The Chess World Cup 2009 was a 128-player

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, ...

, played between 20 November and 14 December 2009, in

Khanty-Mansiysk Khanty-Mansiysk (, lit. ''Khanty-Mansi Town''; Khanty: , ''Jomvoćś''; Mansi: , ''Abga'') is a city in west-central Russia. Technically, it is situated on the eastern bank of the Irtysh River, from its confluence with the Ob, in the oil-ri ...

, Russia. The Cup winner qualified for the Candidates stage of the World Chess Championship 2012.

Boris Gelfand Boris Abramovich Gelfand (; born 24 June 1968) is a Belarusian-Israeli chess player. A six-time World Championship candidate (1991, 1994–95, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2013), he won the Chess World Cup 2009 and the 2011 Candidates Tournament, mak ...

defeated Ruslan Ponomariov in the final. The winner of the Chess World Cup 2007, Gata Kamsky, was defeated by Wesley So in the third round.

Format

Matches consisted of two games (except for the final, which consisted of four). Players had 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from move one. If the match was tied after the regular games, tie breaks were played on the next day. The format for the tie breaks was as follows: * Four rapid games (25 minutes plus 10 second

increment Increment or incremental may refer to: *Incrementalism, a theory (also used in politics as a synonym for gradualism) * Increment and decrement operators, the operators ++ and -- in computer programming * Incremental computing * Incremental backup ...

) were played. According to chess journalist Mig Greengard, a "high FIDE official" admitted off the record that this unusual decision of playing four games instead of two was actually a mistake that was spotted too late to correct it. * If the score was still tied, up to five pairs of blitz games (5 minutes plus 3 second increment) were played. If one player led after a pair of blitz games, that player was declared the winner. This was a change from previous events, for instance at the Chess World Cup 2007 the match went to an armageddon game after a single pair of blitz games. * If the score was still tied after five pairs of blitz games, a single

armageddon Armageddon ( ; ; ; from ) is the prophesied gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, according to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Armageddon is variously interpreted as either a literal or a ...

game (white must win, black only needs to draw) would be played. White had 5 minutes, black had 4 minutes, and both players had three-second increments beginning with move 61. Ultimately, no Armageddon games were played, as all matches were decided before that stage.

Participants

The players qualified for the event were: # , 2758 (R) # , 2758 (R) # , 2754 (R) # , 2750 (R) # , 2748 (R) # , 2739 (R) # , 2739 (R) # , 2736 (R) # , 2736 (R) # , 2734 (R) # , 2729 (E09) # , 2723 (SF) # , 2719 (R) # , 2719 (SF) # , 2719 (R) # , 2718 (E08) # , 2718 (E08) # , 2715 (R) # , 2708 (E09) # , 2708 (R) # , 2707 (E09) # , 2706 (R) # , 2700 (R) # , 2697 (R) # , 2696 (E09) # , 2695 (E09) # , 2695 (SF) # , 2694 (E09) # , 2692 (E08) # , 2689 (E09) # , 2682 (R) # , 2680 (R) # , 2677 (E09) # , 2676 (E08) # , 2672 (Z2.1) # , 2671 (PN) # , 2668 (E08) # , 2666 (E08) # , 2666 (E08) # , 2664 (E08) # , 2664 (E09) # , 2664 (R) # , 2662 (E08) # , 2655 (E08) # , 2654 (AS) # , 2653 (Z2.4) # , 2653 (E08) # , 2653 (E09) # , 2652 (E08) # , 2652 (PN) # , 2652 (E09) # , 2652 (R) # , 2651 (E09) # , 2645 (E09) # , 2644 (E09) # , 2643 (E09) # , 2642 (PN) # , 2642 (E08) # , 2640 (Z3.3) # , 2640 (AM09) # , 2637 (E08) # , 2636 (E08) # , 2634 (E09) # , 2631 (Z3.4) # , 2629 (E08) # , 2629 (Z3.5) # , 2628 (E08) # , 2628 (E08) # , 2626 (E09) # , 2625 (E09) # , 2624 (Z2.1) # , 2624 (AS) # , 2623 (AS) # , 2623 (Z2.1) # , 2622 (E08) # , 2621 (Z2.4) # , 2620 (AS) # , 2619 (E09) # , 2619 (Z2.3) # , 2618 (E09) # , 2615 (E09) # , 2612 (E09) # , 2612 (E08) # , 2607 (Z3.4) # , 2606 (AM09) # , 2606 (AM08) # , 2606 (E08) # , 2605 (AM09) # , 2605 (Z2.3) # , 2603 (PN) # , 2603 (AS) # , 2603 (AM09) # , 2602 (E08) # , 2602 (AM09) # , 2596 (Z3.5) # , 2591 (E09) # , 2590 (E08) # , 2589 (PN) # , 2588 (AS) # , 2583 (J07) # , 2578 (J08) # , 2574 (AS) # , 2572 (Z2.1) # , 2567, IM (PN) # , 2562 (Z2.5) # , 2561 (E09) # , 2553 (AF) # , 2552 (Z3.3) # , 2551 (Z2.1) # , 2539 (AM09) # , 2533, IM (ON) # , 2529 (AS) # , 2527 (AS) # , 2525 (Z3.6) # , 2522 (AS) # , 2516 (WWC) # , 2508 (Z2.5) # , 2504 (Z3.1) # , 2501 (ON) # , 2500 (AF) # , 2497, IM (Z3.2) # , 2493 (AF) # , 2484 (ON) # , 2472, IM (AF) # , 2469, IM (AF) # , 2420, IM (Z2.2) # , 2405, IM (AF) # , 2404, IM (ON) All players are grandmasters unless indicated otherwise. The pairings of the 1st round (players were seeded according to their ratings) were announced on 2 November 2009, immediately after the publishing of the November rating list. The list of players who declined participation: Anand, Carlsen, Topalov, Aronian, Kramnik,

Leko Leko may refer to: * Leko (surname) * Leko languages, a small group of African Savanna languages * Leco language, a moribund isolate language of Bolivia * Lekolite or Leko, a type of stage spotlight * Alexandro da Silva Santos or Leko, Brazilian fo ...

, Adams, Nakamura, and Ni Hua. Among them, Anand, Topalov and Aronian had already qualified for the Candidates or the Championship match; Carlsen, Kramnik, Nakamura, Adams and Ni had committed to play in the London Chess Classic on 7–15 December 2009. Qualification paths: *SF: Semi-finalist of Chess World Cup 2007 *WWC: Women's World Champion *J07 and J08: World Junior Champions 2007 and 2008 *R: Rating (average of July 2008 and January 2009 ratings is used) *E08 and E09: European Individual Championships 2008 and 2009 *AM08: Pan American Chess Championship 2008 *AM09: Continental Absolute Chess Championship Americas 2009 *AS: Asian Chess Championship 2009 *AF: African Chess Championship 2009 * Z2.1, Z2.2, Z2.3, Z2.4, Z2.5, Z3.1, Z3.2, Z3.3, Z3.4, Z3.5, Z3.6: Zonal tournaments *PN: FIDE president nominee *ON: Organizer nominee

Calendar

Summary of results

Round one

In the first round of the tournament all of the top 30 seeded players progressed, with the sole exception of Slovakian

Sergei Movsesian Sergei Musheghi Movsesian (; born 3 November 1978) is an Armenian chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1997. He was a member of the gold medal-winning Armenian team at the 2011 World Team Chess Championship in Ningbo. ...

(16), who was eliminated by the Chinese 113th seed

Yu Yangyi Yu Yangyi (; born 8 June 1994) is a Chinese chess grandmaster. He qualified for the Grandmaster title at 14 years, 11 months and 23 days old in 2009. He is a three-time Chinese Chess Champion and the 2014 Asian Chess Champion. He was a me ...

Judit Polgár Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, widely regarded as the Strong (chess), strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years ...

achieved a walkover, due to her opponent Duško Pavasovič withdrawing from the competition due to injury.Susan Polgar blog entry, 'The WC round 1 matchups' dated November 21 2009.
/ref> The round was notable for the 16-game match between Pavel Tregubov and Varuzhan Akobian: after each winning with white over the first two days, their tiebreak held a marathon of four rapid games followed by ten blitz games. The two players fought until near 1 a.m. local time for the right to face Ruslan Ponomariov in the second round (which would start the next morning), Akobian finally achieving the decisive two-point advantage in the final bout before an

Armageddon Armageddon ( ; ; ; from ) is the prophesied gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, according to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Armageddon is variously interpreted as either a literal or a ...

game would have been required.

Round two

The first day of Round Two included a number of upsets. The highest seed to have won their match was Alexander Grischuk (8), as Peter Svidler (3), Alexander Morozevich (4),

Teimour Radjabov Teimour Boris oghlu Radjabov (also spelled Teymur Rajabov; , ; born 12 March 1987) is an Azerbaijani Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster. A former child prodigy, he earned the title of Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster in March 2001 at age 14, ...

(5) and Vassily Ivanchuk (6) all lost and the remaining highest seeds (Gelfand, Gashimov and Ponomariov) drew. On the next day of matches, Morozevich, Radjabov and Ivanchuk were all eliminated, and exactly half of the matches went to tie-breaks. Of the 32 players to reach Round Three, all but seven players had been originally seeded in the top 32.

Round three

Sixteen-year-old Wesley So, who had upset Ivanchuk in Round Two, achieved another major upset, defeating Gata Kamsky, the 2007 winner, 1½-½. In the second rapid tiebreak, Chinese players Wang Yue and Li Chao were not at their seats for the start of the round, and lost the game, and their matches against Bacrot and Gashimov.

Round four

This round marked the departure of most of the youthful players from the World Cup. Wesley So (16), Fabiano Caruana (17) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (19) were eliminated by the more experienced Malakhov, Gashimov and Gelfand respectively, leaving Sergey Karjakin the only under-20 player left in contention.

Results, rounds 1–4

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Results, rounds 5–7

Final, 10–14 December

References

External links

World Cup 2009
– Official site {{Chess World Cups

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