Help us Gata Kamsky, You’re Our Only Hope

It is now the round of 16 at the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia and only 1 American is left standing. GM Gata Kamsky is the last hope for the United States after Alexander Onischuk was downed in round 3 by GM Alexei Shirov. Shirov has been “On Fire” as of late; He had a solid +1 score at the Tal Memorial a few weeks ago, and now he is bringing the heat to the World Cup.

The big upset last round was GM Nisipeanu’s victory over Vassily Ivanchuk in the rapid tiebreaks. Ivanchuk won the first rapid tiebreak game, but Nisipeanu proved that he has the heart of a champion, and came back to win the 2nd rapid game to send it to blitz tiebreaks. In the first blitz game Ivanchuk’s nerves seemed to get the best of him as he trapped his own queen early in the game. In the 2nd blitz game, Ivanchuk won a pawn but it proved not to be enough for victory. Huge props to Nisi!

Today Kamsky drew his game against Russian GM Peter Svidler. The knight endgame that was reached was very interesting, and I’m not quite sure what was going on (which probably means it was just equal). Svidler had a far advanced passed pawn on a7 but there seemed no way to push it through for victory, in the end it looked like Kamsky even had an advantage but the game was eventually drawn. These 2 players are very evenly matched, I highly expect tomorrow’s game to be drawn and for this match to go to the tiebreaks.

Here are the complete results of todays games:

Karjakin, UKR 2694 1/2-1/2 Nisipeanu, ROM 2668
Bareev, RUS 2653 1/2-1/2 Alekseev, RUS 2716
Jakovenko, RUS 2710 1/2-1/2 Aronian, ARM 2741
Shirov, ESP 2739 1-0 Akopian, ARM 2713
Ponomariov, UKR 2705 1-0 Sasikiran, IND 2661
Kamsky, USA 2714 1/2-1/2 Svidler, RUS 2732
Adams, ENG 2729 0-1 Carlsen, NOR 2714
Wang Yue, CHN 2703 1/2-1/2 Cheparinov, BUL 2670