Kasparov on the Candidates

His commentary during round 12 on Nepomniachtchi, Firouzja, Caruana and more. Come for the chess, stay for the travel suggestions.

Round 9 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepomniachtchi Escapes; The Peleton Awakens

(Originally published on my Substack blog. Please subscribe!)

It’s almost certainly too late for the chase pack in the 2022 Candidates tournament to make a real run at the title, but it’s nice to see that their slumber has finally come to an end. (See my comments about a “fresh start” in the round 8 post.) Going into round 9, four players had yet to win a game; now, only one.

We’ll get to that in a moment, but first: the Big Game. Fabiano Caruana had excellent chances to defeat Ian Nepomniachtchi in their game from the first cycle, but didn’t see or underestimated a critical idea at the end of the game and allowed a draw by repetition. Today, a point behind Nepo and needing a win, his excellent preparation gave him another shot at a full point. Caruana was highly critical of Richard Rapport’s opening disaster against Nepomniachtchi’s Petroff in round 7, and he showed the chess world how it’s supposed to be done. His 11.Nh4 was a very nice (almost) novelty, and while Nepo’s initial reaction was excellent he erred on move 17 and 18. The critical moment came on move 24; it’s White (Caruana) to move:

Happy solving! Suffice it to say that Caruana played the second best move, which allowed Nepo to scamper away to safety and an easy draw. Working out the details of the best move wasn’t easy (if it were, Caruana would have done it), but had he done so he’d have been winning, or near enough to winning to be a big favorite to reel in the point.

That was great news for Nepomniachtchi, and more was to come. Hikaru Nakamura could have joined Caruana in second with a win; instead, he lost to Teimour Radjabov, who had been winless up to that point. Perhaps Nakamura was in the wrong state of mind after his epic win over Caruana in the previous round, as he committed a serious misjudgment early on. His 12th and 13th moves baited Radjabov into grabbing a queenside pawn at the expense of kingside safety, but it turned out that Radjabov’s king was fine. As for the queenside pawn? That won the game. It was a surprisingly easy victory for Radjabov, who is back to -1, while Nakamura fell back to 50%, two points behind Nepo.

Richard Rapport’s first win came in round 8, but like Nakamura he was unable to build on it but instead took a step back. He was conquered by Alireza Firouzja, who exited the opening with a huge advantage and a massive attack. He made a couple of mistakes along the way, but Rapport did too, and the result was a very one-sided win for the young Frenchman. It was his first win of the tournament.

Ding Liren also winning for the first time in the tournament, grinding down Jan-Krzysztof Duda in a long game. The game looked (and was) very drawish for most of the first time control, but just before move 40 the position became more complex. Probably short of time, Duda made a major error on move 40, and while proving the win afterwards wasn’t so easy the world’s #2 was up to the challenge and got back to 50%. (The games, with my comments, are here.)

Now that the action is heating up…it’s time for a rest day. When play resumes on Wednesday, we’ll see these pairings for round 10:

Rapport (4) - Ding (4.5)

Duda (3) - Caruana (5.5)

Nepomniachtchi (6.5) - Radjabov (4)

Nakamura (4.5) - Firouzja (4)

Vachier-Lagrave Wins World Blitz Championship in a Playoff vs. Duda; Firouzja Third

As with the Rapid, so with the Blitz: the event finished in a tie with more than two players, and so the "extra" players - or in this case, extra player, singular - was left out of the playoff. Alireza Firouzja was the unfortunate third wheel this time, while Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Jan-Krzysztof Duda went to battle for the title of World Blitz Champion (and perhaps unofficially, the title of the strongest player with a hyphenated name).

The playoff began with a pair of blitz games: both drawn. In many events the next stage is an Armageddon battle, but not here. Instead, the players were to contest as many games as needed until one of them won a single game; in other words: "sudden death". That places a significant premium on luck: if one is fortunate enough to win the toss to get the white pieces first, they may very well win their white game without the opponent's getting a chance for his own white game. And that's just what happened: MVL got White, won, and that was it.

Having skipped to the end of the story, let's go back to its beginning - at least the beginning of the day's goings-on. The first noteworthy event was a non-event: Hikaru Nakamura no-showed against Daniil Dubov, self-quarantining after testing positive for COVID. As for the players who did participate, the day 1 leader, Levon Aronian, started off in terrific form and increased his lead. He defeated Bassem Amin in round 13 (the first round of the day), and after draws with Arjun Erigaisi and Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Anish Giri in good style. With five rounds to go he was in the driver's seat, leading Dubov by a full point and everyone else by even more, but then everything went awry. He lost a clearly won game against Vachier-Lagrave, and while he remained in clear first by half a point things got worse. He overpressed against Haik Martirosyan and lost, and then lost to Vladislav Artemiev as well. Remarkably, a win over the very young, very talented Javokhir Sindarov put him into a six-way tie for first entering the last round, but he lost to Firouzja.

As for Firouzja, he came on like a mac truck at the end, winning his last five games and seven of his last eight, but his slow start left him in trouble when it came to tiebreaks.

Another player who entered the last round tied for first was Dubov, who had in fact been leading going into the penultimate round, when he lost with white to Firouzja. In the last round he again had White, against Giri (who was a point behind), but incredibly offered him a draw after eight moves, which was accepted. As for Giri, he was in good shape after defeating Magnus Carlsen in round 15, but then he lost to Aronian in round 16 and then drew his last five games.

Carlsen was not part of the tie; he was half a point back entering the last round. That was impressive, considering that he started the day a point and a half out of first and started today's action rather poorly. He began with a win over Parham Maghsoodloo, but then drew with Martirosyan and then lost twice, first to Giri and then to Alexander Grischuk. At that point he was three points back, but that was when Aronian started losing. Carlsen scored 3.5 out of his next 4, capped by a win against Nepomniachtchi. In the last round, he was defeating MVL - which would have meant a playoff between Firouzja and Duda - but he slipped on one last banana peel, allowing his desperate opponent to force mate.

Duda was of course part of the tie for first entering the last round, as was his opponent, Vladislav Artemiev. If anything, Artemiev had an even worse start in the event than Firouzja, beginning with just half a point out of three. He righted the ship on day with a run of 7/8, and was undefeated today heading into the last-round game with Duda. Unfortunately for the young Russian, that final game was a bit of a disaster, and Duda - who won his last three games and seven of his last eight - made it into the playoff.

Finally, MVL. He got off to a decent score in the early rounds, going +4 from his first eight games, but then he lost in rounds 9 and 10 to Amin and Maghsoodloo, respectively. From then on he went undefeated. He won his last two games on day one, and then mostly alternated wins and draws today. He beat Boris Gelfand in round 13, drew Giri in round 14, beat Sindarov in round 15, drew with Martyn Kravtsiv in round 16, beat Aronian and Erigaisi in rounds 17 and 18, drew Dubov and Artemiev in rounds 19 and 20, and then won - swindled! - Carlsen in that critical last round battle.

Congrats then to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave for winning the blitz world championship, to Nodirbek Abdusattorov for winning the rapid world championship, and to Magnus Carlsen for not having persuaded anyone to join him in devaluing the classical world championship. (At least not to the extent that anyone would consider Abdusattorov or MVL some sort of co-champion.) Thus despite his best rhetorical efforts, 99.99+% of the world still considers him the world chess champion, and rightly so.

Ding Liren Wins His Match, but Remains at #3

Just following up on an earlier story: Ding Liren defeated Lu Shanglei 3-1 in their brief warm-up match, winning the first and last games. Had he also won game two and/or game three he'd have leapfrogged Alireza Firouzja and reclaimed the #2 spot in the world's rankings, but as it is he remains at #3.

European Team Championship Finale: Ukraine Wins On Tiebreaks, France Second; Firouzja #2 in the World and Over 2800; Shirov Back over 2700 **UPDATED**

Happy endings all around, especially for Alireza Firouzja and his legion of fans. Firouzja at the tender age of 18 years and five months, is the youngest player in chess history to break the 2800 barrier. (Magnus Carlsen is the only other player to hit 2800 before turning 19, but he was some months older.) His ridiculous score of 8/9 in the European Team Championship, finishing with a draw against Alexander Grischuk and a win over Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, pushed him over the top (and nearly brought his team to overall victory). He is now 2803.8 on the Live Rating List (which will be rounded up to 2804 at the end of the month), making him #2 in the world. This month alone he leapfrogged seven players, most recently Ding Liren, gaining 34 points between this event and his win in the FIDE Grand Swiss.

That's the happy youth story. The happy middle-age story belongs to Alexei Shirov, who drew with Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Anish Giri in the last two rounds to re-enter the rarified air of the 2700 club. His November was almost as fantastic as Firouzja's, as he gained 29 points and went undefeated in both the FIDE Grand Swiss (where he drew with Firouzja) and the European Team Championship. It's not the Shirov of 20 or even 10 years ago, when he was very much in the hunt for the World Championship, but it's still nice to see him competing on equal terms with 2700s.

A few more comments about Firouzja. First, for all his greatness, which is on increasingly display on an almost daily basis, he did enjoy some good fortune in the last two rounds. Excessive (and needless) risk had him in some trouble against Grischuk in the penultimate round, while Mamedyarov lost a theoretically drawn ending to him in the last round. It's the sort of ending one would expect an amateur or a weak pro (relatively speaking) to lose under pressure. But a super-GM like Mamedyarov? That's the sort of thing that used to happen all the time to Carlsen's opponents when he was an up-and-comer, and it looks like Firouzja has taken his mantle.

Second...will he be the official #2 player at the end of the month? Ding Liren had seemed to have entered hibernation, but then he showed up for an online blitz match against Mamedyarov a couple of weeks ago, and now he's playing a four-game warm-up match with Liu Shanglei. He won the first game to go from 2799 to 2801.6; with another win he overtakes Firouzja. I'm not sure if 3/4 will be enough to do the job, or if he'll need at least 3.5 points, but it's possible that he'll be able to take the tiniest bit of luster off of Firouzja's month--but only the tiniest bit.

Here are Firouzja's last two games from the ETC and Ding's win in the first game of his match.

**UPDATE**

First, a correction. Contrary to the title in the post (since corrected), Ukraine won the ETC, not Russia.

Second, an update on the match between Ding Liren and Lu Shanglei. Above, I wasn't sure if 3/4 would be enough for Ding to surpass Alireza Firouzja on the rating list. Well, now I know. Game two of the match finished in a draw and cost Ding almost all his rating gains from his win in the first game, so Firouzja will finish the month at #2 unless Ding wins both games 3 and 4.

An Update on Tata Steel & the European Team Championship: Firouzja on the Verge of 2800

It's an exciting time in the chess world, with the World Championship match starting in about a week and a new superstar really exploding on the scene.

First, a quick update on the interesting individual event going on in Kolkota, India, the Tata Steel Rapid & Blitz. The rapid event has ended with a surprise victory by the third-lowest rated player in the field, Arjun Erigaisi. A strong day 2 made the difference, as he went 3-0 to take the lead, and his three draws on the last day were enough to secure the victory. The last draw was especially important, as he held off Levon Aronian, who would have caught him with a win. Erigaisi finished with 6.5/9, a point better than Aronian, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (who defeated Erigaisi in round 2), and Santosh Vidit; Murali Karthikeyan and Sam Shankland were a further half a point behind.

Now to the European Team Championship. As far as the team aspect goes, I believe that Ukraine and Azerbaijian are tied for the lead with two rounds to go, but my interest and focus have been on the individual performances. In particular, the ascents of Alireza Firouzja and Alexei Shirov have grabbed my attention: Shirov, because it's nice to see him return to something like his old form; Firouzja, because his results are so ridiculously good, especially for someone who is just 18 years old.

A couple of days ago, I wondered which player would reach the next century mark faster: Firouzja to 2800, or Shirov to 2700? If we round up, then Shirov already managed it yesterday with a messy win over rapidly rising youngster Bogdan-Daniel Deac, which brought him to 2699.7. He drew with Gabriel Sargissian today, costing him a tenth of a point, so his rating will still flip over to 2700 at the end of the month, if he stays where he is. As for Firouzja, he defeated Dimitrios Mastrovasilis and then Baadur Jobava, and that brings him to 2798.9, a point shy of 2800 and into a virtual tie with Ding Liren for second on the live rating list. He has gained an insane 28.9 ratings point this month--a normal event for an 18-year-old, perhaps, but not when that 18-year-old is in the top 10. A win and a draw in the last two games, and he'll break 2800 and hit #2 in the world. If he can keep building on this in the coming year, he'll have a very good shot of earning a world championship match against the winner of the Magnus Carlsen - Ian Nepomniachtchi match.

Speaking of which, please...

Firouzja Now #3 in the World

With four rounds to go in the European Team Championship 18-year-old Iranian-French wunderkind Alireza Firouzja has jumped into third on the live rating list, passing Fabiano Caruana and now trailing only World Champion Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren. Moreover, he's only six points behind Ding, and 6.2 points away from becoming only the second 18-year-old 2800 in chess history (after Carlsen). It's a fantastic achievement, as his incredible month finds him jumping from one peak to another.

Firouzja began the month with a 2770 rating, and has padded that already lofty number with an additional 23.3 rating points. That's tops among players in the top 100, but the player with the second-largest rating gain this month deserves serious credit as well: Alexei Shirov. Like Firouzja, he had a fantastic result in the FIDE Grand Swiss last week, and while his European Team Championship performance hasn't been as strong as Firouzja's, it has been good enough - his rating has continued to climb. For almost two decades he was at or near the top of world chess, and with an incredible attractive, Tal-like style. He fell below 2700 some years back, but with 22 points in his pocket this month alone he's nearing that level once again, reaching 2695 with his win in the last round.

Will their successes continue? Will Firouzja break 2800 before Shirov returns to 2700? We'll see. For now, here are their wins from round 5, with my comments.

Firouzja At the European Team Championship

I wonder how Maxime Vachier-Lagrave feels about being supplanted as France's #1? At this rate, he'll be in great company, as 18-year-old Alireza Firouzja has passed almost everyone in the world, not just in France, and sits at #4 in the Live Rating List. He's not far behind Fabiano Caruana for the #3 spot, either; in fact, if he wins his next game or two in the European Team Championship he will be #3, and if he has a great finish to the event (five rounds remain) he could even pass Ding Liren to take over the #2 spot. That would be crazy, but Firouzja's success at this young age is already crazy. Only Magnus Carlsen managed to cross the 2800 barrier as an 18-year-old, and Firouzja still has seven months to get another ten rating points.

Just last week he won the FIDE Grand Swiss, and he still seems to have plenty of energy - or at least enough - to succeed against the opposition he has faced in the first four rounds. The games haven't been perfect, but they've been good - certainly good enough - against his sub-2700-rated opponents. We'll see if he can keep up his stellard results through the end of the event; for now, have a look at his first four games, with my comments.

FIDE Grand Swiss, Round 11 (Last Round): Firouzja, Caruana Qualify After Everyone Draws

A slight exaggeration, but with respect to the boards that mattered for qualification to the Candidates and, I think, to next year's FIDE Grand Prix, not an exaggeration at all as every game on board 1-13 finished peacefully. It's a slightly surprising conclusion to the FIDE Grand Swiss, but the lure of money and the Grand Prix (see below) mitigated against significant risk for most of the leaders.

That's not to say that all the games were peaceful. 18-year-old Alireza Firouzja, who deservedly won the tournament, had a fairly easy time of it against Grigoriy Oparin. It's not that Oparin didn't try with the white pieces, but that Firouzja played well and didn't give him any chances. On board 2, Fabiano Caruana had White against Alexandr Predke and played with some ambition, but Predke played well and held. The upshot of these two games was that Firouzja took clear first and Oparin failed to qualify for the Candidates. What about Caruana? I think, but am not sure, that a win by either player in the Yu Yangyi - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave might have let him pass Caruana on tiebreaks. In fact Yu was winning at one moment, but missed his chance. That probably sealed the deal for Caruana, but as none of the players in the next score group won there was no need to count anyone's tiebreak scores other than Oparin's, and his were inadequate.

The other games featuring players who started the day half a point behind Caruana and Oparin also finished in a draw: Bogdan-Daniel Deac vs. Andrey Esipenko saw Deac have some early chances that disappeared almost immediately. Gabriel Sargissian and Alexei Shirov were content to repeat a repetition in the Botvinnik Semi-Slav that goes back to 1996; David Anton Guijarro and Sam Sevian didn't reproduce known theory, but their game was also quickly drawn without any missed chances. Finally, David Howell and Vincent Keymer played a longer game, but there don't seem to have been any major missed opportunities there either.

The draws kept on coming in the next score group, but two players worked their way up into the score group that finished in the big tie for fourth. Vladislav Artemiev defeated Kirill Shevchenko and Anton Korobov defeated Krishnan Sasikiran, in both cases with Black.

To summarize: Firouzja won with 8/11, Caruana and Oparin finished with 7.5 points apiece but with Caruana taking the second qualifying spot for the Candidates. In tiebreak order, the following 13(!) players finished tied for 4th-16th places: Yu, Keymer, MVL, Predke, Shirov, Howell, Sargissian, Anton Guijarro, Korobov, Sevian, Esipenko, Deac, and Artemiev.

My understanding is that those who finished in the top eight, excluding the two players who qualified for the Candidates, qualify for the FIDE Grand Prix, a series of tournaments which will determine the last two qualifying spots for next year's Candidates. If that's right, then Oparin, Yu, Keymer (16 years old!), MVL, Predke, and Shirov (49 years old!) have punched their ticket to those events. Congratulations to them as well!

Finally then, here are the known Candidates for 2022:

1. Magnus Carlsen or Ian Nepomniachtchi (whoever loses their World Championship match, which starts in just under three weeks)
2. Teimour Radjabov (FIDE's wildcard, as compensation for his withdrawal from the previous Candidates due to COVID concerns)
3. Jan-Krzysztof Duda (winner of the 2021 Chess World Cup)
4. Sergey Karjakin (runner-up of the 2021 Chess World Cup)
5. Alireza Firouzja (winner of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss)
6. Fabiano Caruana (runner-up of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss)

What's next on the chess calendar? The World Championship match starts on the 26th (presumably that's the date for the opening ceremony, with play commencing the following day), but before that there's the European Team Championship starting this coming Thursday (November 11) and the GCT rapid & blitz event in Kolkata, India on November 17. Remember to let me know if you are interested in signing up for my World Championship match coverage in the next several days!

FIDE Grand Swiss, Round 10: Firouzja Regains the Sole Lead Entering the Last Round

After a disappointing loss to Fabiano Caruana in round 9, Alireza Firouzja showed impressive resilience by bouncing back with a win in round 10 of the FIDE Grand Swiss. By defeating David Howell, who entered the round sharing the lead with Firouzja and Caruana, he retook the sole lead, as Caruana only drew (with Black) against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Meanwhile, no player who entered the round only half a point back managed to win his game, with one exception: Grigoriy Oparin. By defeating the favored Nikita Vitiugov - and with Black - he has put himself in a great position to take one of the two qualifying spots for next year's Candidates. His fate is in his hands, as he'll have White against Firouzja in the last round. He almost certainly needs a win, as Caruana will have the white pieces against Alexandr Predke, and he will be a heavy favorite.

We'll get back into this in a moment, but first a summary of some of the action in round 10. Firouzja's win over Howell was of great competitive significance, obviously, but it was a fine game in its own right. It wasn't a battle of nerves where the player who made the next-to-last mistake survived and won, but a quality victory by the young superstar.

With a win over MVL, Caruana would have kept the pace, but this was never going to be easy, especially with the black pieces. He did a solid, professional job, held the draw, and put himself in an excellent position to qualify for a Candidates spot.

Oparin's win was deserved, and although his tournament standing is a shock his victory over Vitiugov was no fluke. Vitiugov accepted a poor structure in return for attacking chances, and on this occasion the defense was better than the attack. Oparin thereby caught up to Caruana, half a point behind Firouzja, and everyone else in the event lags behind.

Yu Yangyi came close to joining Caruana and Oparin, but couldn't manage to put away Alexei Shirov, who is enjoying his best event in some years. Alexandr Predke and David Anton Guijarro drew without either player having any big chances, but Gabriel Sargissian missed a big opportunity early on against Sam Sevian before their game finished peacefully. Finally, Krishnan Sasikiran was the last of the players with a chance to join the tie for second, but he lost to Andrey Esipenko (who was the top player in the next score group).

I've annotated the first four games mentioned above, plus Esipenko's win, and - since I made fun of it in my first Notre Dame post today - I give the Kuzubov-Grandelius game as well, with some brief remarks. They are here, for your viewing pleasure.

On now to the last round. Here are the top pairings:

1. Oparin (7) - Firouzja (7.5)
2. Caruana (7) - Predke (6.5)
3. Yu (6.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (6.5)
4. Deac (6.5) - Esipenko (6.5)
5. Sargissian (6.5) - Shirov (6.5)
6. Anton Guijarro (6.5) - Sevian (6.5)
7. Howell (6.5) - Keymer (6.5)

Here's what we know for sure:

1. If Firouzja wins or draws, he qualifies.

2. If Caruana wins, he qualifies.

3. If Oparin wins, he qualifies.

What we - or at least I - don't know:

1. If Firouzja loses and Caruana draws (or loses), does he (Firouzja) have the best tiebreaks of anyone and still get through?

2. If Firouzja draws and Caruana draws, I assume that Oparin is out - even if no one from the chase pack has better tiebreaks than Oparin, I'm sure that Caruana does. Right?

3. If Firouzja draws and Caruana loses, what players, if any, have better tiebreakers than Oparin?

Searching around the usual sites for info, I didn't find anything useful except for this comment by "Peter B" (on this page): "In round 11 Fijourzja [sic] only needs a draw. Caruana will want to press hard for a win with white against Predke. If both Firouzja and Caruana draw, Caruana qualifies in about 62% of scenarios, with Yu (24%) and MVL (9%) the other main chances. Oparin's tiebreak is poor so he will need to play for a win against Firouzja." I don't know if those numbers are real, but they are interesting if true, and shows that the situation is a real mess. So I think it's safe to say that Caruana will go for a win, and I think he has excellent chances for success. I'm more worried about Firouzja's chances, since he's playing with the black pieces, but objectively he's a significant favorite for at least a draw.

Speaking of the tiebreakers (and it's tiebreaks rather than a playoff that will settle a possible tie for the Candidates' slots), here's what the tournament's regulations page (see section 4.8.3) has to say: 

• a) Buchholz Cut 1
• b) Buchholz
• c) Sonneborn-Berger
• d) Direct encounter between the players in [the] tie
• e) Drawing of lots 

(Yes, why settle things by having the players fight it out in a rapid or at least a blitz playoff when you can flip a coin? It's not as if anything important is at stake, right? Ugh.)

Prepare for an exciting last round.