Dominguez out?!

According to the official site, Dominguez bowed out in the second round tie-breaks to Caruana, losing 2.5-1.5. Scores were tied at 1.5 each when Dominguez found himself trying to win an ending with rook-and-pawn each. According to the live feed, Dominguez took Fabio’s last pawn (meaning the game could practically be called a draw then and there) when the game was declared lost. This could only come about if Dominguez accidentally overstepped the time limit while playing this final, drawing move – a collossal error, if that’s what actually went down. Unfortunately, I don’t have any further information at this stage, but there were certainly no further tie-break games and the official result stands as a win to the Italian teenager. Heartbreaking stuff.

Meanwhile, Nyback couldn’t keep up his good fortune against Svidler, going down in the tie-breaks after a good fight. Nisipeanu also went down to Polgar after the latter held a 140 move draw with Rook against Rook and Bishop (notoriously difficult to defend). With Ivanchuk, Radjabov and Morozevich out, this Cup has been thrown wide open.

It’s hard to concentrate on the holidays with all this drama being fed live to the internet (and us having free wireless in the Helsinki hotel). Fi can’t really understand it – after all, the chess is over for me, so we should be touristing, right? Little does she understand that a chess tragic is never really separated from his (other) love – especially when he has an internet connection!

My pick for the Cup at this stage (and it’s very early days, of course) is Wang Yu. I’ve  always been impressed by his style and professionalism, and I just think his technical prowess is going to give him a huge leg up in the energy-sapping rounds to come. But we’ll see.

Anyway, right now I really should drag myself away from the comp and do a last day’s exploring of Helsinki. It’s quite a nice city, really, and I’ve even got a bit of a taste for Finnish beer and herrings. Right now, off to the zoo to see, ironically, Siberian tigers.