FIDE World Cup, Quarter-Final

In three of the four quarter-finals, the higher-seeded player got through fairly comfortably: Carlsen won both his games against Bacrot, while Duda and Fedoseev both drew with black and then won in the endgame with white (although the latter only won thanks to a late blunder by Tabatabaei). 

The real drama of the round, however, came in the fourth match: Shankland twice took the lead against Karjakin only for the latter to equalize, and so it came down to the fast rapid games. Karjakin won both of these to book his place in the semi-final. 

That gives us these semi-final pairings: 

Magnus Carlsen v Jan-Krzysztof Duda 

Vladimir Fedoseev v Sergey Karjakin 

If Duda wins, he and the winner of Fedoseev-Karjakin will get to the candidates. If he loses, the winner of Fedoseev-Karjakin and the winner of the third-place playoff will get to the Candidates. The unlucky one of the three will have to make do with the consolation of a place in the Grand Prix, as will Bacrot, Vidit, Tabatabaei and Shankland. 

 




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