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🏆 World Cup (2015)

  PARTICIPANTS (sorted by highest achieved rating; click on name to see player's games)
Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, Wesley So, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vladimir Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, Ding Liren, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk, Anish Giri, Teimour Radjabov, Sergey Karjakin, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Boris Gelfand, Peter Svidler, Leinier Dominguez Perez, Pentala Harikrishna, Pavel Eljanov, Peter Leko, Gata Kamsky, Hao Wang, Yangyi Yu, Michael Adams, Dmitry Jakovenko, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Wei Yi, David Navara, Nikita Vitiugov, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Le Quang Liem, Maxim Matlakov, Dmitry Andreikin, Vladimir Fedoseev, Ernesto Inarkiev, Vladislav Artemiev, Sam Shankland, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, Alexander Moiseenko, Andrei Volokitin, Hua Ni, Anton Korobov, Laurent Fressinet, Alexander Areshchenko, Lazaro Bruzon Batista, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Denis Khismatullin, Ivan Cheparinov, Sergei Zhigalko, Alexander Motylev, Maxim Rodshtein, Rauf Mamedov, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Evgeny Najer, Boris Grachev, Viktor Laznicka, David Anton Guijarro, Gabriel Sargissian, Romain Edouard, Ilia Smirin, Igor Kovalenko, Alexander Onischuk, Igor Lysyj, Bassem Amin, Julio Ernesto Granda Zuniga, Eltaj Safarli, Tamir Nabaty, Baskaran Adhiban, Ivan Saric, Yifan Hou, Parham Maghsoodloo, A R Saleh Salem, Ray Robson, Hrant Melkumyan, Mateusz Bartel, Sanan Sjugirov, Varuzhan Akobian, Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Csaba Balogh, Jianchao Zhou, Gadir Guseinov, Alexander Ipatov, Anton Kovalyov, Sandro Mareco, Truong Son Nguyen, Ivan Popov, Samuel Sevian, Sethuraman P Sethuraman, Constantin Lupulescu, Ivan Bukavshin, Yuniesky Quesada Perez, Rinat Jumabayev, Alexandr Fier, Rafael Leitao, Viorel Iordachescu, Robert Kempinski, Shanglei Lu, Zhao Jun plus 28 more players.

Chessgames.com Chess Event Description
World Cup (2015)

The 2015 FIDE World Cup, held from 11 September - 5 October in Fairmont Hotel, Baku, Azerbaijan, featured 128 players in a series of knockout matches. The early rounds had two games each, plus tiebreak games if necessary. The final was a match of four games. The two finalists would qualify for the Candidates tournament next year. The prize fund was $1,600,000, with the winner taking home $120,000, minus 20% tax to FIDE. Players received 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 more minutes for the rest of the game, with 30 seconds added per move from move 1. The tiebreaks consisted of two 25 min + 10-sec increment Rapid games, then if necessary two 10+10 Rapid games, two 5+3 Blitz games, and an Armageddon game where White had 5 minutes to Black's 4, but a draw counted as a win for Black. Chief arbiter: Faig Gasanov. Deputy chief arbiter: Carlos Oliveira Dias.

On way to the final, Sergey Karjakin eliminated Ermes Espinosa Veloz in Round 1, Alexander Onischuk in Round 2, Yu Yangyi in Round 3, Dmitry Andreikin in Round 4, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov in the quarterfinal, and Pavel Eljanov in the semifinal. Peter Svidler beat Emre Can in Round 1, Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu in Round 2, Teimour Radjabov in Round 3, Veselin Topalov in Round 4, Wei Yi in the quarterfinal, and Anish Giri in the semifinal. The final match started on 1 October. After 2-2 in the Classical games and 2-2 in the Rapid games, Karjakin won both Blitz games. Karjakin and Svidler both qualified for the World Championship Candidates (2016) tournament.

Classic Rapid Blitz Elo 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 Sergey Karjakin 2762 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 6 Peter Svidler 2727 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 4

Official site: https://web.archive.org/web/2016022...
Regulations: https://fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Worl...
Mark Weeks: https://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/b4...
Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/news/view/kar...
ChessBase: https://en.chessbase.com/post/baku-...
chess24: https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-t...
TWIC: http://theweekinchess.com/chessnews...
FIDE: https://ratings.fide.com/tournament...
Wikipedia article: Chess World Cup 2015

Previous: World Cup (2013). Next: World Cup (2017)

 page 1 of 18; games 1-25 of 433  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. R Phiri vs Nakamura 0-1402015World CupE15 Queen's Indian
2. Caruana vs A Zaibi 1-0262015World CupD15 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
3. Aronian vs M Wiedenkeller 1-0332015World CupA18 English, Mikenas-Carls
4. Mamedyarov vs P Idani 1-0312015World CupD05 Queen's Pawn Game
5. Kasimdzhanov vs A Kovalyov  ½-½322015World CupE15 Queen's Indian
6. Le Quang Liem vs V Durarbayli ½-½292015World CupE60 King's Indian Defense
7. I Lysyj vs Lupulescu  ½-½202015World CupD41 Queen's Gambit Declined, Semi-Tarrasch
8. M Bartel vs G Sargissian  ½-½212015World CupC45 Scotch Game
9. R Leitao vs Y Hou ½-½272015World CupE46 Nimzo-Indian
10. B Adhiban vs V Fedoseev ½-½152015World CupE15 Queen's Indian
11. Motylev vs B Grachev  ½-½222015World CupB33 Sicilian
12. Vachier-Lagrave vs I R Ortiz Suarez 1-0352015World CupB90 Sicilian, Najdorf
13. S Sjugirov vs S P Sethuraman 0-1242015World CupC65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
14. Topalov vs O Adu 1-0492015World CupD11 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
15. So vs P Maghsoodloo 1-0432015World CupA30 English, Symmetrical
16. D E Cori Tello vs Kramnik 0-1312015World CupD37 Queen's Gambit Declined
17. I Iljiushenok vs Jakovenko  ½-½372015World CupE46 Nimzo-Indian
18. Z Rahman vs Tomashevsky  ½-½432015World CupA45 Queen's Pawn Game
19. Adams vs M Muzychuk  ½-½412015World CupC80 Ruy Lopez, Open
20. E Can vs Svidler 0-1342015World CupD43 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
21. F Perez Ponsa vs Dominguez Perez 1-0412015World CupB94 Sicilian, Najdorf
22. B Lalith vs Wojtaszek  ½-½392015World CupD39 Queen's Gambit Declined, Ragozin, Vienna Variation
23. V Iordachescu vs Y Yu 0-1422015World CupB33 Sicilian
24. Leko vs A Goganov 1-0322015World CupC18 French, Winawer
25. Fressinet vs A Brkic  ½-½422015World CupD02 Queen's Pawn Game
 page 1 of 18; games 1-25 of 433  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2)  

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 80 OF 80 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Oct-06-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  alexmagnus: Still, it becomes unanswered, why the KO competitions suddenly stopped being won by underdogs once they were downgraded from world championships to just candidate qualifiers.
Oct-06-15  Shams: <alexmagnus> How could the answer be anything but "small sample size"?
Oct-06-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  alexmagnus: <How could the answer be anything but "small sample size"?>

Thing is, both samples are small. But while of 5 editions of KO world championships, three were won by players seed below 16 (Khalifman 36, Ponomariov 19, Kasimdzhanov 28), <no one> of the six KO world cups was won by someone seed even close to this (lowest are Kamsky 2007 and Karjakin 2015, both as 11th seeds, and both with close-to-WC past achievemnts).

Oct-06-15  Shams: Again though, you seem to want an explanation beyond it just being a statistical anomaly. Do you think there is or could be one?
Oct-07-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  FSR: <HeMateMe: ... How does Norway "stand up to Putin," specifically? No discount ski passes for FSR officers?>

That is unconscionable! Filthy *&$^% Norwegian bastards!

Oct-07-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  HeMateMe: What could I have been thinking?
Oct-07-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  Dionysius1: As usual the official website has videos for every session except the very last. In this case at http://www.bakuworldcup2015.com/con... it doesn’t have a video of the Blitz games. I think I can see how this happens: once the last game of the event has been played everybody goes home including the technical people. But if I’m right how unprofessional is that! Imagine the same happening in soccer or rugby recordings! As far as I was concerned the whole thing was a wonderfully presented event, but spoilt by the lack of a recording of the climactic moments. It all just left a nasty taste in my mouth: not sure I'll bother watching any more of these events.
Oct-07-15  sonia91: <Dionysius1> The video of the last day's blitz games is here (Video>Round>Final>Day 5): http://www.bakuworldcup2015.com/con...
Oct-07-15  Justin Flint: http://1.vgc.no/drpublish/images/ar...
Oct-07-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  Check It Out: booby fisher and Magnus!
Oct-07-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  plang: Not Eddie Fisher I hope
Oct-07-15  parmetd: Svidler was not able to become the first person to win the event twice.
Oct-08-15  wordfunph: "If every tournament was like the World Cup, I think I would be dead within 10 years."

- Hikaru Nakamura

Oct-09-15  dumbgai: World Cup winner loses rating points in World Cup.
Oct-09-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  alexmagnus: But not by underperformance. He lost 0.6 points, which means performing as well as expected. An underperformance would be a loss of 2.5 points or more.
Oct-09-15  dumbgai: <as well as expected>

Still an unusual case, then. Usually the tournament winner significantly overperforms. Svidler and Eljanov, for instance. The World Cup format is such that even a non-top-10 player can win without overperforming his rating.

Oct-09-15  Atking: <dumbgai> You have a point. Karjakin shows us that one could win World Cup without performing well. Chess is becoming a terrible sport, art and science relegated to a second or third stance. I will not be proud of that.
Oct-10-15  Absentee: <Atking: <dumbgai> You have a point. Karjakin shows us that one could win World Cup without performing well.>

He performed exactly as expected rating-wise in classical.

<Atking: Chess is becoming a terrible sport, art and science relegated to a second or third stance. I will not be proud of that.>

It's neither art nor science (or a sport, for that matter). But what does this have to do with how players perform?

Oct-10-15  Atking: <It's neither art nor science (or a sport, for that matter)> that is your point of view <Absentee> not mine. I like to see beautiful and logical games and not a series of drastic error to select a champion.

As for your first remark <dumbgai> has already answered <The World Cup format is such that even a non-top-10 player can win without overperforming his rating.> a point of view I explicitly share.

Oct-10-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  alexmagnus: For art, there is chess composition. For science, there are books. Chess <game> is for competition - and competition is all about errors. Without errors you cannot win, and without wind it makes not much sense to compete.

And there is no more beauty and logic in small errors than in big ones :-)

Oct-10-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  alexmagnus: Without wins, not without wind lol.
Oct-10-15  epistle: wind is air and without air you can't compete because you need to breathe to compete
Oct-10-15  Atking: <alexmagnus> One thing to say there is no perfect game and trying to win on counting an error from your opponent. To play a great game you need to build a plan by a logical approach and to transcend usual pattern be creative. "The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made." (For if Wind) that doesn't mean Tartakower wasn't trying to play both logically and creatively.
Oct-13-15  Sokrates: <Atking> I fully agree with your statements and notions. I am an old romantic fellow and my love for the game was never "win at any cost". Not to depict myself in a holy glance, but I have enjoyed my glorious defeats more than my lucky wins. I stopped playing in clubs many years ago because they are packed with people who don't actually love the game but use it to get rid of their personal complexes. When I saw a young man jump of joy because his opponent - in a totally winning position - blundered a piece - and he was cheered by his pals - I decided that wasn't for me.
Oct-13-15
Premium Chessgames Member
  moronovich: <and without wind it makes not much sense to compete.>

"If you can not take the smell in the kitchen...",you old fart :)

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