World Chess Cup 2011 begins in Ugra region of Khanty-Mansiysk

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov declared the 2011 FIDE World Cup officially open on Saturday. The first round scheduled at 15:00 local time (11:00 CET) on Sunday. A total of 128 participants from all over the world will play in a knock-out format that would run for three weeks after which we will have the next Candidates tournament/matches, as part of the new World Championship cycle. The tournament takes place from August 27 till September 20. Russia’s Ugra region in Khanty-Mansiysk is hosting the World Cup for the fourth time. The only two women players in the field are Women's World No. 1 Judit Polgar and Women's World Champion Hou Yifan from Hungary and China respectively.

Venue is the brand new Ugorian Chess Academy, a unique three-level building without sharp corners styled as a chess piece. It was built in the capital of Ugra in 2008-2010 and designed by the famous Dutch architect Erick Van Egeraat.     

There are 128 participants from 46 different countries. However, shortly before the event both Vladimir Akopian of Armenia and Wang Hao of China had to cancel the participation. The former broke a leg recently; the latter was diagnosed with heart problems. Their opponents (Parimarjan Negi and Alexander Ivanov respectively) will go through to the second round without playing.

Chess Vibes has a nice JPEG of the pairings tree which you can check in your browser here.

System and rate of play

Except for the final, all rounds will have 2-game matches at the FIDE time control: 90 minutes for 40 moves followed by 30 minutes to finish the game, with a 30-second increment from the first move. In case of a 1-1 tie, on the third day of the round a tie-break is played. A tie-break consists of 2 games (25 minutes + 10 seconds increment). In case of a 2-2 score, 2 more games will be played at 10 minutes + 10 seconds increment and then, if needed, 2 games of 5 minutes + 3 increment. If necessary, the tie-break will end with an Armageddon game with White getting 5 minutes and Black 4 and 3 seconds increment starting from move 61. In this game, a draw means the player behind the black pieces goes through. The final will played over 4 games at the FIDE time control and if necessary a tie-break on the day of the closing ceremony.
Opening ceremony

Schedule
Date Time Event # Players
August 26 - Arrival
August 27 20:00 Opening ceremony
August 28 15:00 Round 1.1 128
August 29 15:00 Round 1.2
August 30 15:00 Tie-break R1
August 31 15:00 Round 2.1 64
September 1 15:00 Round 2.2
September 2 15:00 Tie-break R2
September 3 15:00 Round 3.1 32
September 4 15:00 Round 3.2
September 5 15:00 Tie-break R3
September 6 15:00 Round 4.1 16
September 7 15:00 Round 4.2
September 8 15:00 Tie-break R4
September 9 15:00 Round 5.1 8
September 10 15:00 Round 5.2
September 11 15:00 Tie-break R5
September 12 15:00 Round 6.1 4
September 13 15:00 Round 6.2
September 14 15:00 Tie-break R6
September 15 Free day
September 16 15:00 Round 7.1 2
September 17 15:00 Round 7.2
September 18 15:00 Round 7.3
September 19 15:00 Round 7.4
September 20 11:00 Tie-break R7
September 20 20:00 Closing ceremony

You can access the official website here. You can see the very nice video there. 

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