Morozevich & Polgar Start With Losses at FIDE World Cup

On Sunday the 2013 FIDE World Cup started in Tromsø, Norway. The first round saw a number of upsets, e.g. Alexander Morozevich losing to Bator Sambuev (2530) of Canada and Judit Polgar going down against Isan Reynaldo Ortiz Suarez (2612, Cuba). The second game of the first round will be played on Monday, and all matches that end in 1-1 will be decided in tiebreaks on Tuesday.

The World Cup was officially opened on Saturday night at Tromsø University. One of the people on stage was 12th World Champion Anatoly Karpov, who is the ambassador for the tournament. Earlier that day, the chess legend had been involved in a number of friendly chess activities, including a street simul.

The opening ceremony included a performance by the Norwegian singer Elle Márjá Eira. Below is a video produced by ChessVibes which combines Eira singing with a guitarist, and parts from an interview with the tournament's executive director, Børge Robertsen.

ChessVibes also spoke with two top GMs and let's embed these interviews as well. Michael Adams comments upon his recent victory in Dortmund:

Peter Svidler won the previous World Cup, in 2011 in Khanty-Mansiysk. At the start of the interview he is asked what it takes to win a World Cup:

At Tromsø's Scandic Hotel, the first day of the World Cup started with a 15-minute delay. The round should have started at 3pm local time, but right at that moment the Chief Arbiter announced that it would start at 3.15 instead. The reason? Many players were not at their board yet, but instead queueing before the entrance to the playing hall, where they all needed to undergo a security check! The zero-tolerance rule is in effect at the tournament, but nobody wants to start a World Cup with dozens of forfeits...

After the delay, the players all stood up and together with the arbiters, officials and spectators they held one minute of silence in memory of their colleague Igor Kurnosov, who tragically died only a few days ago. 

And then the tournament finally started, with 126 players from all over the world, on 63 boards. Not 64, because GM Ahmed Adly of Egypt was not allowed to travel to Tromsø, and so his opponent Alexander Moiseenko starts with three rest days.

Besides two quick draws (Zvjaginsev-Swiercz in 12 moves and Lupulescu-Sasikiran in 19) the round saw many big fights. Let's look at a few, in board order.

Top seed Levon Aronian's opening against Mikhail Markov of Kyrgyzstan wasn't too impressive, and for a moment it looked like Black was better in the ending, but eventually the Armenian pulled it off.

Fabiano Caruana nicely outplayed his opponent in an ending:

Essam El Gindy of Egypt came close to beating Cuba's top GM Leinier Dominguez, the winner of the Thessaloniki Grand Prix. 31.Qf6 wins on the spot; instead the Eyptian grandmaster even lost.

The biggest upset was Alexander Morozevich's loss to Bator Sambuev of Canada, who successfully created chaos on the board - often the best chance against a much stronger opponent. With his last move before the time control, Morozevich goes from better to worse (he should have played 40...Bxe4 41.Qxe4 Rd5).

A number of strong players started with draws, for instance Gata Kamsky, Wang Hao, Michael Adams, Vassily Ivanchuk and Teimour Radjabov. The interesting pairing Alexei Shirov vs. Hou Yifan also saw a draw in the first game; the Chinese demonstrated how important it is to have basic endgame knowledge.

Judit Polgar suffered a loss and so she needs to win with white tomorrow to stay in the tournament.

Ray Robson won an excellent game against the higher rated Andrey Volokitin:

The tournament website is providing daily live coverage by Susan Polgar & Lawrence Trent, and this show will be put up in segments on the videos page. At the time of writing there is a nice bit with Anna Ushenina and Peter Svidler. Here's the video and that game:

FIDE World Cup 2013 | Day 1 results

Held every two years, the World Cup is part of the World Championship cycle. The winner and the runner-up will qualify for the 2014 Candidates Tournament. The World Cup takes place August 10th-September 3rd in Tromsø, Norway. Photos by Paul Truong courtesy of the official website; games via TWIC.