Magnus Carlsen won his first game vs. Sasa Martinovic. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

FIDE World Cup R2.1: Covid-19 Hits, Aronian Withdraws

PeterDoggers

Updated: Aug 26, 2024, 6:42 AM | 80 | Chess Event Coverage

Three members of the Indonesian delegation at the 2021 FIDE World Cup have tested positive for Covid-19. GM Fabiano Caruana was awarded a win when his opponent GM Susanto Megaranto's test result was positive. GM Levon Aronian forfeited his game for having fever symptoms and announced on Friday that he had withdrawn from the tournament.

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Despite strong measures and clear regulations to avoid the spread of the coronavirus, the World Cup couldn't avoid being hit by cases of Covid-19. Three members from Indonesia have now tested positive, affecting two matches.

GM and chess journalist Ian Rogers reports that Head of Delegation Kristianus Liem was diagnosed first. Before the first round, IM Mohamad Ervan got the bad news as well and had to forfeit his match with GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov.

The third was Megaranto, who learned about his positive test result during his game with Caruana, which was immediately stopped and declared a win for the American player. Following procedures, both players were immediately isolated.

Susanto Megaranto. Photo: Anastasiya Korolkova/FIDE.

Without mentioning his name, FIDE communicated via social media that Megaranto had been tested negative three times in Sochi before a fourth test came out positive. This test result was supposed to arrive before 13:00 p.m. local time but was delayed by a few hours. FIDE is investigating why this happened.

#FIDEWorldCup

The player who has been forced to forfeit his game today had been tested before his trip, and then again in Sochi on July 10th, July 11th, and July 14th.

After three negatives, it was this last test the one that turned out to be positive. [1/3]
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) July 15, 2021

It is not immediately clear what the situation is regarding the Caruana-Megaranto match. According to Chess.com's photographer Maria Emelianova, Megaranto will remain under medical supervision, and it's not known yet whether the second game will be played. Caruana will take another test on Friday. He is showing no symptoms but is self-isolating in his hotel room.

Fabiano Caruana. Photo: Anastasiya Korolkova/FIDE.

I hope Mr. Megaranto is feeling well - he seemed to be completely fine during the game, so the way the match ended was a very unpleasant shock. I'll take a test tomorrow to determine if I was exposed to covid and hopefully I can continue the event after that.
— Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) July 15, 2021

Megaranto was wearing a face mask during the game; Caruana was not. Players are obliged to wear face masks in all public areas but not during a game. Each day, the arbiters tell the players that handshakes are not recommended, which can lead to some confusion.

Best handshake ever before a game? 🤝🤣@AlirezaFirouzja vs. Javokhir Sindarov at the #FIDEWorldCup.https://t.co/owZBtGmRit pic.twitter.com/IjX3qDV7q5
— Chess.com (@chesscom) July 16, 2021

Megaranto is the only Indonesian player in the open section. The two female players from Indonesia, IM Irine Sukandar and IM Medina Warda Aulia, haven't had symptoms and haven't tested positive. Sukandar has taken a lot of effort to confirm that she doesn't have the virus.

It can be implied that I love PCR tests so much 😂 Taking another one at Sochi-Adler airport now at 2am so the result will be in time before the game tomorrow. Hopefully still negative 🙏 pic.twitter.com/yOqg5h4FIZ
— Irene Sukandar (@irene_sukandar) July 15, 2021

Sukandar has already confirmed that her last test was also negative.

Update: The two female from Indonesia players won't continue their tournament either:

However, in order to not risk the safety of other players they have decided, in agreement with the organisation, to withdraw from the second game of the second round. As a result, their opponents, Harika Dronavalli and Valentina Gunina, will advance directly to the third round.
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) July 16, 2021

Meanwhile, two-time winner Aronian didn't even show up for his game with GM Bobby Cheng (Australia). The Armenian grandmaster had some symptoms of fever earlier this week. Even though he felt well on Thursday, it was decided that he wouldn't play in order to not risk the safety of other players. He has now announced on Facebook that he won't play anymore:

Alongside all the Covid turmoil, the first day of the second round saw a lot of great chess. Among many other top grandmasters, World Champion Magnus Carlsen "entered the building" and beat Croatian grandmaster Sasa Martinovic, who was celebrating his 30th birthday.

This round included a bunch of nice attacking games. The first winner of the day was Indian GM Baskaran Adhiban, who beat his opponent from Paraguay with a nice final touch:

One of the absolute top grandmasters from the 1990s and 2000s, GM Alexei Shirov (Spain), joined the party in the second round as well and played a vintage Shirov game against U.S. GM Yaroslav Zherebukh. The latter had celebrated his 28th birthday the day before without the need to play tiebreaks; he had beaten GM Evgenios Ioannidis in the classical games.

Shirov-Zherebukh. Photo: Eric Rosen/FIDE.

Speaking of former top grandmasters, we saw GM Vishy Anand doing well in Zagreb last week (who, by the way, is leading 1.5-0.5 in a four-game No Castling match with GM Vladimir Kramnik in Dortmund!). The opponent of Anand in the 2012 World Championship match, GM Boris Gelfand (Israel), also won a nice game:

There weren't too many upsets, although a lot of lower-rated players held top grandmasters to draws. They included IM Volodar Murzin vs. GM Vladislav Artemiev and three young Uzbek players: GM Jakhongir Vakhidov vs. Leinier Dominguez, GM Nodirbek Yakubboev vs. GM David Navara, and GM Javokhir Sindarov vs. Alireza Firouzja, who is playing his first tournament under the French flag.

Artemiev and Murzin before their game. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Two players from Spain, GM David Anton and GM Paco Vallejo, both lost to lower-rated opponents. The latter played a typical piece sac in the French but faced very strong resistance as the 18-year-old Serbian GM Velimir Ivic solved his problems tactically:

Back to the theme of crude attacks on the king, we saw two nice Rf6 moves on one day. First, there was GM Sandro Mareco of Argentina beating Peru's GM Jorge Cori, where 28.Rf6 was the prettiest among several winning moves:

Results round 2

Fed	Player	Rtg	-	Fed	Player	Rtg	G1	G2	TB
	GM Martinovic, Sasa	2548	-		GM Carlsen, Magnus	2847	0-1	.	.
	GM Caruana, Fabiano	2806	-		GM Megaranto, Susanto	2550	1-0*	.	.
	GM Cheng, Bobby	2552	-		GM Aronian, Levon	2782	1-0*	.	.
	GM Giri, Anish	2776	-		GM Savchenko, Boris	2553	1-0	.	.
	GM Perez Ponsa, Federico	2554	-		GM Grischuk, Alexander	2778	½-½	.	.
	GM Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	2782	-		GM Mekhitarian, Krikor Sevag	2554	½-½	.	.
	GM Moradiabadi, Elshan	2553	-		GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	2749	½-½	.	.
	GM Firouzja, Alireza	2759	-		GM Sindarov, Javokhir	2558	½-½	.	.
	GM Vakhidov, Jakhongir	2534	-		GM Dominguez Perez, Leinier	2758	½-½	.	.
	GM Karjakin, Sergey	2757	-		GM Vokhidov, Shamsiddin	2530	1-0	.	.
	GM Quesada Perez, Yasser	2565	-		GM Harikrishna, Pentala	2730	½-½	.	.
	GM Duda, Jan-Krzysztof	2738	-		IM Vazquez, Guillermo	2527	1-0	.	.
	GM Fier, Alexandr	2569	-		GM Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi	2726	½-½	.	.
	GM Andreikin, Dmitry	2724	-		GM Can, Emre	2569	1-0	.	.
	GM Plat, Vojtech	2525	-		GM Vitiugov, Nikita	2724	½-½	.	.
	GM Esipenko, Andrey	2716	-		GM Nguyen, Thai Dai Van	2588	½-½	.	.
	GM Gukesh, D	2578	-		GM Dubov, Daniil	2714	½-½	.	.
	GM Svidler, Peter	2714	-		GM Salinas Herrera, Pablo	2514	½-½	.	.
	GM Ivic, Velimir	2582	-		GM Vallejo Pons, Francisco	2710	1-0	.	.
	GM Xiong, Jeffery	2709	-		GM Mikhalevski, Victor	2579	½-½	.	.
	GM Iniyan, P	2506	-		GM Tomashevsky, Evgeny	2706	0-1	.	.
	GM Yu, Yangyi	2705	-		GM Kadric, Denis	2564	1-0	.	.
	IM Murzin, Volodar	2502	-		GM Artemiev, Vladislav	2704	½-½	.	.
	GM Amin, Bassem	2703	-		GM Gabuzyan, Hovhannes	2587	1-0	.	.
	IM Druska, Juraj	2493	-		GM Van Foreest, Jorden	2688	0-1	.	.
	GM Alekseenko, Kirill	2699	-		GM Krasenkow, Michal	2591	½-½	.	.
	GM Brkic, Ante	2592	-		GM Kryvoruchko, Yuriy	2699	1-0	.	.
	GM Maghsoodloo, Parham	2698	-		GM Georgiev, Kiril	2594	½-½	.	.
	GM Yakubboev, Nodirbek	2598	-		GM Navara, David	2675	½-½	.	.
	GM Fedoseev, Vladimir	2696	-		GM Bachmann, Axel	2599	1-0	.	.
	GM Jobava, Baadur	2603	-		GM Shankland, Sam	2709	½-½	.	.
	GM Matlakov, Maxim	2688	-		GM Gretarsson, Hjorvar Steinn	2603	0-1	.	.
	GM Alekseev, Evgeny	2605	-		GM Wojtaszek, Radoslaw	2691	½-½	.	.
	GM Areshchenko, Alexander	2687	-		GM Ivanisevic, Ivan	2606	1-0	.	.
	GM Gareyev, Timur	2596	-		GM Jakovenko, Dmitry	2684	½-½	.	.
	GM Predke, Alexandr	2683	-		GM Durarbayli, Vasif	2625	½-½	.	.
	GM Henriquez Villagra, Cristobal	2606	-		GM Korobov, Anton	2683	0-1	.	.
	GM Salem, A.R. Saleh	2682	-		GM Indjic, Aleksandar	2607	1-0	.	.
	GM Praggnanandhaa, R	2608	-		GM Sargissian, Gabriel	2682	1-0	.	.
	GM Ragger, Markus	2680	-		GM Piorun, Kacper	2608	½-½	.	.
	IM Haria, Ravi	2440	-		GM Bacrot, Etienne	2678	0-1	.	.
	GM Gelfand, Boris	2675	-		GM Braun, Arik	2609	1-0	.	.
	GM Tabatabaei, M. Amin	2613	-		GM Berkes, Ferenc	2673	½-½	.	.
	GM Anton Guijarro, David	2673	-		GM Idani, Pouya	2614	0-1	.	.
	GM Akobian, Varuzhan	2614	-		GM Grandelius, Nils	2661	½-½	.	.
	GM Bluebaum, Matthias	2669	-		GM Erdos, Viktor	2614	½-½	.	.
	GM Svane, Rasmus	2615	-		GM Cheparinov, Ivan	2667	0-1	.	.
	GM Malakhov, Vladimir	2666	-		GM Vocaturo, Daniele	2617	1-0	.	.
	GM Sargsyan, Shant	2626	-		GM Abasov, Nijat	2656	½-½	.	.
	GM Shirov, Alexei	2662	-		GM Zherebukh, Yaroslav	2620	1-0	.	.
	GM Nihal, Sarin	2620	-		GM Sjugirov, Sanan	2661	½-½	.	.
	GM Adhiban, B.	2660	-		GM Delgado Ramirez, Neuris	2622	1-0	.	.
	GM Bok, Benjamin	2624	-		GM Sevian, Samuel	2647	1-0	.	.
	GM Lupulescu, Constantin	2659	-		GM Hesham, Abdelrahman	2397	1-0	.	.
	GM Deac, Bogdan-Daniel	2639	-		GM Oparin, Grigoriy	2654	½-½	.	.
	GM Kuzubov, Yuriy	2653	-		GM Ponkratov, Pavel	2629	½-½	.	.
	GM Mareco, Sandro	2629	-		GM Cori, Jorge	2652	1-0	.	.
	GM Onischuk, Alexander	2649	-		GM Paravyan, David	2625	0-1	.	.
	GM Mustafa Yilmaz	2630	-		GM Haik Martirosyan	2632	0-1	.	.
	GM Saric, Ivan	2653	-		GM Pichot, Alan	2630	½-½	.	.
	GM Abdusattorov, Nodirbek	2634	-		GM Aravindh, Chithambaram VR.	2641	½-½	.	.
	GM Sarana, Alexey	2640	-		GM Kovalev, Vladislav	2637	½-½	.	.
	GM Jumabayev, Rinat	2637	-		GM Motylev, Alexander	2639	½-½	.	.
	GM Tari, Aryan	2639	-		GM Bareev, Evgeny	2638	1-0	.	.

That Rf6 theme is a nice bridge toward the women's section, where Ukrainian GM Anna Muzychuk's 36.Rf6 against WGM Tatev Abrahamyan (U.S.) looked nice as well. However, in that case, the white player had missed a mate in five just before and survived a losing position:

A wild time-trouble phase in Muzychuk-Abrahamyan. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

GM Harika Dronavalli won a nice game against the aforementioned Aulia from Indonesia:

The biggest upset was IM Bibisara Assaubayeva beating Gibraltar Women's Grand Prix winner GM Zhansaya Abdumalik:

Bibisara Assaubayeva vs. Zhansaya Abdumalik. Photo: Eric Rosen/FIDE.

Results round 2

Fed	Player	Rating		Fed	Player	Rating	G1	G2	TB
	GM Goryachkina, Aleksandra	2596	-		WGM Tokhirjonova, Gulrukhbegim	2320	1-0	.	.
	IM Badelka, Olga	2418	-		IM Matnadze, Ana	2421	½-½	.	.
	WGM Pogonina, Natalija	2469	-		IM Kulkarni Bhakti	2391	½-½	.	.
	WGM Maltsevskaya, Aleksandra	2382	-		GM Stefanova, Antoaneta	2463	½-½	.	.
	IM Kashlinskaya, Alina	2488	-		IM Ordaz Valdes, Lisandra Teresa	2369	½-½	.	.
	GM Hoang, Thanh Trang	2404	-		IM Galliamova, Alisa	2442	0-1	.	.
	IM Bulmaga, Irina	2413	-		GM Danielian, Elina	2407	0-1	.	.
	WGM Yu, Jennifer	2289	-		IM Saduakassova, Dinara	2483	0-1	.	.
	GM Dzagnidze, Nana	2523	-		GM Peng, Zhaoqin	2358	1-0	.	.
	IM Buksa, Nataliya	2413	-		IM Yip, Carissa	2430	0-1	.	.
	WGM Girya, Olga	2448	-		WGM Garifullina, Leya	2390	½-½	.	.
	WIM Munkhzul, Turmunkh	2278	-		IM Shuvalova, Polina	2489	0-1	.	.
	IM Javakhishvili, Lela	2470	-		IM Mammadova, Gulnar	2385	½-½	.	.
	IM Salimova, Nurgyul	2395	-		IM Paehtz, Elisabeth	2466	½-½	.	.
	IM Atalik, Ekaterina	2433	-		IM Guichard, Pauline	2413	0-1	.	.
	WGM Abrahamyan, Tatev	2352	-		GM Muzychuk, Anna	2527	0-1	.	.
	GM Muzychuk, Mariya	2550	-		IM Gaponenko, Inna	2357	½-½	.	.
	IM Cyfka, Karina	2417	-		GM Ushenina, Anna	2429	0-1	.	.
	GM Cramling, Pia	2459	-		GM Socko, Monika	2393	½-½	.	.
	WGM Cori T., Deysi	2388	-		GM Kosteniuk, Alexandra	2472	0-1	.	.
	GM Batsiashvili, Nino	2487	-		IM Tsolakidou, Stavroula	2389	½-½	.	.
	WGM Zawadzka, Jolanta	2403	-		IM Bodnaruk, Anastasia	2446	1-0	.	.
	GM Gunina, Valentina	2437	-		IM Sukandar, Irine Kharisma	2413	1-0	.	.
	IM Aulia, Medina Warda	2360	-		GM Harika, Dronavalli	2515	0-1	.	.
	GM Tan, Zhongyi	2511	-		WGM Yildiz Kadioglu, Betul Cemre	2362	½-½	.	.
	IM Skripchenko, Almira	2411	-		GM Sebag, Marie	2483	½-½	.	.
	IM Mammadzada, Gunay	2460	-		IM Unuk, Laura	2407	½-½	.	.
	IM Padmini, Rout	2370	-		IM Khademalsharieh, Sarasadat	2494	½-½	.	.
	GM Abdumalik, Zhansaya	2505	-		IM Assaubayeva, Bibisara	2389	0-1	.	.
	WGM Vaishali R	2393	-		GM Khotenashvili, Bela	2471	0-1	.	.
	IM Munguntuul, Batkhuyag	2428	-		IM Osmak, Iulija	2418	1-0	.	.
	WGM Injac, Teodora	2370	-		GM Lagno, Kateryna	2559	½-½	.	.

The FIDE World Cup takes place in the Galaxy Leisure Complex in Sochi, Russia, until August 6, 2021. Each round consists of two classical games and, if necessary, a rapid/blitz tiebreak on the third day. Starting from round two, the Open section has 128 players and the women's section, 64.

Previous reports:

Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

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