Round 2 is over, and while most of the favorites are moving on to round 3, some are going home. Others survived, but barely.
The most prominent of those who eked their way into the third round is #2 seed Hikaru Nakamura, who was in all kinds of trouble against Venkataraman Karthik. After a draw in their first rapid game, Karthik enjoyed a pleasant to serious advantage for a fair chunk of the second game, and then had a golden moment on move 40. Had he found 40.Qa1, with the threats of 41.Qa8+ and especially 41.Rg6!, he probably would have won. Instead, it was at just this moment that he lost the thread of the game, and erred not only on that move but on the next two moves as well - and then it was over.
Someone who did not survive the round was Alexander Grischuk, though he had every opportunity to do so against young Iranian GM Bardiya Daneshvar. Grischuk won the first rapid game (25’+10”) but lost the second. No problem: he then won the first 10’+10” game…but lost the second, getting ground down in a roughly equal ending. On to the 5’+3” games. With Black in the first game, Grischuk was shocked in the opening and clearly worse, but fought back and achieved a nearly winning position. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that it was winning and allowed Daneshvar to make a draw by repetition. No matter: he was completely winning in the second game, but messed it up and eventually had to suffer for a long time to make a draw with rook against rook and bishop. At this point the match shifted to sudden death games with a 3’+2” time control. For the third time in the tiebreaks Grischuk started with the white pieces, and once again he obtained a completely winning position. And, for the third straight game, he cracked, and this time he lost.
There were some other upsets in the tiebreaks, the most notable being David Anton Guijarro’s loss to Abdulla Gadimbayli, but no other 2700s bit the dust today.
U.S. update: Wesley So also advanced, but Awonder Liang lost to Mustafa Yilmaz. In the Women’s World Cup Irina Krush won her tiebreaker, but Carissa Yip lost hers. So Krush is the only American left in that competition. (Not U.S.-related, but carrying on a thread from previous posts: Ju Wenjun unfortunately won her tiebreaker, eliminating someone who could in theory have had a chance to qualify for the women’s Candidates tournament.)
Tomorrow’s matches are already getting featuring battles between pairs of near-2700s, so it probably won’t be long before the favorites start knocking each other out. We’ll see; for now, here’s a selection of games, with my comments, from today’s action.