In todays Quarter Finals the favourites made it through but not in the same fashion!
In the rapid games in the all-Vietnamese encounter there were two Black wins.
| Le Quang Liem | VIE | 2694 | 0-1 | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | VIE | 2633 | Slav Defence | Le Quang had an advantageous endgame but, short of time, he lost control and his centralized king was suddenly in trouble. |
| Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | VIE | 2633 | 0-1 | Le Quang Liem | VIE | 2694 | Trompovsky Opening | From an equal position Le Quang managed to generate some play on both wings. |
The Blitz play-Off games were patchy. Le Quang was often on top in technical positions but had a tendancy to blunder when short of time. However in the third game Nguyen blundered back and failed to recover from the shock in blitz game 4.
| Name | Country | Rating | Blitz 1 | Blitz 2 | Blitz 3 | Blitz 4 |
| Le Quang Liem | VIE | 2694 | =B | =W | 1B | 1W |
| Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | VIE | 2633 | =W | =B | 0W | 0B |
So we can conclude that Le Quang Liem went through after some hard fought but rather unconvincing blitz games.
Judit Polgar, the World's strongest ever female player met Vassily Ivanchuk in the fourth of the quarter finals.
| Vassily Ivanchuk | UKR | 2754 | 1-0 | Judit Polgar | HUN | 2682 | Sicilian Rossolimo | Judit lost her way in the opening and had to sacrifice her queen for two pieces. She resisted for a long time but the result was not really in doubt |
| Judit Polgar | HUN | 2682 | 0-1 | Vassily Ivanchuk | UKR | 2754 | Reti Opening | White made no progress whatsoever on the kingside whereas Ivanchuk carved up Polgar's queenside and won a couple of pawns. |
Here are our selection of videos from Cap d'Agde:
As a reminder, here are the preliminary round tables:
| Rank | Name | Country | Rating | Points |
| 1 | Hikaru Nakamura | USA | 2733 | 6.5 |
| 2 | Bu Xiangzhi | CHN | 2695 | 5.5 |
| 3 | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | VIE | 2633 | 4 |
| 4 | Judit Polgar | HUN | 2682 | 3.5 |
| 5 | Romain Edouard | FRA | 2636 | 3 |
| 6= | Anatoly Karpov | RUS | 2619 | 2.5 |
| 6= | Nadezhda Kosintseva | RUS | 2565 | 2.5 |
| 8 | Sophie Milliet | FRA | 2388 | 0.5 |
Pool B:
| Rank | Name | Country | Rating | Points |
| 1= | Vassily Ivanchuk | UKR | 2754 | 5.5 |
| 1= | Le Quang Liem | VIE | 2694 | 5.5 |
| 3= | Jon Ludvig Hammer | NOR | 2633 | 4 |
| 3= | Yannick Pelletier | SUI | 2592 | 4 |
| 5= | Tigran Gharamian | FRA | 2658 | 3 |
| 5= | Kateryna Lahno | UKR | 2539 | 3 |
| 7 | Zhu Chen | QAT | 2480 | 2 |
| 8 | Tatiana Kosintseva | RUS | 2573 | 1 |
A summary of Thursday's other quarter-finals:
| Jon Ludvig Hammer | 2633 | NOR | 0-1 | Hikaru Nakamura | 2733 | USA | Sicilian b3 | Bad blunder from Hammer in the rook and knight pseudo-endgame |
| Hikaru Nakamura | 2733 | USA | 1-0 | Jon Ludvig Hammer | 2633 | NOR | Spanish Delayed Exchange | Hammer was forced to take risks to try and win and Nakamura refuted Hammer's activity with a strong exchange sacrifice |
| Yannick Pelletier | 2592 | SUI | 0-1 | Xiangzhi Bu | 2695 | CHN | Catalan | White ran out of things to do and Bu broke through on the queenside. |
| Xiangzhi Bu | 2695 | CHN | 0.5-0.5 | Yannick Pelletier | 2592 | SUI | English/Hedgehog | Pelletier tried (with ...f5 and ...b5) to mix things but White was never rattled by this show of force. |
So the Semi-Finals will feature the four highest-ranked players, who are also those who performed best in the preliminary phase.
Live games can be watched everyday from 14.30 local time Live Games
The English-language commentators being Glenn Flear (that is, yours truly!) and Javier Moreno.
Moscow 16.30am
Paris, Madrid 14.30am
London 13.30
New York 08.30am
Los Angeles 05.30am
For more information go to the Official site
