The News from Chessbase:

The official World Cup bulletin states: "Two Chinese players, Wang Yue and Li Chao, were late for the second game of the tiebreaks against Vugar Gashimov (AZE) and Etienne Bacrot (FRA) respectively. According to the FIDE regulations the games were forfeited." More about this in the interview below.

Apparently both players were in the smoking area after the first rapid chess tiebreak game. The arbiter went to the area and announced that the games would start in three minutes, and then again in one minute. Unfortunately Wang and Li arrived at their boards two minutes after the starting time and lost their games by forfeit. Both went on to lose their third rapid chess game and were thus eliminated from the World Cup 2009.



Q: Perhaps now it is a good reason to quit smoking? Less chances to get into a trouble and more chances to be healthy.

Wang Yue: I don't think so… After such a shock you only think to take a long smoke!