What is special about New Year’s Day? Objectively, nothing at all. There’s no scientific reason for the year to start 10 days after the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice, and even if there were, it wouldn’t give that day any magical powers. And yet the day has a powerful effect on most of us: we sense the opportunity for a new beginning, and most of us make resolutions to improve ourselves in various ways in the new year. And it’s not just January 1 that has that effect on us. Our birthdays often function similarly, and we might use an anniversary, the start of a new month, or even the start of a new week as the occasion for a fresh start. In traditional Christian churches, Lent and Advent can have that function, and in Judaism there’s Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana, not to mention the Sabbath (or each Sunday for many Christians). Other religions have their days where the believer is encouraged to review their lives and make changes.

Interestingly, the occurrence of a milestone can lead to profound changes, even when the milestone has no religious or moral significance whatsoever, and even more remarkably, when the individual has no intention or desire to make a change. An example that comes to mind is the All-Star break in baseball. It has frequently happened that a player who had a great first half of the season performed far worse in the second half, and the reverse is true as well. One obvious explanation is regression to the mean, but my understanding is that it goes beyond that. Regression to the mean should in theory happen all the time, but it occurs far more often at the All-Star break, and often to a greater degree than one would expect.

This Candidates tournament didn’t have its “All-Star break”, but the last one did, and it made a difference. Ian Nepomniachtchi had time to forget about his loss to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave at the end of the first cycle and came back strong when the event resumed a year later. MVL did not manage to maintain his momentum, while Ding Liren went from -2 in the first cycle back to an even score overall in the second.

So what about this one? There was no break, but there is still something about the idea of having a second cycle. It’s a fresh start. Yes, the first cycle ended just one day ago and yes, those scores still count. Still, rather than seeing it as round 8 of the Candidates, one can see it as round 1 of a new round-robin, and in that way put the first part of the tournament in the past.

I think it is with that in mind that Nepomniachtchi, with the white pieces, went for a draw from move 1 against Ding Liren. With extremely rare exceptions, the Scotch Four Knights is not an opening one GM plays against another - to say nothing of a game between super-GMs - when trying to win. It is safe to the point of stodginess, an attempt to keep the odds of a draw around 90% while hoping for perhaps the very slightest of nibbles. And this was not a case where Nepo had something clever prepared: the players followed known theory for 21 moves, when Ding varied from one of his own games. He easily drew that one, and he easily drew this one.

So why did Nepo throw away a white game against a player who, though great, was also near the bottom of the tournament, with a winless -1 score? My suggestion is that it’s because this was round 1 of a new tournament, and Ding’s discouragement about his play in the first cycle could be erased with an opportunity at the start of the brand new second cycle. Discretion was the better part of valor against the pre-tournament top seed. The safe draw kept Ding from “waking up”, and guaranteed that at worst he would enter the next round tied with Fabiano Caruana for first, going into their game.

Instead, it worked out even better: he finished his game quickly, while Caruana lost a six-hour game against Hikaru Nakamura. (It was a fresh start for Nakamura, while Caruana’s momentum from the first cycle disappeared.) Caruana’s approach was exactly the opposite of Nepo’s. Where Nepomniachtchi was cautious as White, Caruana chose an extremely risky line with Black. I don’t think Caruana’s choice of the Dilworth was a good one against this opponent, especially but not only in this situation, and I felt this way the second I saw the variation on the board. (See the analysis file for a significant elaboration of this point.) Caruana achieved a good position, but Nakamura was far more adept at handling it, and White was soon winning. Nakamura probably could have won the game swiftly had he played 39.Be8, but was instead forced to continue for another two+ hours thanks to Caruana’s resilient defense. Still, he persevered and never let the win slip, and now he’s just half a point behind Caruana, who is a point behind Nepomniachtchi.

The hitherto winless Richard Rapport also gained a full point in a lively game that would probably have been included in Vladimir Kramnik’s censure had the interview been done a couple of days later. Rapport’s attacking play in the opening was ill-founded, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda enjoyed a significant advantage early on. Unfortunately for Duda, his defensive play was quite poor, and he was soon blown off the board. Now Rapport is back to 50%, and can entertain some slight hopes of success.

The last game, between tailenders Alireza Firouzja and Teimour Radjabov, went even longer than the Nakamura-Caruana game. Firouzja was better through most of this 93-move monster, that went more than seven hours, but finally Radjabov managed to fully equalize and force Firouzja to play for the draw. Even they played with more optimism than their last-place standing would lead us to expect, so - perhaps - the psychological magic of the fresh start affected them as well.

Two addenda. First: at the end of the paragraph on the Rapport-Duda game, I suggested that Rapport “can entertain some slight hopes of success”. You may interpret this as a statement about his chances of taking first, which are slight indeed. However - and I don’t know if this is speculation or what will happen if the situation comes up - but I’ve heard talk that if Carlsen does indeed refuse to defend his title the top two finishers in the Candidates will play the World Championship match. If so, then Duda and Nakamura don’t have to overtake Nepo; it would suffice for them to overtake Caruana (while staying ahead of each other).

Second: That makes tomorrow’s (Monday’s) game between Caruana and Nepomniachtchi both less important and more important than it would otherwise be. It’s less important for Nepo, in that he could still end up in, say, a World Championship match with Caruana even if he lost the game and finished in the American’s wake. Likewise, a draw wouldn’t be fatal to Caruana’s chances of coming second and achieving the same sort of match. However, the game is more important in that the results could prove enormously useful to Nakamura and Duda in the race for second. (And if Nepo loses, Nakamura is by no means out of the chase for first.)

And so this speculation-filled post comes to an end. Here are today’s games, with my comments, and here are the round 9 pairings:

Firouzja (3) - Rapport (4)

Radjabov (3) - Nakamura (4.5)

Caruana (5) - Nepomniachtchi (6)

Ding (3.5) - Duda (3)