World Chess Championships: First Round, First Sensations

On Thursday second-round competitions of the FIDE Chess Championships started in Moscow. They will last till tomorrow. Twelve Russian chess-players will be competing for the world cup. Among them are Alexander Morozevich, Yevgeny Bareyev, Petr Svidler, Alexei Dreyev and Alexander Grishchuk, all rating in the FIDE top twenty. The main sensation of the first round was the victory of Chinese little-known chess player Zhang Pengxiang over ex-world champion Anatoly Karpov. The world women's chess championships are running in Moscow simultaneously with the men's world championships. Only four out of seven female chess players will be competing in the second round, namely Alisa Gallyamova, Tatyana Grabuzova, Yekaterina Kovalevskaya and Alexandra Kostenyuk. Veteran chess player Nona Gaprindashvili from Georgia, a many-time world champion, was among those who dropped out of the first round.