There are still eight rounds left in the 2022 Candidates, but unless the chase pack, er, starts chasing - and soon - it will be a two-main race between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana, both of whom won today. For Nepo it was his third win in six games, this time at Jan-Krzysztof Duda’s expense; while Caruana won his second game, against Alireza Firouzja. (Firouzja is now alone in last place. Everyone else’s chess fans should enjoy it [non-maliciously] while they can, because once he has a little more experience he may be unstoppable by anyone but Magnus Carlsen.)

For Nepo, much of the credit goes to a clever opening choice. He played the Reti, and Duda chose a common line that hasn’t fared especially well, and that he didn’t seem to grasp in his fingertips. Nepo’s advantage rapidly grew, and while he had a stumble or two near the end, it wasn’t easy for Duda to exploit the errors - and he didn’t. The Russian FIDE player finished convincingly, and is leading the tournament heading into the second rest day. (Fun fact: he also leapfrogged Firouzja into fourth place on the live rating list.)

Caruana remains half a point behind and is for now the only player who seems to be awake, other than Nepo. Firouzja tried to make something happen in a position where nothing was happening nor should be happening, first with the dubious 15.e4?! and then with 20.Rxd7, which was either a blunder (missing 21…f5 22.Bxf5 Qe8) or a fatal misjudgment. Caruana’s technique was terrific, and his mature handling of the game was the counterpoint to Firouzja’s misjudgments. (Again, this won’t last for long, and soon the 19-year-old will be an almost unstoppable wrecking ball in the chess world.)

Hikaru Nakamura is the only player besides Nepo and Caruana to have won a game in this tournament, and he has come close in other games, too. With White against Ding Liren (mired at -1) he demonstrated some deep preparation, and was well over an hour ahead on the clock after 26 moves. But Ding played just about perfectly, and Nakamura started burning loads of time himself, most notably on move 30, which cost him 50(!) minutes. Despite his best efforts to cause Ding problems, the tournament’s top seed defended excellently, and a near-perfect game by both players finished in a repetition just after the time control.

Finally, Teimour Radjabov and Richard Rapport played a wild game that also finished in a draw. Despite the great complications, TR and RR played nearly perfectly until just before the time control, and…somewhat less than perfectly at that point. Rapport’s 36…Rg4? got him into trouble, while 37…Rxh4+?? should have lost the game. Surprisingly, with several minutes left to mate two moves, Radjabov missed 39.Bh2, which wins on the spot, instead forcing a draw with 39.Rf7?? A frustrating end for Radjabov, while Rapport somehow remains at 50% after five draws, even though he seems to be winning or losing at some point in every game. (To recap: Lost by move 10 against Duda in round 1, winning against Firouzja in round 2, completely lost against Ding in round 3, a normal draw with Nakamura in round 4, good winning chances though not clearly winning against Caruana in round 5, and lost today against Radjabov. -1 or -2 would have been about right, so he should feel optimistic about his chances given his even score.)

As noted already, the players have Friday off before round 7 on Saturday brings the first cycle to a close, after which the players try it again with colors reversed. Here are the round 7 pairings:

Rapport (3) - Nepomniachtchi (4.5)

Duda (2.5) - Nakamura (3)

Ding (2.5) - Firouzja (2)

Caruana (4) - Radjabov (2.5)

Radjabov has been playing better the last several rounds, but this is still a game where Caruana will be looking for the full point. And for Nepo, danger, especially as he lost in the same situation in the previous Candidates. We’ll see how well he has learned to moderate risk in this battle of two volatile, fighting players. In the meantime, here are today’s games, with my notes.