Prime of his life

Peter Svidler became the main hero of the 2^nd day of Semifinals. He won the 2^nd game in the match against Ruslan Ponomariov and became the first finalist of the World Chess Cup 2011.

This is the second success in a row of the Russian grandmaster — Svidler brilliantly won the Russian Superfinals and became 6-folded champion of the country and this time, having passed all 6 rounds, assured him the right to participate in the Candidates Matches.

His achievements are pleasing not only his ego and fans of his talent, but also confusing some incredulous representatives of the chess community who already started excluding Svidler from the chess elite. They were saying that the Grandmaster from St. Petersburg was not as he used to be anymore, that he was already over 30 years old, thus family and children, cricket and soap operas took most of his time and energy and chess successes were already in the past. He also caught it in the neck after the performance of the Russian team at the World Team Championship in Ningbo. The composition of the team, as far as Svilder’s (6-fold Russian Champion by the way) name is concerned, was under question after this tournament. Either he might have been offended by this fact, or he did not loose his talent to play chess and his age is not that critical?

Peter played this match against Ruslan to revenge for his defeat in Semifinals of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2001 in Moscow. This time the Russian chess player is waiting to see who will be his opponent in the decisive match.

The Governor of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug — Ugra Natalia Komarova has congratulated the Russian Grandmaster right after when the Round was over: «As a patriot of my country, I am happy for this outstanding achievement of many-folded Russian Champion and would like to wish him further successes at the chess board».

After the defeat of Ruslan Ponomariov it became obvious to us that it would not be to 100 percent a «2002 déjà-vu» when spectators watched the Ukrainian Final Match. The events will be developed in either two ways: Russian or Russian-Ukrainian Final.

Ponomariov has lost in semifinals, but it is too early for him to get relaxed, because the fight is not over yet. He has two days to get ready for the match for the 3^rd place.

And if Ivanchuk decides to play the match-revenge against Ponomariov, he’d rather not defeat Grischuk.

In the second game Ivanchuk had the initiative and even captured the queen, but it was not enough to win.

Alexander Grischuk was the first to appear at the press-conference. While waiting for the press-officer and the opponent, he made Bambusha laugh. It turned out that the camera was on and it was already broadcast live.

Vassily usually goes to the analysis room, sits in front of the vacant PC and relaxes by wandering in internet. I wonder whether psychologists have already added such way of relaxation to their manuals as «internet therapy»?

Official website: http://chess.ugrasport.com