on the white side of a Slav. The major shock, and one that will be difficult to recover from, was Peter Leko's loss with white to Sam Shankland. Leko pressed for a very long time but at some point after the first time control he started to get frustrated. Then very quickly Shankland took advantage and by the time Leko thought to offer a draw his position was probably beyond fixing. Shankland is probably a little under-rated playing most of his chess in the US and Leko a little out of practice having only returned for the Olympiad. The tightness of the schedule for the French players may cost them, their national championships only finishing a couple of days ago. Vachier and Bacrot drew, Feller lost and only Fressinet won. The early rounds of the World Cup are very difficult to cover properly. Henry Steel played with good energy against Vassily Ivanchuk but was probably a lot worse throughout and eventually allowed a nice mate. Judit Polgar grabbed material at the expense of an open king but she held on to everything on the way to a nice win. Those were just a couple of games that caught my eye. The official site started reasonably well with the promise of much better to come. The downside was that it went down a couple of times during the day. But the videos and live games are on separate servers and they remained very much stable. The continuation of the video coverage that was seen in the Candidates was hugely encouraging. With so many players it was difficult to get close to the games but the filming gave a good impression of the crowded conditions that will thin considerably in the next few days. Anna Sharevich and Konstantin Landa did an excellent job in commentating in English (there was a separate Russian feed) and there was some coverage of press conferences and Anna Sharevich provided a more than acceptable translation. One could hardly ask for more.
