2017 World Cup 2-27 September, Tbilisi

[Steven DuCharme]

three lll in folllow

[Chris Rice]

The Chess.com twitter feed shows a picture of Kovalyev just about to get into a taxi. He wore the same shorts in rounds 1&2 but the Chief Arbiter only noticed them today, 10 minutes before the start, because of the reduced number of players. Apparently Kovalyev didn't have anything else to change into. Unbelievable.

[JustinHorton]

Back at the chess, Carlsen is a piece up but Bu Xiangzhi looks to have sufficient compensation.

Not sure about that, but judging by the clocks MC is a bit rattled.

Looks as though MC and CK both understood the position better than I did.

Although Bu does curiously seem to have let it slip at move 29 (not that Magnus saw it). Can't say I blame him as the winning manoeuvre was a pretty odd one with the king shuffling round some queen checks.

[Matt Mackenzie]

A big test of Carlsen's temperament tomorrow. He's been known to beat himself up severely after a bad loss. If he reacts badly again, we may have a character flaw to chew over, not to mention a shock

Alternatively if he pulls it out of the fire tomorrow, he might be fancied to win the whole thing.

It is going to be an eagerly awaited game that's for sure......

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I wonder if Bu's nerves will stand the test as well. If he gets one of those sort of positions where Carlsen can grind away, does Bu have the defensive tenacity of someone like, say, Karjakin?

And Aronian's win means that the live rating gap is down to 23 points (a swing of 10.5 due to those two games). If Carlsen crashes out and Aronian keeps winning, who knows what might happen?

[JustinHorton]

Talking of nerves, either Navara already knew how to hold that or he has some pretty strong nerves himself.

Four (for some reason I originally wrote three) decisive results out of sixteen ain't many.

Winners: Aronian, So, Bu and Azmai.

Draws with 100+ rating differences: Lenderman against Vachier-Lagrave, Sethuraman against Giri, Najer against Caruana. The latter two were with the Black pieces, which you'd think would make a big difference although the experience of the previous round was that the lower-rated players tended to take the draw with White for rating points and head for the rapidplay.

Draws with Black against slightly smaller rating differences: Rapport against Li, Vidit against Ding, Fedoseev against Nakamura, Jobava against Nepo, Navara against Grischuk. Most of which, before of the individuals concerned, look like our games to watch for the second round (with Bu-Carlsen of course).

[Mick Norris]

And Aronian's win means that the live rating gap is down to 23 points (a swing of 10.5 due to those two games). If Carlsen crashes out and Aronian keeps winning, who knows what might happen?

Long way to go yet

Though to be fair Magnus is actually +0.5 for the WC so far, and Aronian is the only other 1 of the world top 25 to have gained rating points; the other 21 playing at the WC have all lost points

The big swing today was So gaining 5 points on Kramnik in the race for the 2 rating spots for the Candidates

Not sure live ratings after game 1 of 2 in any round are that relevant

Either the format, or simply playing non-elite players, seem to indicate rating losses are likely

[PeterFarr]

From Susan Polgar's site:

https://chessdailynews.com/official-sta ... -incident/

Astonishing, if true.

[David Robertson]

Oh, boy! This will keep the bloggers busy for weeks. Only on Planet Chess - and with a cartoon villain thrown in for good measure

[JustinHorton]

If there's witnesses who can corroborate that, Azmai should be out. Racial abuse should mean you're out, I think that's straightforward.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Racial abuse should mean you're out, I think that's straightforward."

Agreed. Racial abuse used to be banned by FIDE I believe? Maybe it still is.

[PeterFarr]

If there's witnesses who can corroborate that, Azmai should be out. Racial abuse should mean you're out, I think that's straightforward.

"should" - but this being FIDE...

Wild speculation, but Kovalyov seemed to have the word "short" on his t-shirt, with some other words that aren't clear in the picture I've seen. Maybe Azmai objected to some reference to Nigel.....

[JustinHorton]

Since he was involved in the original Nigel Short incident, he might even have thought the whiole thing was a way of winding him up. Not that we would think this relevant given the seriousness of the allegation against him.

[Roger de Coverly]

If there's witnesses who can corroborate that, Azmai should be out.

Having a fight with a Spanish security guard in 2004 doesn't seem to have counted against him.

[NickFaulks]

I was highly sympathetic to Kolyabov until he tried to make it racial. People say things about Canadians, get used to it.