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 list of players who declined participation: Anand, Carlsen, Topalov, Aronian, Kramnik, Leko, Adams, Nakamura, and Ni Hua.

Among them, Anand, Topalov and Aronian had already qualified for the Candidates or the Championship match; Carlsen, Kramnik, Nakamura, Adams and Ni had committed to play in the London Chess Classic on 7–15 December 2009.

[8] In the second rapid tiebreak, Chinese players Wang Yue and Li Chao were not at their seats for the start of the round, and lost the game, and their matches against Bacrot and Gashimov.

Wesley So (16), Fabiano Caruana (17) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (19) were eliminated by the more experienced Malakhov, Gashimov and Gelfand respectively, leaving Sergey Karjakin the only under-20 player left in contention.