Chess World Cup 2005

The Chess World Cup 2005 served as a qualification tournament for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007. It was held as a 128-player tournament, between 27 November and 17 December 2005, in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

Top ten players qualified for the candidates matches of the World Chess Championship 2007. One of them (Étienne Bacrot) has qualified for the candidates matches via rating, freeing the place for the eleventh player at the World Cup (Vladimir Malakhov).

The World Cup was won by Levon Aronian.

The 2005 World Cup was part of the cycle for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007. Three of the players at the World Cup, Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk and Boris Gelfand, went on to qualify for the World Championship, which was held as an eight-player double round-robin event, with Gelfand finishing third.

Four top finishers of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 (Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Svidler and Alexander Morozevich) were already invited to the World Championship 2007 and thus exempt from the World Cup.

The tournament was in the style of the FIDE World Chess Championships between 1998 and 2004: each round consisted of a two game match, followed by tie breaks at faster time controls if required. In rounds 1–3 losing players were eliminated. However, in rounds 4–6 defeated players progressed to the next round, to determine standings of the 16 best players.

The time control for regular games was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with 30 seconds added after each move. Tie breaks consisted of two rapid chess games (25 minutes each + 10 seconds per move); followed by two blitz games if required (5 minutes + 10 seconds per move); followed by a single Armageddon chess game if required (white has 6 minutes and must win, black has 5 minutes and only needs to draw).

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