The question for round 14 of the Candidates is this: will there be one meaningful game, or none? The answer is up to none of the players, but to Magnus Carlsen. More on this below.

First things first: congratulations to Ian Nepomniachtchi! After another pro forma draw, this time against Richard Rapport, he clinched clear first in the tournament with a round to spare (which he did in the last Candidates, too), and guaranteed himself a World Championship match against…somebody. Hopefully Carlsen, but if he decides not to play it will be against the second-place finisher in this event.

Right now, that’s Hikaru Nakamura. He won against Jan-Krzysztof Duda, but it was a game he easily could have lost. After the careless 31.Rfd1 he was in grave danger after 31…Bg5 32.Rd3 b5!; fortunately, after 33.Ba3 Duda uncorked a howler. His 33…d5?? gave away his advantage, and a few moves later 37…Nd7?? lost the game. That brought Nakamura to +2 in the tournament for the first time, a point and a half behind Nepo and half a point ahead of Ding Liren.

Ding gave it his best shot against Alireza Firouzja, who played uncharacteristically solid chess today. (Losing two straight and barely surviving the third game can do that to a player.) Firouzja’s decision to go pawn-grabbing after Ding’s provocative 20…h5 heated things up, but after very good play by both sides the game finished in a repetition.

Finally, the game between Teimour Radjabov and Fabiano Caruana could have been kept the player in the hunt for second, had either man won. Caruana tried a sharp line against Radjabov’s Catalan, and while both players wanted more it soon petered out to a drawn ending, leaving both players eliminated from contention once Nakamura won.

So we’re left with only one (potentially) meaningful game tomorrow, with Ding having White in a must-win situation against Nakamura. If Ding wins, he’ll have play Nepomniachtchi for the title; otherwise, Nakamura will play Nepo for the title. (Unless Carlsen decides to play, in which case it’s Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi II, when we hope that the sequel will be better than the original. Fortunately this is real life, not Hollywood, so it probably will be.)

Here are today’s games, with my comments, and here are the pairings for the final round, to be played on Monday:

Rapport (5.5) - Radjabov (6.5)

Caruana (6.5) - Firouzja (5)

Ding (7) - Nakamura (7.5)

Duda (5) - Nepomniachtchi (9)