World Cup Knockout 2019

[JustinHorton]

A draw, Le really should have done better

[Jonathan Rogers]

interesting way to draw though - the knight is just stuck on a5!

reminds me of various blitz games with Daniel Fernandez, where I might start with an extra piece or exchange from the opening, but ...

[JustinHorton]

Duda v Xiong looks like one of those games where you're always winning but never actually win. (EDIT: he does, though.)

[JustinHorton]

Duda v Xiong: four decisive games. Madge v Radge: four draws.

[Mick Norris]

I'm just catching up; that's Ding & Grischuk through then, with the other 3 matches going on

[JustinHorton]

Duda v Xiong: four decisive games. Madge v Radge: four draws.

Five and five, Xiong throwing away an enormous advantage in a frantic exchange of red moves

[JustinHorton]

Aronian is through, not without some good fortune on the way. Radjabov breaks the long drawing sequence and goes through too.

Duda, having got right to the brink of his draw, lets it slip away and so he and Xiong will come back for more.

[Mick Norris]

Duda appears to like playing; I'd assumed he was heading for a draw, but he loses and he and Xiong go on (and on)

[Jonathan Rogers]

Radjabov's victory is only a slight surprise, if a surprise at all, to those who subscribe to the theory, so often bore out in practice, that when friends/close countrymen meet, the underdog does well.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Duda receiving just punishment for his adherence to the Petroff. What a match though!

[Mick Norris]

The quarter finals will be:

Ding v Grischuk
Vitiugov v Yu Yangyi

Duda or Xiong v Radjabov
MVL v Aronian

[Jonathan Rogers]

arguably the four strongest are playing each other in QF; though no one is here by accident and Yu Yangyi looks like a real dark horse.

(Dark horse! Where does that phrase come from?)

[JustinHorton]

Disraeli, it reckons here (you'd really want to see the OED, I think).

[JustinHorton]

Well, that's most curious, they agreed a draw in a position where Xiong was close to plus two, presumably because they only had ten or so seconds left (increment aside) and Xiong couldn't see a way through.

[JustinHorton]

And Xiong goes through.