Sergey, youngest GM in quarters

Khanty Mansiysk (Russia), Dec. 2: World’s youngest ever grandmaster Ukraine’s Sergey Karjakin advanced to the quarterfinals after an impressive victory over Russian Nikita Vitiugov in the second pre-quarterfinal game of the World Chess Cup here.

The lone winner on a day, the 19-year-old Ukrainian prodigy, who became a Grandmaster at the age of 12, played a fine positional game with black pieces to outclass Vitiugov.

Peter Svidler of Russia and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan made merry with their white pieces, signing off easy draws against Alexei Shirov of Spain and Viktor Laznicka of Czech Republic respectively. Svidler and Mamedyarov made it to the quarterfinals as well after won the first game under normal time control with black pieces. It turned out to be a rather safe passage for all three qualifiers thus far who all won with black and drew with white.

The round of 16 has so far produced just three decisive games. Five out of eight matches got in to the tie-break games that will first feature a set of four rapid games and then, if necessary, five sets of two games of blitz tiebreak.