Only 16 are now. Eight are going to advance to the next round, but
Ponomariov, Grischuk and Rublebsky have won and they are in the eight
finalists. The 15 y.o. boy, Magnus Carlsen, continues with his chance to
go in, but he is now the less rated player in competition. Results in this
round:
1 Bareev, Evgeny (RUS) ½-½ Carlsen, Magnus (NOR) 1-1
2 Bacrot, Etienne (FRA) ½-½ Lautier, Joel (FRA) 1-1
3 Vallejo Pons, Francisco (ESP) ½-½ Aronian, Levon (ARM) 1-1
4 Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) ½-½ Kamsky, Gata (USA) 1.5-0.5
5 Dreev, Alexey (RUS) ½-½ Gelfand, Boris (ISR) 1-1
6 Gurevich, Mikhail (BEL) ½-½ Malakhov, Vladimir (RUS) 1-1
7 Sakaev, Konstantin (RUS) 0-1 Rublevsky, Sergei (RUS) 0.5-1.5
8 Van Wely, Loek (NED) 0-1 Ponomariov, Ruslan (UKR) 0-2
Pronostics are not so easy, but in the tiebreaks of this round, all are
going to play rapid games, this fact can get some advantage for 'fast'
players, like Gelfand, Bacrot and Vallejo... And I think Bareev can beat
Carlsen.
