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Akopian beats Adams; Khalifman up

Paul Eriksen in Las Vegas

Michael Adams, the only player from the top 10 in the world left in the fray, also crashed of the FIDE World Chess Championships, with one game left in the semi-finals.

His conqueror was Vladimir Akopian of Armenia, who scored a second successive win with black to go 2.5-0.5 up in the four-game match at the Caesar's Palace last night.With one game left, Adams has no chance of catching up.

Meanwhile, in the second semi-final, Alexander Khalifman, a former Russian champion, took a definite step in the direction of the final, with a win over rank outsider Romanian Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu.

Khalifman and Nisipeanu had drawn the first two games and the Romanian's only hope now is to win the fourth game and send the match into a tie-breaker. Khalifman leads 2-1 after three games.

For Adams, who was playing well so far, the semi-final exit meant a second successive departure at this stage. At the last World Championship in Groningen, The Netherlands Adams lost to India's Vishwanathan Anand in the tie-breaker.

Though Nisipeanu has had a dream run, it was seen as rather difficult for him to upstage the exprienced Khalifman, who must now be sizing up his chances to not only win the world title but also pocket a winner's cheque that will be worth US $ 660,000.

The two decisive encounters had the spectators satsified after two quick draws in the previous game. Akopian opted for the French defence against Adams, who had seen the Armenian use the same opening against him some years ago in a tournament in Greece. But this time around Adams's reply was less than perfect. By the middle game Akopian had established clear superiority and Adams made a desperate bid to stay trying to salvage a draw.

Akopian had some trouble with the clock, but he still managed well enough to come up with a great 36th move which saw him capture an open file. That sealed the result.

But Adams hung on hoping for an error from his rival. That did not come, and ultimately after 65 moves, the English GM bowed out of the tournament.

Khalifman, a solid player with lot of experience, is the oldest of the four semi-finalists. After some shaky matches in which he scraped through after the tie-breaker, including the one against Dibyendu Barua of India in the opening round, Khalifman has looked fairly good. He gave an impressive display of aggresion against Nisipeanu's Queens Indian defence. He came out with a slight advantage in the opening and might have finished the game faster, but he missed a winning line. He finally won after 38 moves, just before the first time control.

Nisipeanu, ranked outside 100 in the ratings list, needs to win the last game to send the match into tie-breaker. But the prediction is that the solid Khalifman will not take chances and will probably play for a draw and ensure his passage into the final.