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The rating favorites won through to the Quarterfinal stage of Cap D'Agde. It's amazing how ratings play a part even in rapid games, nay, even blitz games. Karpov beat 14 year old Hou Yifan to advance to the knock out stage. Update: Karpov beat Caruana to advance to the Semi-finals. The young teen put up stiff resistance and the regular rapid games ended at 1-1 with a win each. Karpov, who is playing a gruelling schedule (yesterday's tie-break games against Yifan and today's games) beat back Caruana challenge in the 3 minutes+2 seconds increment games. Radjabov suffered a tragic loss to Ivanchuk in the Quarterfinals. More details about it after this game. So, Radjabov had a won position with his Queen for Rook and Bishop. But Ivanchuk defended tenaciously to draw the game. Radjabov lost the next two blitz games probably out of the shock of the "silly" draw in a winning position. What a pity! 1/2-1/2 Quarter finals Carlsen vs Xianghzhi Caruana vs Karpov 3.5 - 2...

The prestigious Cap d'Agde chess tournament starts on October 26. This year, the organizers have assembled an assortment of riches in terms of players gathered. Apart from the usual stars, the organizers have invited Nakamura, who is a blitz expert and also Karpov, who is no pushover in the rapid format. Add a dash of the female brigade and you have an interesting tourney. Participants Group A GM Vasily Ivanchuk Ukraine 2786 GM Maxime Vachier Lagrave France 2716 GM Bu Xiangzhi China 2714 GM Ivan Cheparinov Bulgaria 2696 GM Fabiano Caruana Italy 2640 GM Marie Sebag France 2533 GM Alexandra Kosteniuk Russia 2525 GM Katerina Lahno Ukraine 2488 Group B GM Magnus Carlsen Norway 2786 GM Teimour Radjabov Azerbaijan 2751 GM Hikaru Nakamura USA 2704 GM Anatoly Karpov Russia 2651 GM Humpy Koneru India 2618 WGM Hou Yifan China 2578 GM Sebastien Feller France 2526 WGM Almira Skripchenko France 2455 The initial rounds will be rapid games of 25 minutes +10 seconds each. The top four in each grou...