Rapport, MVL, Dubov, Sarana in 4th round @ Goa
GMs Richard Rapport, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Daniil Dubov, wei Yi, Alexey Sarana entered the fourth round winning the 3rd round tie-breaks at the $ 2 million FIDE World Cup at Hotel Resort Rio, Goa. Also making it successfully to the round of 32 were GMs Sam Shankland, Karthik Venkataraman, Samuel Sevian, Yu Yangyi, Andrey Esipenko and Nodirbek Yakubboev.
In an armageddon match that will be long talked about French Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave defeated Russian Grandmaster Vladislav Artemiev 6-5. It came up to the ultimate sudden-death to identify the winner among the two master gladiators. Nothing the separated the fighting duo who fought gamely, before one emerged from the ashes. Twice on the verge of elimination MVL rose like a phoenix winning on demand. Keeping up the momentum the higher seeded MVL coasted through the deciding 11th game with white pieces.
Earlier, Grandmaster Richard Rapport overcame 14-year-old Turkish prodigy Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus 2.5-1.5 showing experience is still the order of the day. Winning the first rapid tie-break game with black pieces Rapport drew the reverse game booking his spot in the fourth round. The Hungarian will meet another tie-break survivor GM Sam Shankland of USA for a place in the quarter-finals.
Pairings (Round 4 Game 1): Frederik – Sargsyan, Leko – Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa – Dubov, Bluebaum – Donchenko, Pranav – Yakubboev, Esipenko – Keymer, Wei Yi – Maghsoodloo, Sarana – Martinez, Nils – Harikrishna, Sevian – Lodici, MVL – Grebnev, Liang – Sargissian, Liem – Karthik, Shankland – Rapport, Aronian – Wojtaszek, Yu – Sindarov.
Results (Round 3 Tie-breaks): Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beat Vladislav Artemiev 6-5, Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus lost to Richard Rapport 1.5-2.5, Wei Yi beat Benjamin Gledura 2.5-1.5, Yu Yangyi beat S L Narayanan 2.5-1.5, Sam Sevian beat Evgeniy Najer 3-1, Vidit Santosh Gujathi lost to Sam Shankland 2.5-3.5, Jorden van Foreest lost to Alexey Sarana 1-3, Andrey Esipenko beat Idani Pouya 3.5-2.5, Deac Bogdan-Daniel lost to Karthik Venkataraman 1.5-2.5, Georg Meier lost to Daniil Dubov 2.5-3.5, Thai Dai Van Nguyen lost to Nodirbek Yakubboev 1-3.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2740) – Vladislav Artemiev (2637) 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. Nc3 Nd7 8. d4 exd4 9. Qxd4 O-O 10. Bf4 Nc5 11. Qe3 Ne6 12. Rad1 Qe8 13. Bg3 Bc5 14. Qd2 f6 15. Ne2 a5 16. a3 Qe7 17. Qc3 Bb6 18. Qc4 Qc5 19. Qa2 Qe7 20. Ned4 Qf7 21. Nf5 Ng5 22. Ne7+ Kh8 23. Qxf7 Nxf7 24. Nxc8 Raxc8 25. Nd2 Rfe8 26. Rfe1 Rcd8 27. Kf1 Kg8 28. f3 Rd7 29. Nc4 Rde7 30. a4 Bc5 31. c3 Ra8 32. Rd3 Ng5 33. Red1 Kf7 34. Nd2 b5 35. axb5 cxb5 36. Rd5 Ne6 37. Nb3 Be3 38. Rxb5 a4 39. Na1 Bf4 40. Nc2 Bxg3 41. hxg3 c6 42. Rb6 c5 43. Na3 h5 44. Kf2 g5 45. Nc4 Kg6 46. Rdd6 Rae8 47. Ne3 Kf7 48. Nf5 Ra7 49. Nh6+ Kg6 50. Nf5 Kf7 51. Rdc6 Nf8
52. Nd6+ 1-0
Complete Results
Photos Courtesy: Michal Walusza / Eteri Kublashvili / FIDE (International Chess Federation)
Official Site: https://worldcup2025.fide.com/
