Sunday 3 September 2017

Draw for Smirnov

The first round of the 2017 FIDE World Cup is underway, and a few of the early results have come in. Significantly for Australia, IM Anton Smirnov has drawn his first game against GM Sergey Karjakin. The opening was a fairly sharp line of the QGD (with Bf4) but eventually simplified into a heavy piece ending that was drawn on move 30. The two players return to the board tomorrow, with Karjakin having the advantage of the white pieces.
Most of the other games to finish have ended in draws, with a few highly rated players (Ivanchuk, Radjubov) taking the peaceful route. So far there has only been one real upset, with Sambuev (CAN) cracking GM Yi Wei, but Alex Fier (BRA) is looking good against Bacrot (FRA) and that may also end in a win for the lower rated player.

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