Curtains were drawn on the women challenge at the Chess World Cup with the defeat of Judit Polgar at the hands of top seeded Grandmaster Boris Gelfand of Israel.
Hungarian Polgar, world’s highest rated woman player, lost the rapid tiebreak games with a 1.5 - 3.5 margin.
As the first set of normal games resulted in a one win for each player. In the rapid tie-break the Israeli won two of the first three games to seal his place in the next round of sixteen.
In a curious incident involving the Chinese players, the duo of Li Chao B and Wang Yue forfeited their respective second games in the rapid tiebreaker as they did not turn up on time. As per laws of chess, they were ousted from the competition.
As per rules, the players have to be present on the board in all official events when the game is suppose to start and these two were not the first Chinese who lost out. Li Chao B was also declared lost after he arrived late for his game.
Owing to their negligence, Frenchman Etienne Bacort gained passage to the fourth round following his second game win against Wang Yue in the tiebreaker after a draw in the first game. Once the youngest GM in the world, Bacrot had every reason to be pleased with his result here.
Amongst other notable entrants to the pre quarters, Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia won two and drew two games against Alexander Areshchenko of Ukraine to send him packing out of the event in the rapid tiebreak games.
Another big winner was Caruana Fabiano of Italy who grinded down Russian Evgeny Alekseev in the tiebreaker to make his mark in the last 16.
