sixth on tiebreak at the Russian Superfinal. His success in 2005 earned him fourth place in the Chess Oscar voting. Svidler followed third place in the Moscow Superblitz in January 2006 before slipping in the final rounds to sixth place on tiebreak with 6.5/14 at Morelia-Linares. His form collapsed at Amber in March finishing last in the Rapid and sixth on tiebreak in the Blindfold, and put in solid performances in Mtel Masters and Olympiad held in May. After a short rest, Svidler returned to strength with second on tiebreak at Dortmund with 4.5/7, Kramnik catching him in the last round . He was defeated 5-3 by Aronian in the Mainz Chess 960 match after losing the last two games but beat Magnus Carlsen 1.5-0.5 in Spitsbergen. Svidler lost an armageddon play-off game against Alexander Grischuk at the World Blitz Championship in September, after tying on 10.5/15. In October 2006 Svidler visited Kramnik during the World Championship match in Elista and released a joint open letter with Evgeny Bareev protesting against the handling of the controversy and calling for the dismissal of FIDE Vice-Presidents Georgios Makropoulos and Zurab Azmaiparashvili, who sat on the Appeals Committee at the event. He scored 4.5/9 for seventh place on tiebreak at the Tal Memorial and fourth in the Blitz event in November. He finished fourth at the Russian Superfinal in December with 6.5/11. His poor results since September dropped him from fourth to 12th in the world. In January 2007, Svidler lost his last two games to finish sixth at Corus with 7/13. Losing against Morozevich in the last round cost Svidler a share of second place at Morelia-Linares, instead placing fifth on tiebreak with 7/14, then took overall fourth on tiebreak at Amber in March (seventh in Rapid, fifth on tiebreak in Blindfold). At Aerosvit in June he finished fourth on tiebreak with a solid 6/11 Svidler's third place in San Luis two years before earned him a place in the next World Championship, held in Mexico City in September 2007. Struggling with losses in rounds three and five, he came back to win in the last round, scoring 6.5/14 for fifth place. He said in an interview that although he prepared deeply for the event he was "hugely disappointed". Svidler's 6/7 on first board regained the European Team Championship for Russia as well as individual gold. At the Chess World Cup he