FIDE World Cup, Last 32

 After a rest day on Wednesday, play resumed in the World Cup, and, with the shrinking size of the field, there were fewer giant-killings to report on. Not none, though: Serbia's Velimir Ivić managed his second win against a top-twenty player, beating Dmitry Andreikin in the playoffs. Amin Tabatabei of Iran also continued his impressive run by beating Pentala Harikrishna. Two other results went against the seeding: one was between two players who'd both already lasted two rounds longer than their seeding would have predicted, in which Vasif Durarbayli of Azerbaijan beat Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan; the other was the win of #18 seed Peter Svidler against #15 seed Nikita Vitiugov.

In other games this round, Magnus Carlsen miscalculated in a winning position against Radoslaw Wojtaszek, but managed to get through the resulting playoffs. His opponent in the 2016 World Championship match, Sergey Karjakin, also got through, as did two of the participants in this year's Candidates, Alexander Grischuk and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

The last-16 draw is as follows:

Magnus Carlsen (Norway, 2847) v Andrey Esipenko (Russia, 2716)

Etienne Bacrot (France, 2678) v Kacper Piorun (Poland, 2608)

Alexander Grischuk (Russia, 2776) v Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland, 2729)

Vidit Gujrathi (India, 2726) v Vasif Durarbayli (Azerbaijan, 2606)


Vladimir Fedoseev (Russia, 2696) v Velimir Ivić (Serbia, 2581)

Amin Tabatabaei (Iran, 2613) v Haik Martirosyan (Armenia, 2648)

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France, 2760) v Sergey Karjakin (Russia, 2757)

Peter Svidler (Russia, 2714) v Sam Shankland (USA, 2691)





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