Maybe they should send the other six players home, and decide the Candidates with a match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana? A six-game match would do the trick, giving Nepo draw odds as an appropriate reward for his half-point lead at this stage.

Of course that’s not going to happen, but barring a stunning collapse or a comeback for the ages, Magnus Carlsen will play (or not play, if he decides to abdicate) a second match against one of his last two world championship opponents. Nepomniachtchi crushed Richard Rapport on the black side of a Petroff, while Caruana ground down Teimour Radjabov in a long, hard battle. Nepo thus finished the first cycle with a crazy +4 score, scoring 5.5 out of 7. Caruana is just half a point behind with a +3 score; in fact, their results were identical in every round except for round 4. Still, it could have been Caruana with 5.5 and Nepo with 5, had Caruana played …Rxb2 on move 30 or move 32 of their game in round 2.

Caruana had interesting comments on both games. About his own game, he said this: “It was the most difficult game I’ve played in a long time.” And about Nepo’s game, he got a bit spicy (especially by his standards): "I felt kind of sick to be honest. It's one of the most shocking games I've seen from a top player in a long time." Mark Crowther, in his TWIC comments on the round, noted Caruana’s explanation “that the line has been known for a decade and that if you get there as white you need to take the draw.” (Quoting Crowther, not Caruana.)

You can replay those games, along with the drawn games between Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Hikaru Nakamura and between Ding Liren and Alireza Firouzja, here. Incredibly, five players are winless, including the top two seeds (Ding & Firouzja). Only Nakamura has managed to tread water, losing to Caruana in round 1 and bouncing back with a win over Rajdabov in round 2. He’ll have his chance for revenge tomorrow. Speaking of which, here are the pairings for tomorrow’s/today’s/Saturday’s round 8, the first round of the second cycle:

Rapport (3) - Duda (3)

Nepomniachtchi (5.5) - Ding (3)

Nakamura (3.5) - Caruana (5)

Firouzja (2.5) - Radjabov (2.5)

This will be a massively important for the leaders and their opponents, and in the next round Caruana will have the white pieces against Nepomniachtchi. Let’s hope the next two rounds live up to their potential.