The world championship 2011 was a prerequisite to participate in the challenge that was to be held in 2013. The listed number of players was 128 and they were to play each other on a single elimination tournament just like in the 2009 games. Playing by single elimination meant that losing at any stage automatically disqualified you from the tournament.
The same format was maintained once more; the game was divided into two successive games while the final match was divided into four rounds. Each player was granted 90minutes to tackle their first 40 moves while 30 more minutes were added to the remainder of the game. Additionally, if there was no winner by the 12th round, then the game will break into two extra fast chess games with a time stamp of 25.1 minutes on every player.
If a tie still existed, then two more rapid games will ensue, only that the time stamp would be reduced to 10.1 minutes. When still no winner emerged from this match, the game was to switch to blitz matched of 5.3 minutes timestamps. And lastly, if there was still a tie, then the game proceeds to the Armageddon face off where white would be a winner in the draw.
The first round was highly heated with players tearing down on each other with killer moves to gain first place. By the end of the first round Sergey Karjakin had beat Mejdi Kaabi 2-0, the Young Wesley So had taken out Ding Liren by a 2.5-1.5 score, Sergei Movsesian won over Hou Yifan with a 2-0, Judit Polgar squashed Fidel Corrales with a 2-0, Leinier Dominquez won with a 1.5-0.5 score over Elshan Moradi, Victor Bologan beat Bartosz Socko by 1.5-o.5 and Igor Lysyj beat Mikhail Kobalia with a clean 3-1. Wang Hao missed his place at the chess tournament thus Alexander Ivanov automatically qualified to proceed.
This was just the first section of the team which showed a remarkable performance on their opponents. By the end of the first round, several seed players had been knocked out and the winners moved to the next game. It is in the quarterfinal match where Alexander Ivanov met his match against Igor Lysyj who beat him by a score of 1.5-2.5 respectively. The semifinal was heated up as well with players like Leinier Dominguez delivering a hard blow to Igor Lysyj with a 5-4 win. The American Gata Kamsky also thrashed Ian Nepomniachtchi with a 3-1 victory which was the same score between Peter Svidler against Fabiano Caruana.
After the first the first four rounds were over, the list had already reduced immensely and only 8 players remained standing in the ring. These were Judit Polgar, Peter Svidler, Vugar Gashimov, Ruslan Ponomariov, Teimour Radjabov, Vassily Ivanchuk, David Navara and Alexander Grischuk. Polgar had shown her prowess and aggressiveness by coming this far, though Svidler managed to eliminate her in the semi finals.
Peter Svidler showed a really good performance right from the beginning and predictions were already coming in that he would likely be the winner. At the end of the day, he definitely did not disappoint when he squashed Alexander Grischuk in the finals by a 2.5 to 1.5 win.