Countdown to the World Cup
November 19, 2009
The World Cup begins November 21 and the USA will be represented by a 10-player squad, including defending champion Gata Kamsky and young contenders GMs Robert Hess and Ray Robson. See the official website and tournament pairings.  Frequent CLO contributor GM Josh Friedel will also be participating, so look for his thoughts on the event.

The tournament is paired with 1 vs. 128, etc. so the highest and lower rated players have the most lopsided pairings.

The US match-ups feature:

GM

Tomashevsky, Evgeny (2708)

GM

Ivanov, Alexander (2539)

USA

GM

Wang, Hao (2708)

GM

Friedel, Joshua E (2551)

USA

GM

Jobava, Baadur (2696)

IM

Robson, Ray (2567)

USA

GM

Motylev, Alexander (2695)

GM

Hess, Robert L (2572)

USA

GM

Kamsky, Gata (2695)

GM

Antonio, Rogelio Jr (2574)

PHI

GM

Onischuk, Alexander (2672)

GM

Flores, Diego (2602)

ARG

GM

Smirin, Ilia (2662)

GM

Ehlvest, Jaan (2606)

USA

GM

Baklan, Vladimir (2655)

GM

Shabalov, Alexander (2606)

USA

GM

Savchenko, Boris (2644)

GM

Shulman, Yuri (2623)

USA

GM

Tregubov, Pavel V. (2642)

GM

Akobian, Varuzhan (2624)

USA


The rounds will take place at 3 PM local, 5 AM EST.