Kamsky Wins World Cup, Joins World Championship Cycle

U.S. GM Gata Kamsky today won the FIDE World Cup by forcing a draw in game four of his championship match against GM Alexei Shirov. The win gives him the right to play Topalov in a 2008 semi-final match leading up to the 2009 World Championship against the winner of a Kramnik-Anand match. It's a great come-back for the 1990s star, who went undefeated in the entire tournament! Based on his play--and especially his deep opening preparation in these matches--I think he has a very good chance of going all the way.

News, pictures, notes, and video regarding the final game of the match:

• Sergey Shipov live in Russian at the Tournament website (soon English)
• Peter Doggers at Chess Vibes
• Mig at The Daily Dirt
• Dylan Loeb McClain's Gambit weblog of The New York Times
• Chessdom on Kamsky's Victory
• ChessBase
• Dennis Monokroussos at The Chess Mind
• Jennifer Shahade at USCF.org

Read more about the history of the World Chess Championship at Mark Weeks's site or in the latest Kibitzer column ("How Many World Champions?" - PDF) by Tim Harding.

Kamsky Leads Shirov 2-1

U.S. GM Gata Kamsky today drew the third game of his championship match against GM Alexei Shirov (now of Spain) in the FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. He has White in the final game (barring tie breaks). The winner of this match will play Topalov for the right to challenge for the 2009 World Championship against the winner of the expected Anand-Kramnik match.

Kamsky won the second game of the match yesterday. That second game was a very interesting and closely-contested encounter that featured attacks and counter-attacks by both sides and will likely attract much high level commentary. Several sources have already provided extensive annotations to the game, and I will try to add others as they appear:

• Sergey Shipov live at the Tournament website
• Dorian Rogozenko at ChessBase
• Dennis Monokroussos at The Chess Mind
• Peter Doggers at Chess Vibes
• Malcolm Pein in the Telegraph
• Jennifer Shahade at USCF.org

Updated at 11:00 Sunday-- thanks for the corrections and additional links.