Chess World Cup 2002


The FIDE World Cup 2002, marketed as the Second Chess World Cup, was a 24-player Category XVI chess tournament played between 9 October and 22 October 2002 in Hyderabad, India. The tournament was hosted at Ramoji Film City and organized by FIDE in conjunction with the All India Chess Federation. Former World Cup winner Viswanathan Anand defeated Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the final to retain the title.

Format

The tournament began with a league stage, consisting of 4 groups of six players each. Each player played a game against each of the other players in his group once. At the end of the group stage, the top two players from each group progressed to the quarterfinals. In the knockout rounds, each player played a two-game match against his opponent. If the match was tied after the regular games, blitz tie-breaks were used to determine a winner.

Participants

All players are Grandmasters unless indicated otherwise.
  1. , 2755
  2. , 2709
  3. , 2707
  4. , 2684
  5. , 2673
  6. , 2670
  7. , 2670
  8. , 2667
  9. , 2666
  10. , 2664
  11. , 2653
  12. , 2650
  13. , 2643
  14. , 2628
  15. , 2615
  16. , 2614
  17. , 2600
  18. , 2593
  19. , 2575
  20. , 2551
  21. , 2550
  22. , 2531, IM
  23. , 2511
  24. , 2399, IM

    Calendar

RoundDates
Group Stage5–13 October
Quarterfinals15–16 October
Semifinals17–18 October
Final19–20 October

Group stage

The group stages featured a number of surprising upsets, with the top three seeds all struggling to remain in contention. Anand, the No. 1 seed, overcame an early loss to Krishnan Sasikaran with wins over Kasimdzhanov and Al-Modiahki to finish second in his group. Vassily Ivanchuk was less fortunate, dropping games to Malakhov and Macieja and finishing fifth in Group A. Morozevich never recovered after suffering a disastrous start with three straight losses to Ehlvest, Ganguly, and Harikrishna. He scored only one point in five matches, finishing second-to-last in the entire tournament and dropping below 2700 in Elo rating for the first time since 1998.
Group APts.Group BPts.Group CPts.Group DPts.
Vladimir Malakhov3½ Alexey Dreev3½ Rustam Kasimdzhanov3½ Alexander Beliavsky3½
Ye Jiangchuan3 Sergei Rublevsky3 Viswanathan Anand3 Nigel Short3½
Bartłomiej Macieja3 Teimour Radjabov3 Krishnan Sasikiran2½ Jaan Ehlvest3½
Giovanni Vescovi3 Zurab Azmaiparashvili2½ Hichem Hamdouchi2½ Surya Ganguly2
Vassily Ivanchuk2 Alex Yermolinsky1½ Mohammed Al-Modiahki2 Pentala Harikrishna1½
Saidali Iuldachev½ Watu Kobese1½ Xu Jun1½ Alexander Morozevich1

Playoffs

Final

In the final, Viswanathan Anand defended his World Cup title won in Shenyang against Rustam Kasimdzhanov in a two-game match. The first game of the match ended in a 16-move draw, with Kasimdzhanov failing to make any headway against Anand's Caro-Kann defence. In Game 2, Anand gradually outplayed Kasimdzhanov in the Petroff defence, gaining a strong advantage after 18... N6g5?. Kasimdzhanov would resign 11 moves later.
NameRating12Total
2755½11½
2653½0½