Tbilisi World Cup, 1.1: Wei Yi shocker

Wei Yi was crushed in only 24 moves by Canadian GM Bator Sambuev as the 2017 FIDE World Cup in Tbilisi got off to a spectacular start. Harikrishna, Vladimir Fedoseev and Pavel Eljanov were the other 2700 casualties and join 31 more players who need a win in Monday’s Game 2 to force tiebreaks on Tuesday. Magnus Carlsen overcame stiff resistance from Nigeria’s Oluwafemi Balogun to get off to a winning start as only Maxime Vachier-Lagrave among the world’s Top 10 was held to a draw in the opening game.

Alexander Onischuk moved to the second round without a fight. His opponent, Yaroslav Zherebukh (USA), was not able to leave his country and participate in the World Chess Cup because he was still waiting for his US Green Card. Today is Onischuk’s birthday and thus he received a nice present.

The organizers of the World Cup are FIDE, the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs of Georgia, the Check In Georgia Sports, the Georgian Chess Federation, Organising Committee of The 2018 World Chess Olympiad and Tbilisi City Hall. The title Sponsor is SOCAR.

With so many players now needing to win on demand Day 2 of the World Cup promises to be unmissable. Remember, if the games end tied at 1-1 the players will return on Tuesday for up to 7 more games of rapid and blitz chess. 64 players must be eliminated before Round 2 starts on Wednesday!

Watch all the action, with the option of watching 5 commentary streams in 4 languages,  on chess24 from 15:00 CEST onwards!

See more:

• Official website
• All the games with computer analysis on chess24
• The World Cup starts in 1 week – predictions?
• World Cup special promotion

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