6 months ago
2
A chill breeze blew crossed Resort Rio, bringing alleviation to an oppressively lukewarm Sunday evening. That comforting breeze whitethorn person done small to calm Andrey Esipenko as helium came retired of the playing hallway and walked swiftly towards his room.
The conditioned aerial wrong the country whitethorn not person helped, either. The 23-year-old Russian had conscionable blundered a spot successful the Chess World Cup final, and missed a confirmed summons for the formation to Cyprus, which volition big the Candidates successful March-April adjacent year. Esipenko could inactive marque it to the Candidates, by winning the playoff for 3rd spot astatine the World Cup, but his 56th move against Wei Yi in the 2nd tie-break crippled of the semifinal volition haunt him for long. It was a gentle pawn propulsion connected the ‘c’ record to the sixth rank, but it was besides an irretrievable measurement to self-destruction.
As a effect of that move, Esipenko lost his rook that had been near hanging connected the different fractional of the board. Wei immediately captured the hapless rook with his knight, and suddenly, from a precise pugnacious presumption — helium was 2 pawns down — recovered himself successful the World Cup final, and successful the Candidates. Esipenko resigned immediately, and looked for a fewer seconds incredulously astatine the committee earlier getting up.
In the last starting connected Monday, the seventh-seeded Wei will meet Javokhir Sindarov. In the all-Uzbek semifinal, the 16th seed scored a important triumph against Nodirbek Yakubboev in the archetypal game, riding connected his precocious passed pawn.
Sindarov then lone needed a gully successful the 2nd game, and got that. In the different match, Esipenko and Wei had drawn the archetypal game, mounting up the melodramatic second.
The results (semifinals): Wei Yi (Chn) bt Andrey Esipenko (Rus) 1.5-.5; Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb) bt Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb) 1.5-0.5.
