World Cup R5: Gelfand beat Karjakin with black

The semifinals of the FIDE World Cup saw Boris Gelfand, 41, beating his 19-year-opponent Sergey Karjakin in impressive style with the black pieces. Karjakin now has the daunting task of having to win the second game on Monday or say goodbye to Khanty Mansiysk. In the other game Ponomariov and Malakhov drew a Slave game in 40 moves.

Karjakin , Sergey ( UKR ) - Gelfland, Boris ( ISR ) 0:1

Ponomariov, Ruslan ( UKR ) - Malakhov, Vladimir ( RUS ) 0,5:0,5

Round 5 Tiebreak :

It was not a protracted tiebreak, which can theoretically go over 15 games. It took just three for Boris Gelfand and Ruslan Ponomariov to get into the semifinals. The Israeli GM beat Dmitry Jakovenko in two rapid games, and drew one; the Ukrainian took out Vugar Gashimov with the same result (that makes it 2:0 for Ukraine over Azerbaijan in the quarterfinals).

Gelfland , Boris ( ISR ) - Jakovenko , Dmitry (RUS ) 3,5:1,5

Ponomariov , Ruslan ( UKR ) - Gashimov, Vugar ( AZE ) 3,5:1,5

Svidler, Peter ( RUS ) - Malakhov, Vladimir ( RUS ) 0,5:1,5

Karjakin, Sergey ( UKR ) - Mamedyamov , Shakh. ( AZE ) 1.5:0,5