The Chess World Cup 2009 was a 128-player single-elimination tournament, played between 20 November and 14 December 2009, in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. The Cup winner qualified for the Candidates stage of the World Chess Championship 2012. Boris Gelfand defeated Ruslan Ponomariov in the final. The winner of the Chess World Cup 2007, Gata Kamsky, was defeated by Wesley So in the third round. Format Matches consisted of two games (except for the final, which consisted of four). Players had 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move from move one. If the match was tied after the regular games, tie breaks were played on the next day. The format for the tie breaks was as follows: Four rapid games (25 minutes plus 10 second increment) were played. According to chess journalist Mig Greengard, a "high FIDE official" admitted off the record that this unusual decision of playing four games instead of two was actually a mistake that was spotted too late to correct it. If the score was still tied, up to five pairs of blitz games (5 minutes plus 3 second increment) were played. If one player led after a pair of blitz games, that player was declared the winner. This was a change from previous events, for instance at the Chess World Cup 2007 the match went to an armageddon game after a single pair of blitz games. If the score was still tied after five pairs of blitz games, a single armageddon game (white must win, black only needs to draw) would be played. White had 5 minutes, black had 4 minutes, and both players had three-second increments beginning with move 61. Ultimately, no Armageddon games were played, as all matches were decided before that stage. Participants The players qualified for the event were: , 2758 (R) , 2758 (R) , 2754 (R) , 2750 (R) , 2748 (R) , 2739 (R) , 2739 (R) , 2736 (R) , 2736 (R) , 2734 (R) , 2729 (E09) , 2723 (SF) , 2719 (R) , 2719 (SF) , 2719 (R) , 2718 (E08) , 2718 (E08) , 2715 (R) , 2708 (E09) , 2708 (R) , 2707 (E09) , 2706 (R) , 2700 (R) , 2697 (R) , 2696 (E09) , 2695 (E09) , 2695 (SF) , 2694 (E09) , 2692 (E08)