14 July 2019
Sergey Karjakin and Alexander Griscuk Qualify for Second Round of Riga Grand Prix
Peter Svidler, Daniil Dubov and Nikita Vitiugov were eliminated.
Photo: World Chess
The tie-break of the first round of the second FIDE Grand Prix leg organized by World Chess in Riga were played July 14.
Alexander Grischuk eliminated Nikita Vitiugov by winning both rapid games. Peter Svidler (all from Russia) lost to Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland) 0.5-1.5. Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) defeated Hikaru Nakamura 1.5-0.5, while Wesley So (both from the USA) bested Pentala Harikrishna (India) with the same score.
The matches Sergey Karjakin (Russia) vs. Anish Giri (Netherlands) and Levon Aronian (Armenia) vs. Yu Yangyi (China) happened to be very tough. Both of them were decided in sudden death games, where the Russian and Chinese grandmasters were more successful than their rivals.
The first quarterfinal games will be played on July 15. The pairings are as follows:
Karjakin - So, Duda - Mamedyarov, Grischuk - Yu Yangzi, Topalov - Vachier-Lagrave.
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