Vishy Anand lost to Anton Kovalyov after going for a stunning but flawed piece sacrifice and now faces elimination from the 2017 World Cup unless he can win with the black pieces on Thursday. Avoiding such a predicament perhaps explains why no less than 25 of the 32 matches ended in draws, but Magnus Carlsen is on the brink of Round 3 after easing to a win with Black against Aleksey Dreev. There were also wins for Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vladimir Kramnik, David Navara, Vladimir Fedoseev and Vidit.
In case you missed it, Tbilisi resident IM Sopiko Guramishvili recapped how 128 players were cut to 64 in Round 1 of the FIDE World Cup
Vishy Anand tumbles
The one sensation on the first day of Round 2 was Vishy Anand falling to a player rated 145 points below him – 25-year-old Ukrainian born Canadian GM Anton Kovalyov. Anton, who is studying in Texas, would later describe himself as “not a professional chess player” and “not a very ambitious player”, and it was clear Vishy hoped to play for a win with the white pieces.
