Khanty Mansiysk: Grandmaster Gata Kamsky of the United States was ousted by Russian champion Peter Svidler who recorded his second victory on trot to march into the quarterfinals of the World Cup Chess being held here.
Kamsky had blundered in the first game with black pieces from a position that experts believed he could have held on to and in the return game he proved quite unable to break the defence of Svidler and went down 0-2 in the mini-match.
The six-time Russian champion went for the Arkhengelsk variation as black and Kamsky felt the heat after black got huge counter play around the center. Svidler wrapped the issue in quick time in the shortest game of the day lasting just 28 moves.
Much like Svidler, David Navara also made it 2-0 against Yaroslav Zherebukh of Ukraine who was the lowest ranked player remaining in the event.
Zherebukh had some spectacular success here but was shown the ultimate way by Navara who had earlier been praised a lot for his gamesmanship. Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan is the other contestant who made it to the next round pretty early when Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia thought he had had enough and proposed a draw after a mere 26 moves to sign his ouster papers.
While there were these success stories there were also a few heartbreaks. Alexander Grischuk showed his true mettle to beat Russian compatriot Vladimir Potkin. It was 'master-class' at display in a French defence game wherein Potkon proved no match and went down in just 32 moves.
This match will now be decided in the tie-breaker as Grischuk had lost the first game of the mini-match.
Cuban Grandmaster Lenier Dominguez was in for a surprise as well as world's top woman player Judit Polgar of Hungary pulled one back to come back in contention.
Judit, after losing the first game like Grischuk, went for the blood right from the word go and her perseverance paid well as Dominiguez found himself on the wrong side of a technically won endgame that lasted 112 moves.
Peter Heine Nielsen of Denmark also kept himself in striking line with a finely crafted victory over Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan. Nielsen too desperately needed this win that came in 113 moves.
In other games of the day, Vasily Ivanchuk of Ukraine was held to a draw by Xiangzhi Bu of China while another Cuban Bruzon Lazaro held Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov to a draw.
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