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)

Oslo Esports Cup 2022

The Oslo Esports Cup is the opening event for the 2022 Meltwater Champions Tour, and as you'd expect from last year's Tour it's a very strong tournament. Magnus Carlsen leads the parade of stars, which also includes top-name players like Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Anish Giri, and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. It's an eight player round robin, with each round a best-of-four game match with a 15'+10" time control.

Round 1 was on Friday, with these results: 

• Carlsen 2.5 - Duda .5
• Giri 2.5 - Eric Hansen 1.5
• Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (P.R.) 2.5 - Jorden Van Foreest .5
• Mamedyarov 2.5 - Le Quang Liem 1.5 

Many of these results were turned upside down in round 2, on Saturday: 

• Le 2.5 - Carlsen 1.5
• P.R. 2.5 - Mamedyarov .5
• Van Foreest 2.5 - Hansen 1.5
• Duda 4 - Giri 2 

Everyone is 1-1 except for Hansen, who lost twice, and Praggnanandhaa, who has not only won twice but crushed his opponents.

Tournament site here; games here.

Wijk aan Zee, Rounds 1 & 2

I'm back!

More importantly, for all of you as chess fans, at least, so is big-time chess. The Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022 (Netherlands version), aka "Wijk aan Zee" for its long-time home, started this weekend, and I've commented on all the games from the first two rounds, here.

Not all the world's best players are in action, but many of them are, starting with the World Champion - or should I say the Classical World Champion, given his lack of enthusiasm for his only remaining title? Gibes aside, he is of course the strongest and most accomplished player in the field, and of course the favorite. In round 1 he let Andrey Esipenko off the hook - very strangely, too - but won an impressive game against Anish Giri in round 2.

He is tied for first with Jan-Krzysztof Duda (who defeated Richard Rapport in round 1) and Santosh Vidit (who defeated Sam Shankland in round 1 in a fine ending). Defending champion Jorden Van Foreest got off to an excellent start, defeating Nils Grandelius in round 1 in good style, but lost to Rapport in round 2 when he wrongly avoided a drawn pawn ending.

Unmentioned thus far: Fabiano Caruana, Sergey Karjakin, Daniil Dubov, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Each has drawn both games so far, but that's not to say that all the games were calm or even from start to finish, as you'll see.

Here are the round 3 pairings:

• Caruana (1) - Shankland (.5)
• Dubov (1) - Vidit (1.5)
• Esipenko (1) - Karjakin (1)
• Giri (.5) - Mamedyarov (1)
• Duda (1.5) - Carlsen (1.5)
• Van Foreest (1) - Praggnanandhaa (1)
• Grandelius (.5) - Rapport (1)

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.

World Cup Finale: Duda, Karjakin Qualify for the 2022 Candidates

Again, just tidying up on ancient history: Jan Krzysztof Duda finished the tournament of his young life - thus far - in fantastic style, defeated World Champion Magnus Carlsen in the semi-finals of the World Cup to qualify for next year's Candidates, while Sergey Karjakin also qualified by meeting Duda there. Duda won that final match to win the event, garnering more money and more prestige, but both players succeeded in their primary aim.

This means that half the eight Candidates' spots are settled. In addition to Duda and Karjakin, one spot will go to the loser of the world championship match between Carlsen and challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi in November, and another is going to Teimour Radjabov (as compensation for his not playing in the 2020 Candidates).

In the old days (e.g. the previous cycle) one slot would be allocated by rating, but unfortunately for (most likely) Fabiano Caruana, that is no longer the case. Two spots will be allocated to the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament (starting October 25 in Riga) and two more spots go to the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix (a series of three tournaments to be played between February and April of next year in Berlin; 24 players will qualify for this series, with each playing in two of the three events).

I congratulate FIDE on their continual improvements on the world championship cycle. In the old days, the world's best players were the most likely to get a shot at becoming the world champion. Those foolish days are long gone - Caissa has been deposed, and replaced by the worship of Tyche.

FIDE World Cup: Karjakin Guarantees Himself a Candidates Spot; Duda Hoping for the Second Spot

Sorry not to have covered the event as it deserved, but...life. Anyway, the parodying event I feared would come to pass is very close to happening. The 2021 FIDE World Cup is on the verge of its final match; Sergey Karjakin is one finalist (he defeated Vladimir Fedoseev 1.5-.5 in the regular, classical games) and the winner of today's tiebreaker between Magnus Carlsen and Jan-Krzysztof Duda will be the other. As the main point of the event is to qualify two players for the 2022 Candidates, Carlsen's participation is, frankly, rather stupid, as no matter what happens in his match with Ian Nepomniachtchi he's guaranteed of being either the world champion or qualified for the Candidates. Karjakin is guaranteed a place in the Candidates no matter what happens in the final match, but none of the players Carlsen beat prior to the semi-finals will qualify, even though they might well have made it had the world champion not participated.

It's especially a pity for Etienne Bacrot, who lost to Carlsen in the quarter-finals, and especially for Andrey Esipenko, who made it to three rounds of tiebreaks before Carlsen finally eliminated him.

Duda & Artemiev Defeat Caruana and Giri, Respectively

With these two wins, the eighth-finals of the 2020 Speed Chess Championship (Main Event) is over, and the quarterfinal pairings are up, starting with a match on Thursday (tomorrow) between Wesley So and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. (The other three quarterfinals are Nakamura-Fedoseev, scheduled for December 3; Carlsen vs. Artemiev [date and time TBD] and Vachier-Lagrave vs. Aronian [also TBD].)

But now let's go back. I thought that Duda would be a favorite against Fabiano Caruana, as Duda is a consistently strong blitz and bullet player while Caruana only very occasionally plays like a world championship contender at the fastest time controls. His best in blitz may be better than Duda's, but he doesn't often achieve his best, and I'm not sure about his bullet prowess, either. As things turned out, Caruana started well, racing off to a 4-1 advantage, but after getting crushed in game 6 he lost three more in a row to finish the 5-minute portion down by a game. They broke even in the 3-minute, keeping Duda up by a point entering the bullet, and then Caruana got massacred 8-1 at that time control, losing the match 17-9. After the match Caruana acknowledged his concerns beforehand that bullet might be a problem, noting that this was not something he could easily fix with a bullet warmup. Given his self-acknoweldged lack of interest in bullet, he's unlikely to be a serious contender in future editions of this event, at least not unless he's playing his best blitz and acquiring a serious lead heading into the bullet.

The other match, between Vladislav Artemiev and Anish Giri was more competitive. As in the previous match, the eventual match winner - Artemiev - entered the bullet with only a one-point lead. It wasn't as one-sided as Duda-Caruana, but Artemiev had an extra gear in bullet that his opponent didn't, or at least didn't on the day. Artemiev outscored his opponent 6.5-3.5 in the final segment, taking overall match victory by a 15.5-11.5 score.

I've annotated a pair of especially interesting games, one game from each match, here.

Norway Chess, Round 5: Duda Beats Carlsen; Aronian Takes the Lead

Today (ok, yesterday, as I write this) was a highly eventful day at the Norway Chess tournament, as the leader, world champion, and possessor of a record 125-game undefeated streak in classical chess - namely, Magnus Carlsen - suffered defeat at long last. It only took 26 1/3 months for someone to do it, but someone did; oddly, it was tournament tailender Jan-Krzysztof who did the honors.

Or maybe it wasn't so odd. Despite being the tailender, he is a very strong, enterprising player, and his poor results in the tournament up to that point may have encouraged Carlsen to take more risks than he should have. His play was indeed very risky, from the provocative opening to his sacrifice of a pawn and then of the exchange, but when he started to go astray the culprit may have been that he didn't play energetically enough at a key moment.

You can check the details for yourself where I annotate the game, but the bottom line is that his streak is over, and more than that, he's out of first. Levon Aronian defeated Fabiano Caruana with the black pieces in their classical game (in fact, all three matches were decided in classical chess) and is alone in first place, a point ahead of Alireza Firouzja (who defeated Aryan Tari with the white pieces), who is in turn a point ahead of Carlsen.

The games are here (with my comments to Duda's win over Carlsen), and here are the pairings...which are exactly the same as today's, but with colors reversed. That those pairings would occur at some point is unsurprising, as this is a double round robin, but it is very unusual for it to happen in back-to-back rounds. Anyway, here are the pairings, with player scores in parentheses:

• Carlsen (9) - Duda (4)
• Tari (1.5) - Firouzja (10)
• Aronian (11) - Caruana (7)

A Couple of Highlights from the Pepe Cuenca Invitational

Peter Svidler defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the final, but right now I want to show a couple of spectacular games from the quarterfinal match between Duda and Pentala Harikrishna. Neither was an example of perfect play, but considering that both players were down to seconds, living off the increments, they are impressive displays of ingenuity.

Have a look.

Svidler Wins the Pepe Cuenca Invitational!

The exclam is for the surprise. It wasn't so surprising to see Peter Svidler make the final, (barely) defeating Santosh Vidit in the quarters and David Anton in the semis, but when he was paired with Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the final he seemed a clear underdog. Duda defeated Pentala Harikrishna handily in the quarters and squeaking past Vladislav Artemiev with several tournaments' worth of good fortune in the semis, he looked the favorite. After all, he finished second in the 2018 World Blitz Championship and had performed very well in one of those Chess.com blitz and bullet events, defeated Sergey Karjakin and Alexander Grischuk in back-to-back comeback matches.

In a classical match, it would be a coin toss. Duda is higher-rated, but not by a huge amount, and Svidler's peak rating exceeds Duda's. But because Duda seems (relatively speaking) even better as a blitz player, I think most chess fans expected him to win. This did not happen. Svidler got off to a serious early lead, getting to a 5.5-2.5 score in a match where six and a half points wins it. Duda won twice to make it close, but then Svidler won the game and the event, to the happiness of all of us who root for "old" guys and who have appreciated his commentary over the years.

More here.