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Kramnik on Fire in Day 2

Lichess TeamChess

Kramnik, Svidler, Tomashevsky and Grischuk through to semifinals, to be played tomorrow on lichess.org

A hugely eventful day for the Play for Russia charity blitz event where Kramnik overtook Grischuk to win the double round-robin overall with a dominating 10.5 / 14, winning five of his seven encounters in today's leg. 

Tomorrow, the four best performers from the double round-robin will play a semi-finals and finals, to find a clear Play for Russia Champion - sticking with the 5 + 2 format they’ve played in so far. 

Just like today and yesterday, WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni and GM Evgenij Miroschnichenko will be providing English commentary of the games, on the Lichess Twitch and YouTube channels tomorrow for day 3. Russian commentary will be provided by MatchTV and broadcast on Russian television. 

The Play for Russia event is being played to raise money for charities in Russia, with $330,000 USD already raised so far. More details and how to donate can be found on the Russian Chess Federation's website [EN].

All games are being played on lichess.org - and there have been some absolute fireworks so far, as would be expected with such a strong field of players. Click to see all the games played in day 1 and day 2 respectively.

Semifinal and final matches - 14 May 2020:

12 midday UTC:
Vladimir Kramnik v Alexander Grischuk 
Alexander Grischuk v Vladimir Kramnik

13:00 UTC:
Peter Svidler v Evgeny Tomashevsky
Evgeny Tomashevsky v Peter Svidler 

14:00 UTC:
Finalist 1 v Finalist 2
Finalist 2 v Finalist 1
Finalist 1 v Finalist 2
Finalist 2 v Finalist 1

If scores are equal, an armageddon round will be played. 

Standings after 14 rounds:

PositionNamePoints / 14
1.Vladimir Kramnik10.5
2.Peter Svidler9
3.Evgeny Tomashevsky*8
4.Alexander Grischuk*8
5.Sergey Karjakin7.5
6.Ernesto Inarkiev5.5
7.Ian Nepomniachtchi5
8.Alexander Riazantsev2.5

*Sonneborn-Berger used
The full cross-table can be found: here.

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