Aronian beats Ivanchuk in first game of quarterfinals of FIDE World Chess Cup

Armenia GM Levon Aronian defeated his opponent in the first game of the 1/4 round (quarterfinals) of the FIDE World Chess Cup 2017 underway in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Playing with white pieces, Aronian outplayed Vassily Ivanchuk from Ukraine at 24 move, the Chess Federation of Armenia reports.

The Fedoseev-Wesley So and Rapport-Li Chao games ended in a draw.

To note, the FIDE World Cup is a 128-player knockout with a $1,280,000 prize fund that qualifies two players for the Candidates tournament next year which decides who will be Magnus Carlsen’s next challenger.

The format is six knockout rounds of 2-game classical matches before a 4-game final. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment from move 1. If the score is tied the players then play two 25-minute + 10-second increment rapid games, then two 10+10 games, then two 5+3 and, finally, Armageddon, where White has 5 minutes to Black's 4 but a draw qualifies Black for the next round.