Round 14 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepo Wins (Still); Ding Beats Nakamura to Take Second

(Originally published here several days ago. Please subscribe the Substack blog!)

Happy 4th of July, America; our candidates both lost. What could have been…

In truth, it would have been difficult for anyone to stop Ian Nepomniachtchi from winning the 2022 Candidates, who won the event going away. He played better than anyone else in the event, and whenever he found himself in trouble - as he did today - a combination of resourceful play and help from his opponents bailed him out. Jan-Krzysztof Duda has had a poor tournament, but today he had a real chance against Nepo. Nepo’s Petroff prep was good, but Duda managed to create a messy position with kingside attacking chances. Nepo committed several inaccuracies after the opening, and if Duda had played 23.Rxd8+ he would have had real winning chances. Instead, he played 23.hxg6, and precise play by Black allowed him to slide into a drawn ending.

Thus Nepomniachtchi finished with an undefeated 9.5/14, the greatest Candidates score since the current format was introduced back in 2013. (Caruana had the previous record with 9 points in 2018; all other winners scored 8.5.) He has earned the right for a title tilt with Magnus Carlsen; whether it’s a championship worth celebrating is something we’ll have to see. (More on this below.)

As has been repeated ad nauseam on the blog and elsewhere, it’s possible that Carlsen will decline to defend the title. If he doesn’t, then the second-place winner here will face Nepo for the title. Coming into the round Hikaru Nakamura was in clear second, half a point ahead of Ding Liren. The pairing was perfect: Ding vs. Nakamura, with Ding getting the white pieces. Ding had nothing for a long time, but with plenty of time on the clock Nakamura twice failed to play …Rd8. Ding gave him one more chance to save the game with a big error on move 38, but that one was also missed. From there Ding showed excellent technique, increasingly restricting his opponent’s pieces while gaining material. Overall, a very good game by Ding, and the culmination of a remarkable comeback in the second half of the tournament. If he gets a championship match with Nepomniachtchi it will be well-deserved.

Nakamura thus finished in third - or rather, in equal third (and technically, fourth on tiebreak) with Teimour Radjabov after the latter’s weird win against Richard Rapport. Radjabov played a terrible opening and was just about lost after 18 moves. But rather than prepare g5 with 19.h4 or with 19.Nh4 followed by Nf5 and then h4, Rapport went into Elmer Fudd mode with the dreadful 19.g5?? fxg5? 20.Nxg5??, and while Radjabov did what he could to “forgive” him, he kept making mistakes. Ultimately, Rapport was a piece down with no attack at all, and resigned after Black’s 33rd move.

Finally, the tournament came to an end with another poorly played game between the two players who had nightmarish second halves in the tournament. Fabiano Caruana was given a gift when Alireza Firouzja played 19…f5? This gave Caruana a risk-free positional advantage, but when he decided to open the board straight away Firouzja was right back in the game. Further errors before the time control left Firouzja with a winning ending with an extra pawn, but he was unable to maintain the advantage. Alas, it was Caruana who made the final error, on the last move of the second time control. There were multiple moves to keep the draw, but 60.Ne4? cost him a second pawn, and he resigned three moves later. What a nightmare for Caruana, who was an undefeated +3 in the first half and a winless -4 in the second.

The games (with my notes) are here, and here are the final standings:

1.Nepomniachtchi 9.5 (out of 14)

2.Ding 8

3-4.Radjabov, Nakamura 7.5

5.Caruana 6.5

6.Firouzja 6

7-8.Duda, Rapport 5.5

Now let’s get to “what’s next”. Carlsen hasn’t said what he’s going to do—not exactly. But it is known that he has been in talks with FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, and has apparently proposed that a match not be - or not just be - a classical competition, but include a rapid (and blitz?) component. One element (hopefully not the whole thing, which would make a joke of the traditional world championship) would be the sets of rapid games used in the Meltwater tour events. (There, they play a best-of-four rapid match on day 1, with the day’s overall score counting like a single regular game of chess: a point for a win, half a point each for a draw, and nothing for a loss. Day 2: the same thing, and if it’s 1-1 there’s a blitz playoff culminating in an Armageddon game.) Given the current prevalence of rapid events, I’m open to its being a component of a championship match (though I’d rather it wasn’t, except in case of a tied match), but think that at least half of the overall points in the match should come from classical games. There’s already a world rapid championship, and there’s still value to classical chess. It isn’t perfect chess, but it’s a lot closer to it than 15-minute chess.

For more on this, see here (scroll down) and here.

Round 12 of the 2022 Candidates: The Narrative Changes Again...

(Originally posted here; please subscribe to my Substack blog - thanks!)

The narrative changes again (but not the meta-narrative about changing narratives).

Here’s what a random blogger wrote yesterday:

As for Ding, the truth, obviously, was that he needed a little time to get acclimated, and now that he has he’ll finish in second place - at worst.

This is the full and sober truth, the entire explanation, and the final word on what has happened and why—at least until something happens in the next three rounds to upend these tidy explanations. But fear not: once that happens, the commentariat will confabulate a new “full and sober truth”, and if we wait until the tournament is over the new story will undoubtedly stand the test of time…

I think I’ll wait until after round 14 of the Candidates to offer the “full and sober truth” - not that I have any partial and drunken truths to offer in the meantime. Just the facts: Ding Liren’s three-game winning streak came to a halt (see this dramatization of today’s game) when Teimour Radjabov - with Black - massacred him with a direct attack in just 26 moves. Was Ding tired? Careless after all his success? Who knows. Whatever the real explanation, it was a harsh encounter with reality.

And yet, it’s not so bad. Hikaru Nakamura was able to catch up to him after his marathon 14-move, six-minute game with Ian Nepomniachtchi. To take clear first and guarantee himself a world championship match against somebody Nepo just needs to score in the next two rounds, or have Ding and Nakamura fail to win both of their remaining games.

As for fourth place, well, there’s a tie, half a point behind Ding and Nakamura. Radjabov is half of the tie, and Caruana, whose whole second half of the tournament is a repeated version of the dramatization linked above, is the other half. He played a steady draw against Richard Rapport, in which first one and then the other player had a slight advantage, but neither player missed out on any major opportunities.

Finally, Alireza Firouzja was on his way off the cliff against Jan-Krzysztof Duda, but was rescued - twice - and saved a draw. (Today’s games, with my comments, are here.)

We now have the final rest day coming up, and the last two rounds will be on Sunday and Monday. (If a “miracle” happens and there’s a tie for first, there will be a playoff on Tuesday.) Here are the pairings for the last two rounds:

Round 13:

Nepomniachtchi (8.5) - Rapport (5)

Nakamura (6.5) - Duda (5)

Firouzja (5) - Ding (6.5)

Radjabov (6) - Caruana (6)

Round 14:

Rapport - Radjabov

Caruana - Firouzja

Ding - Nakamura

Duda - Nepomniachtchi

The race for first is over, but the race for second is very much open, and will likely come down to tiebreaks. Whether that will matter is up to Magnus Carlsen, and his desire to face Nepomniachtchi in another World Championship match. Time will tell.

Round 11 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepomniachtchi vs. Ding for the World Championship?

(Originally posted on my Substack blog; please subscribe there.)

“It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” - Anonymous

We commentators are remarkably insightful when it comes to explaining what has just happened, though this awesome gift of hindsight rarely translates into successful predictions the next time around. It turns out that commentators should not only avoid predictions before an event; they should also be careful about offering their explanations during an event. To wit:

After seven rounds of the Candidates, it was “obvious” that Fabiano Caruana was in great form, while Ding Liren was in bad shape. In Ding’s case, he was rusty when it came to top-level opposition, while he was probably burned out from all the games he played against relatively weak opposition in March as he scrambled to qualify for the tournament. That mad dash would also have taken away from time he would have spent in opening preparation. And for Caruana, just look at the games: great opening preparation, impressive victories, good fighting spirit - the whole package.

And now? Caruana has scored just half a point from his last four games, falling 2.5 points behind the leader and into fourth place, while Ding has only given up half a point from his last four games, winning three in a row and finding himself in clear second. Clearly, the narrative in the preceding paragraph was all wrong. Maybe Caruana’s form wasn’t entirely up to snuff - he failed to convert against Ian Nepomniachtchi in round 2, despite outpreparing and outplaying him, and once things got tough he fell apart. As for Ding, the truth, obviously, was that he needed a little time to get acclimated, and now that he has he’ll finish in second place - at worst.

This is the full and sober truth, the entire explanation, and the final word on what has happened and why—at least until something happens in the next three rounds to upend these tidy explanations. But fear not: once that happens, the commentariat will confabulate a new “full and sober truth”, and if we wait until the tournament is over the new story will undoubtedly stand the test of time…

I don’t know what exactly has gone wrong for Caruana over the past four rounds, or even if there is some overarching explanation that transcends what went wrong in each of the four games. Likewise, it’s hard to know why exactly Ding has won his last three games, after going winless through the first eight rounds. Ding came close to winning in rounds 3 and 5, and had a nice advantage in game 2; what was different about those rounds compared to rounds 9-11? I don’t know.

It is possible to explain the details of the games themselves, though, and you’ll want to have a look at today’s game between Caruana and Ding. They came into the round tied for second with Hikaru Nakamura, a point and a half behind Nepomniachtchi. Caruana had the white pieces and played very well up to the time control. He hadn’t made the most of his chances, but still enjoyed a clear advantage and good winning chances. But somehow, things started to go wrong, a bit at a time, and by the third time control Caruana was fighting for his life. He didn’t manage it, making his final error on move 75 and resigning after three more moves.

As Nakamura didn’t manage to defeat Richard Rapport (despite trying until move 96!), Ding is now in clear second. He remains a point and a half behind Nepomniachtchi, who is almost certainly uncatchable at this point, with just three rounds left. Nepo won a nice game against Alireza Firouzja, who went a bit bonkers trying to blow Nepo off the board. It’s hard to say for sure, but Firouzja’s over-caffeinated approach may have been partially due to his having played 357 hyperbullet (30-second) games on Lichess the previous evening/night/early morning.

Finally, Teimour Radjabov and Jan-Krzysztof Duda played a game that suggested that they’d like to get the event over with and move on to the next one.

The games, with my notes, are here.

A reminder: If Carlsen carries out his threat not to defend his title, the top two finishers here will play for the crown. Should that come to pass, Nepo is practically guaranteed to qualify, as he is two full points ahead of Nakamura, who is alone in third place. Guess what tomorrow’s marquee matchup is?

Round 12 Pairings:

Rapport (4.5) - Caruana (5.5)

Ding (6.5) - Radjabov (5)

Duda (4.5) - Firouzja (4)

Nepomniachtchi (8) - Nakamura (6)

Round 10 of the 2022 Candidates: The Battle for First May Be (Almost) Over, But the Race For Second Is a Mess

(Originally posted on my Substack blog; please subscribe there.)

I remember reading Vik Vasiliev’s biography of Tigran Petrosian when I was a kid, and his account of the 1962 Candidates came to mind. With five rounds to go, he was tied with Paul Keres for first and was, I think, a point ahead of Efim Geller. In the remaining five rounds, he made five draws - the prearranged draws with Keres and Geller, then with Pal Benko and Bobby Fischer, and finally in the last round a 14-move non-effort - with White - against tournament tailender Miroslav Filip.

My recollection is that this unambitious strategy in the last rounds, particularly the last round, when a Keres win against Fischer would have forced a playoff, was defended by Petrosian. My recollection is that he believed his rivals would crack under the pressure, and in the end they did. For Geller, the cracking had already taken place, and he only closed the gap in the last round with a win over Benko, while poor Keres, who had gone 7-0 against Benko in their previous Candidates games (4-0 in 1959, and 3-0 in the first three cycles in 1962), lost to Benko in the penultimate round and then failed to cash in an advantage against Fischer in the final round. One shouldn’t be too quick to draw conclusions based on results: a bad strategy will sometimes pay off, and a good strategy might not. But his hypothesis seems to have been a reasonable one, especially given Keres’ sad track record of cracking at the end of Candidates’ tournaments.

So, why do I bring this up? It’s because Ian Nepomniachtchi seems to have adopted Petrosian strategy in the second cycle of the current Candidates tournament. After finishing the first cycle with a 5.5-1.5 score, he decided to play with absolutely minimal risk against Ding Liren, despite having the white pieces and a massive 2.5-point lead over his then-winless opponent, and even though his closest rival, Fabiano Caruana, was only half a point behind and would have White against him the very next day. And it worked out, as Nepo got an easy draw and lots of rest for the next round, while Caruana lost a six-hour game to Hikaru Nakamura. In the next round, Nepo was in trouble against Caruana, but the best way was not easily found, and Nepo escaped with a draw.

And that brings us to round 10. Despite having the white pieces against one of the tailenders and bottom seeds, Teimour Radjabov, he again played unambitiously and finished his day before the time control; in fact, were it not for the Sofia Rules, White could offered the draw on move 26.

This would seem a foolish decision, especially coming after a rest day. While Caruana, still a point behind Nepo, was due for Black in today’s round, his opponent was Jan-Krzysztof Duda: the bottom seed, in last place, and the only player left in the tournament who hadn’t won a game. Guess what? Yes, you guessed it: Duda won. And it’s not that Duda played great chess, either. At times he played well, but there were other stretches where he played poorly. But Caruana seemed punch drunk, playing terribly from late in the opening throughout the middlegame. It was by far his worst game of the tournament, and this second loss in three days leaves him a point and a half behind Nepomniachtchi with only four rounds to go. Worse still, he has company.

When Nakamura beat Caruana in round 8, he closed to within half a point of his fellow American, but then a loss to to Radjabov in round 9 left him a full point behind him once again. Today he recovered well, obliterating Alireza Firouzja, who took way too many chances in the opening and never recovered.

But wait, there’s more. Ding Liren won his second straight game, defeating Richard Rapport in a thrilling game with the black pieces. Rapport played fighting, imaginative chess, but Ding played just as well. In the end, Rapport made just one substantial mistake - and it wasn’t an obvious one - and wound up losing an opposite-colored bishop ending by a narrow margin.

As a result, Ding is part of a three-way tie for second with Caruana and Nakamura, and as I mentioned previously, this is significant because if Magnus Carlsen decides he doesn’t want to spend another three weeks looking at Nepomniachtchi in a world championship match, it seems that the upshot will be a match between Nepo (assuming he wins the tournament) and whoever comes in second.

About this tie for second, there’s a sad irony. In my preview post on the Candidates, I expressed my happiness about FIDE’s decision to hold a playoff in case of a tie for first, instead of settling it by tiebreaks like Sonneborn-Berger. A tie for first seems very unlikely at the moment, but if there’s a tie for second that tie will be determined by tiebreaks rather than a playoff. It’s irrelevant if Carlsen plays Nepo (or whomever), but all-important if he abdicates. Let’s hope that neither “if” comes to pass: that there will be no tie for second and that Carlsen will play against the winner of the Candidates.

Here are today’s games, with my annotations, and here are the pairings for round 11:

Nakamura (5.5) - Rapport (4)

Firouzja (4) - Nepomniachtchi (7)

Radjabov (4.5) - Duda (4)

Caruana (5.5) - Ding (5.5)

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)

Ding Liren Gets to 30

Or rather, 32! He had played four games over the course of (most of) the past year, and needed to get in 30 games to be eligible for the Candidates later this year. He did it, playing a remarkable 28 Classical games in 28 days, going unbeaten throughout against players rated from 2564 to 2729. He gained 7.2 points, and will be rated 2806 at the start of May. This will put him in the Candidates unless Sergey Karjakin's six-month ban is overturned.

To recap earlier information, then, these are the Candidates (starting June 16):

Ian Nepomniachtchi (2021 World Championship runner-up), Teimour Radjabov (FIDE nominee, compensating for his refusal to play in the 2020 Candidates over COVID risks), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (World Cup winner), Alireza Firouzja (Grand Swiss winner), Fabiano Caruana (Grand Swiss runner-up), Hikaru Nakamura (Grand Prix winner), Richard Rapport (Grand Prix runner-up), and either Ding Liren (highest rated eligible player as of May 2022) or, if reinstated, Sergey Karjakin (World Cup runner-up).

American Cup, Day 2: Aronian, Caruana, Dominguez, and Sevian(!) Win Their Opening Matches...

...but Levon Aronian has probably been eliminated from contention for the Candidates. He defeated Ray Robson in the first game - discussed yesterday - but mixed things up in the opening, allowing an obviously strong exchange sacrifice that gave Robson an enduring advantage. He fought for a long time, but eventually lost the game. That cost him 6.4 rating points, making the very unlikely hope of qualifying for the Candidates by rating a near-impossibility. Maybe if Ding Liren draws several more games or even loses one in his event Aronian will keep his very slim chances alive, but those chances are extremely poor.

The good news for Aronian is that he bounced back from the loss to win the playoff, remaining in the so-called Champions bracket. Robson will be in the elimination bracket in this double elimination event, so for now he's still alive.

The other day one winner, Sam Sevian, did not need a playoff to advance. He was never in trouble against Wesley So, and agreed to a draw from a position of strength.

The other two matches, however, did require a playoff after day one draws were followed up with draws today. Leinier Dominguez beat Sam Shankland in the second playoff game to stay in the Champions bracket, while it took Fabiano Caruana until the Armageddon game before he could eliminate Jeffery Xiong - barely. Xiong had Black and a completely won position and only needed to make his 60th move, after which there would be a two-second increment after every move. Xiong...lost on time making his 60th move.

Here's what happens next, on Friday. Aronian will play Dominguez and Sevian will play Caruana. They will play a single classical game, just as everyone did yesterday (Wednesday). In the Elimination bracket, however, we get something different: rapid matches that will finish in one day, between Robson and Shankland, and between So and Xiong. The losers of those matches will be done, while the winners of those matches will play the losers of Sevian-Caruana and Aronian-Dominguez, respectively.

No annotations today, but here are the games.

Ding Liren Nearing Qualification

As most if not all of you know by now, Sergey Karjakin is on the outs for the 2022 Candidates tournament (scheduled for Madrid, Spain, starting June 16). After his asinine statements in support of the despicable Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIDE banned from official FIDE-rated events for six months, a time frame that includes the Candidates. As disgusting as his comments were and are - and I was critical of his being a Putin fanboy years before Russia's latest act of aggression against Ukraine (no ban for Karjakin's overtly pro-Putin stance after the latter's earlier invasions of Ukraine and Georgia?) - I don't like this precedent. The history of chess is full of terrible politics and misdeeds by individuals who didn't receive bans; what makes Karjakin so special?

Karjakin has appealed the ban, but assuming it stands, the player with the best rating at the end of this month gets it - provided he has played in at least 30 classical games over the past year. Ding Liren has the rating with room to spare, with a 30 point lead over Levon Aronian, but because of China's COVID restrictions he has had far fewer opportunities to play than most of his rivals. That insulated his high rating from harm, but also meant that he needed to get in 26 games from the time of Karjakin's disqualification in March until the end of this month.

Needless to say, it has happened - or rather, has been happening, though it's not quite finished. First, there was a four player quadruple round-robin. He defeated all his rivals with 3.5-.5 scores, going 10.5/12 overall and picking up around 12 points for his trouble. Then there was a six-game match with Wei Yi. The first five games were drawn before Ding won the finale, losing just one rating point overall. That left eight games to go, and he'll get that with two games to spare in the last event, which is ongoing, a six player double-round robin. So far he's 2-1, down one rating point.

All told, as of this writing he's undefeated in 21 games and has gained around 10 points - a very impressive result, to put it mildly. He is and has been one of the world's best players for years, so it's not as if the result is beyond belief; nevertheless, the whole affair is ethically iffy. Granted, Ding's situation is unfortunate, but there are good reasons why FIDE does not accept events where all the players are from the same country (except for events like national championships) for round-robin norm tournaments, and forces Candidates from the same country to play each other in the first games of each cycle. Even if all the players are as honest as can be, the incentives lend themselves to fishy outcomes. (Read works on Soviet chess for endless examples of such chicanery.)

Anyway, here are a couple of Ding's recent games. The first is his win in the last game of the match with Wei Yi, and the second game - also against Wei Yi - is a draw from the ongoing event. Both are interesting, albeit in very different ways. Have a look.

COVID Strikes Again, FIDE Grand Prix Edition

The FIDE Grand Prix is set to start this Friday in Berlin, the first of a series of three tournaments that will determine the last two spots for this year's Candidates tournament. Unfortunately, COVID has reared its ugly head once again, and at least two players will miss this tournament (HT: Allen Becker).

One is Dmitry Andreikin. He's not a favorite, perhaps, but as he qualified for the Candidates in 2014 he shouldn't be considered a "tourist", either. The other player who can't make it, however, is even more notable - and unlike Andreikin he hasn't tested positive for COVID. The player? None other than world #3 Ding Liren, which is a terrible loss for him, the event, and potentially for the Candidates. Hopefully FIDE can find some sort of sensible workaround, but we'll see.

The Speed Chess Championship: The Nakamura-Ding Liren Semifinal

This, my friends, was a great match. If you didn't see it, but have even a little interest in doing so, please do so. I won't offer any spoilers. (I'll identify the winner in the comments.) The final of the 2021 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship, between Wesley So and today's winner, will take place on December 19; the time, as far as I know at this moment, remains to be determined.