FIDE World Cup R1.3: 14-Year-Old Murzin Through
Four days before turning 15, IM Volodar Murzin reached the second round of the 2021 FIDE World Cup. The Russian teenager is among the 128 players to start round two on Thursday, which includes the top 50 seeds, such as GM Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.
How to watch?
The games of the FIDE World Cup can be found here: Open | Women. Chess.com provides daily commentary on Chess.com/TV and Twitch.tv/chess with GM Daniel Naroditsky, GM Hou Yifan, GM Veselin Topalov, GM Viswanathan Anand, and other guests.
We're used to the playing field cut in half after each round in FIDE World Cups but this time it was different. As the International Chess Federation wanted to have more players participate, an extra round of 156 players was held, and the 78 winners are now joined by 50 seeded players for round two. The same was done in the women's tournament but with half those numbers. After three days of chess, we're now back to the original knockout of 128 players in the open and 64 in the women's section.
On Wednesday, 28 matches were decided in tiebreaks. The biggest upset was 14-year-old Murzin, who will turn 15 on July 18, eliminating GM Viorel Iordachescu (Moldavia), 30 years older than him. Murzin is from Nizhny Tagil, a town 125 km north of Yekaterinburg, Russia but now lives in Khimki, in the Moscow region. He is the 2018 European U12 champion and will face GM Vladislav Artemiev in the next round.
Both their classical games, two 25+10 games, and the first 10+10 game had ended in draws when the teenager struck in the second 10+10:
Another IM-beating-GM case was IM Ravi Haria, who managed to knock out GM Vadim Zvjaginsev after all. We saw him winning on Monday and unnecessarily losing on Tuesday.
In the tiebreak, he won as White and then successfully held a rook endgame to a draw as Black. In round two, Haria will play GM Etienne Bacrot.
The English IM Ravi Haria eliminated GM Vadim Zvjaginsev, defending well in a rook endgame, with Veselin Topalov quoting some useful Mark Dvoretsky endgame wisdom:#FIDEWorldCup https://t.co/pnOQZUJkOZ pic.twitter.com/FZp7VFwb4S
— ChesscomNews (@ChesscomNews) July 14, 2021
In an unfortunate pairing between two players from Egypt, the favorite of the two, GM Ahmed Adly, was knocked out by GM Hesham Abdelrahman, who struck with the black pieces in the second rapid game to set up a round-two match with GM Constantin Lupulescu:
A big upset in the all-Egyptian match as GM Hesham Abdelrahman knocks out GM Ahmed Adly!https://t.co/dhxx620yGS#FIDEWorldCup pic.twitter.com/f4wjdBonPM
— ChesscomNews (@ChesscomNews) July 14, 2021
Pairings round 2
| Fed | Player | Rtg | - | Fed | Player | Rtg |
| GM Martinovic, Sasa | 2548 | - | GM Carlsen, Magnus | 2847 | ||
| GM Caruana, Fabiano | 2806 | - | GM Megaranto, Susanto | 2550 | ||
| GM Cheng, Bobby | 2552 | - | GM Aronian, Levon | 2782 | ||
| GM Giri, Anish | 2776 | - | GM Savchenko, Boris | 2553 | ||
| GM Perez Ponsa, Federico | 2554 | - | GM Grischuk, Alexander | 2778 | ||
| GM Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | 2782 | - | GM Mekhitarian, Krikor Sevag | 2554 | ||
| GM Moradiabadi, Elshan | 2553 | - | GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | 2749 | ||
| GM Firouzja, Alireza | 2759 | - | GM Sindarov, Javokhir | 2558 | ||
| GM Vakhidov, Jakhongir | 2534 | - | GM Dominguez Perez, Leinier | 2758 | ||
| GM Karjakin, Sergey | 2757 | - | GM Vokhidov, Shamsiddin | 2530 | ||
| GM Quesada Perez, Yasser | 2565 | - | GM Harikrishna, Pentala | 2730 | ||
| GM Duda, Jan-Krzysztof | 2738 | - | IM Vazquez, Guillermo | 2527 | ||
| GM Fier, Alexandr | 2569 | - | GM Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi | 2726 | ||
| GM Andreikin, Dmitry | 2724 | - | GM Can, Emre | 2569 | ||
| GM Plat, Vojtech | 2525 | - | GM Vitiugov, Nikita | 2724 | ||
| GM Esipenko, Andrey | 2716 | - | GM Nguyen, Thai Dai Van | 2588 | ||
| GM Gukesh, D | 2578 | - | GM Dubov, Daniil | 2714 | ||
| GM Svidler, Peter | 2714 | - | GM Salinas Herrera, Pablo | 2514 | ||
| GM Ivic, Velimir | 2582 | - | GM Vallejo Pons, Francisco | 2710 | ||
| GM Xiong, Jeffery | 2709 | - | GM Mikhalevski, Victor | 2579 | ||
| GM Iniyan, P | 2506 | - | GM Tomashevsky, Evgeny | 2706 | ||
| GM Yu, Yangyi | 2705 | - | GM Kadric, Denis | 2564 | ||
| IM Murzin, Volodar | 2502 | - | GM Artemiev, Vladislav | 2704 | ||
| GM Amin, Bassem | 2703 | - | GM Gabuzyan, Hovhannes | 2587 | ||
| IM Druska, Juraj | 2493 | - | GM Van Foreest, Jorden | 2688 | ||
| GM Alekseenko, Kirill | 2699 | - | GM Krasenkow, Michal | 2591 | ||
| GM Brkic, Ante | 2592 | - | GM Kryvoruchko, Yuriy | 2699 | ||
| GM Maghsoodloo, Parham | 2698 | - | GM Georgiev, Kiril | 2594 | ||
| GM Yakubboev, Nodirbek | 2598 | - | GM Navara, David | 2675 | ||
| GM Fedoseev, Vladimir | 2696 | - | GM Bachmann, Axel | 2599 | ||
| GM Jobava, Baadur | 2603 | - | GM Shankland, Sam | 2709 | ||
| GM Matlakov, Maxim | 2688 | - | GM Gretarsson, Hjorvar Steinn | 2603 | ||
| GM Alekseev, Evgeny | 2605 | - | GM Wojtaszek, Radoslaw | 2691 | ||
| GM Areshchenko, Alexander | 2687 | - | GM Ivanisevic, Ivan | 2606 | ||
| GM Gareyev, Timur | 2596 | - | GM Jakovenko, Dmitry | 2684 | ||
| GM Predke, Alexandr | 2683 | - | GM Durarbayli, Vasif | 2625 | ||
| GM Henriquez Villagra, Cristobal | 2606 | - | GM Korobov, Anton | 2683 | ||
| GM Salem, A.R. Saleh | 2682 | - | GM Indjic, Aleksandar | 2607 | ||
| GM Praggnanandhaa, R | 2608 | - | GM Sargissian, Gabriel | 2682 | ||
| GM Ragger, Markus | 2680 | - | GM Piorun, Kacper | 2608 | ||
| IM Haria, Ravi | 2440 | - | GM Bacrot, Etienne | 2678 | ||
| GM Gelfand, Boris | 2675 | - | GM Braun, Arik | 2609 | ||
| GM Tabatabaei, M. Amin | 2613 | - | GM Berkes, Ferenc | 2673 | ||
| GM Anton Guijarro, David | 2673 | - | GM Idani, Pouya | 2614 | ||
| GM Akobian, Varuzhan | 2614 | - | GM Grandelius, Nils | 2661 | ||
| GM Bluebaum, Matthias | 2669 | - | GM Erdos, Viktor | 2614 | ||
| GM Svane, Rasmus | 2615 | - | GM Cheparinov, Ivan | 2667 | ||
| GM Malakhov, Vladimir | 2666 | - | GM Vocaturo, Daniele | 2617 | ||
| GM Sargsyan, Shant | 2626 | - | GM Abasov, Nijat | 2656 | ||
| GM Shirov, Alexei | 2662 | - | GM Zherebukh, Yaroslav | 2620 | ||
| GM Nihal, Sarin | 2620 | - | GM Sjugirov, Sanan | 2661 | ||
| GM Adhiban, B. | 2660 | - | GM Delgado Ramirez, Neuris | 2622 | ||
| GM Bok, Benjamin | 2624 | - | GM Sevian, Samuel | 2647 | ||
| GM Lupulescu, Constantin | 2659 | - | GM Hesham, Abdelrahman | 2397 | ||
| GM Deac, Bogdan-Daniel | 2639 | - | GM Oparin, Grigoriy | 2654 | ||
| GM Kuzubov, Yuriy | 2653 | - | GM Ponkratov, Pavel | 2629 | ||
| GM Mareco, Sandro | 2629 | - | GM Cori, Jorge | 2652 | ||
| GM Onischuk, Alexander | 2649 | - | GM Paravyan, David | 2625 | ||
| GM Mustafa Yilmaz | 2630 | GM Haik Martirosyan | 2632 | |||
| GM Saric, Ivan | 2653 | - | GM Pichot, Alan | 2630 | ||
| GM Abdusattorov, Nodirbek | 2634 | - | GM Aravindh, Chithambaram VR. | 2641 | ||
| GM Sarana, Alexey | 2640 | - | GM Kovalev, Vladislav | 2637 | ||
| GM Jumabayev, Rinat | 2637 | - | GM Motylev, Alexander | 2639 | ||
| GM Tari, Aryan | 2639 | - | GM Bareev, Evgeny | 2638 |
The women's section saw just one upset as the American WGM Jennifer Yu (2289) eliminated IM Klaudia Kulon (2363) of Poland by winning both rapid games with remarkable ease. Here's the first:
WGM Shahenda Wafa (2106) from Egypt put up a great fight against the French WGM and commentator Almira Skripchenko (2411). She actually won the first rapid game, but Skripchenko came back and then won both 10+10 games.
Here's Skripchenko's must-win in the second rapid game:
Round 2 pairings
| Fed | Player | Rating | - | Fed | Player | Rating |
| GM Goryachkina, Aleksandra | 2596 | - | WGM Tokhirjonova, Gulrukhbegim | 2320 | ||
| IM Badelka, Olga | 2418 | - | IM Matnadze, Ana | 2421 | ||
| WGM Pogonina, Natalija | 2469 | - | IM Kulkarni Bhakti | 2391 | ||
| WGM Maltsevskaya, Aleksandra | 2382 | - | GM Stefanova, Antoaneta | 2463 | ||
| IM Kashlinskaya, Alina | 2488 | - | IM Ordaz Valdes, Lisandra Teresa | 2369 | ||
| GM Hoang, Thanh Trang | 2404 | - | IM Galliamova, Alisa | 2442 | ||
| IM Bulmaga, Irina | 2413 | - | GM Danielian, Elina | 2407 | ||
| WGM Yu, Jennifer | 2289 | - | IM Saduakassova, Dinara | 2483 | ||
| GM Dzagnidze, Nana | 2523 | - | GM Peng, Zhaoqin | 2358 | ||
| IM Buksa, Nataliya | 2413 | - | IM Yip, Carissa | 2430 | ||
| WGM Girya, Olga | 2448 | - | WGM Garifullina, Leya | 2390 | ||
| WIM Munkhzul, Turmunkh | 2278 | - | IM Shuvalova, Polina | 2489 | ||
| IM Javakhishvili, Lela | 2470 | - | IM Mammadova, Gulnar | 2385 | ||
| IM Salimova, Nurgyul | 2395 | - | IM Paehtz, Elisabeth | 2466 | ||
| IM Atalik, Ekaterina | 2433 | - | IM Guichard, Pauline | 2413 | ||
| WGM Abrahamyan, Tatev | 2352 | - | GM Muzychuk, Anna | 2527 | ||
| GM Muzychuk, Mariya | 2550 | - | IM Gaponenko, Inna | 2357 | ||
| IM Cyfka, Karina | 2417 | - | GM Ushenina, Anna | 2429 | ||
| GM Cramling, Pia | 2459 | - | GM Socko, Monika | 2393 | ||
| WGM Cori T., Deysi | 2388 | - | GM Kosteniuk, Alexandra | 2472 | ||
| GM Batsiashvili, Nino | 2487 | - | IM Tsolakidou, Stavroula | 2389 | ||
| WGM Zawadzka, Jolanta | 2403 | - | IM Bodnaruk, Anastasia | 2446 | ||
| GM Gunina, Valentina | 2437 | - | IM Sukandar, Irine Kharisma | 2413 | ||
| IM Aulia, Medina Warda | 2360 | - | GM Harika, Dronavalli | 2515 | ||
| GM Tan, Zhongyi | 2511 | - | WGM Yildiz Kadioglu, Betul Cemre | 2362 | ||
| IM Skripchenko, Almira | 2411 | - | GM Sebag, Marie | 2483 | ||
| IM Mammadzada, Gunay | 2460 | - | IM Unuk, Laura | 2407 | ||
| IM Padmini, Rout | 2370 | - | IM Khademalsharieh, Sarasadat | 2494 | ||
| GM Abdumalik, Zhansaya | 2505 | - | IM Assaubayeva, Bibisara | 2389 | ||
| WGM Vaishali R | 2393 | - | GM Khotenashvili, Bela | 2471 | ||
| IM Munguntuul, Batkhuyag | 2428 | - | IM Osmak, Iulija | 2418 | ||
| WGM Injac, Teodora | 2370 | - | GM Lagno, Kateryna | 2559 |
The FIDE World Cup takes place in the Galaxy Leisure Complex in Sochi, Russia until August 6, 2021. Each round consists of two classical games and, if necessary, a rapid/blitz tiebreak on the third day. Starting from round two, the Open section has 128 players and the women's section 64.
Previous report:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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