Vachier-Lagrave on the Candidates and the Olympiad

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

Nothing too spicy, but it’s worth a minute of your time.

First, Second, Third, Fourth: Snapshots from the 2022 Norway Chess Tournament

Magnus Carlsen once again showed why he is and has been the World’s #1 player for over a decade, and the World Champion for nine years. While the race for first in the recently completed Norway Chess tournament was closely contested, it was Carlsen who kept his nerve when it mattered most, while Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (second), Viswanathan Anand (third), and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (fourth) all had their lapses when it mattered most. It’s not that Carlsen’s play was perfect by any means; rather, he made more of his opportunities than his opponents did with theirs, especially in the critical moments.

We begin with the Anand-Carlsen “match” in round 5. First, a little explanation is in order. The scoring system in the tournament was unusual. The players would contest a classical game with 3-1-0 scoring (three points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a loss), with a further twist. In case of a draw there would be an Armageddon blitz game, with the players keeping the same colors, with a further half point going to the winner (or to Black in case of a draw). Anand played very well against Carlsen in their classical game, and was on the way to a well-deserved win…until he let it slip. Carlsen held the draw and forced an Armageddon game, which Anand, to his credit, managed to win. Nevertheless, that cost Anand a point and a half - and two and a half points relative to Carlsen. That result alone would have been enough for Anand to win the tournament, had everything else remained the same.

Next up, round 6. Carlsen was pressing for a long time against Mamedyarov, who defended well and kept the game within the bounds of a draw. It wasn’t an easy defense, but he was doing a fine job…until a mental lapse on move 46. Mamedyarov blundered a critical pawn to an elementary tactic, after which Carlsen converted his advantage to a victory with little difficulty.

In round 8, two more critical results followed. Anand was still doing well, but with White in the classical game against Mamedyarov made an absolute howler of a blunder, and resigned without waiting to see Mamedyarov make the winning move. It was a nice tactic, and one that could be overlooked by mere mortals at any time. It’s not even that hard to see a great player missing the trick in a blitz game. But it is surprising to see one of the all-time greats, and a legend when it comes to chess calculation, miss it in a classical game. Errare humanum est!

Meanwhile, Carlsen was suffering against Vachier-Lagrave somewhat analogously to the way Mamedyarov suffered against him in the earlier game. He too had a momentary lapse…but MVL failed to take advantage of it, and they went to Armageddon. In this game too Vachier-Lagrave had the advantage, but content with a draw (he had Black, and in Armageddon a draw is as good as a win for the second player) he chose a very impractical way to force it. The game could have been saved, but without enough time to think he failed to do so, losing another half a point. Had MVL won the classical game and everything else remained the same, he would have come in clear first rather than fourth.

The margins in top-level chess can be razor-thin. My hope for the coming Candidates tournament - starting tomorrow! - is that the player who wins, wins convincingly. It’s not that I don’t want to see a competitive event - I do. But for the sake of the sanity of the runner(s)-up, I hope that he or they won’t be torturing themselves for the rest of their lives with the question, “What if I had only found that one move?”

To see the games mentioned above, and a discussion of the critical moments therein, click here.

Superbet Chess Classic 2022: Vachier-Lagrave Wins in a Playoff

It wasn't a clean or a dominating performance, but it didn't matter: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave did a better job of keeping his nerves and fighting to the last than his rivals, and he was rewarded with the win in the prestigious Superbet Chess Classic.

Going into the last round, Wesley So and Levon Aronian were tied for first, with Vachier-Lagrave half a point behind. With Black against Leinier Dominguez, So was content to make a draw, though by the end he had at least a small advantage. It's easy to criticize this decision, but a good case can be made that it was correct. Just to make up some numbers: maybe he had a 10 percent chance of winning, a five percent chance of losing, and an 85% likelihood of a draw. Those numbers are probably at least somewhat wrong, but I don't think I'm wrong in claiming that a draw is the likeliest outcome. As it was either already known or a dead certainty that in case of a draw he was going to have a playoff with Aronian, and possibly with MVL as well, playing a longer game would leave him with less energy and less time to prepare for that playoff. So I think he made the correct decision - more on that later.

Aronian, as hinted in the preceding paragraph likewise drew his game. In fact, he didn't even try: it was clear as early as move 7 that despite having the white pieces, he was entirely content with an easy draw against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Thank goodness for the Sofia rules!

Finally, MVL. He had Black against Alireza Firouzja, and chose a solid line. The game was (generally) balanced for a long time, but both sides passed on opportunities to turn that equality into something irreparably drawish. The tension gradually increased, and it was Firouzja who snapped, and the result was a three-way tie for first.

The day's other games finished in draws - correctly in Deac-Caruana, and anything but in Rapport-Nepomniachtchi (see the game file for details), and it was on to the playoff, a rapid round-robin. In game one, So's rest and preparation paid off with a smooth win with White against Aronian. In game two, Vachier-Lagrave had White against So, and here too So was successful, enjoying first equality and then an advantage. Unfortunately for So, he couldn't maintain it, and was soon on the back foot. In time trouble both sides took turns blundering, but in the end MVL won on time with a winning advantage on the board.

Aronian would need to win with White against MVL to set up a further tiebreak, but it didn't happen. He was soon much worse, and while there were again fluctuations in time pressure MVL again won on time in a winning position, and took tournament victory.

The games, with my comments (to the classical games only) are here. Before giving the final standings, I note that the Grand Chess Tour points were distributed equally among the first-place finishers; Vachier-Lagrave won an extra $10k for winning the playoff.

Final Standings:

1-3. Vachier-Lagrave (first after the playoff), So, Aronian 5.5/9
4-6. Caruana, Dominguez, Deac 4.5
7-8. Firouzja, Nepomniachtchi 4
9-10. Rapport, Mamedyarov 3.5

How Nakamura Qualified for the Candidates

This isn't the whole story, but its end - or rather, the end of the part that brought Hikaru Nakamura across the threshold, enabling him to qualify for the Candidates for the second time in his career. (The first time was in 2016.) Four players were still in the running for a Candidates slot going into the last game of pool play (the winners of the four pools go on to the knockout stage): Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Leinier Dominguez, Levon Aronian, and Nakamura. MVL was in Pool C, Dominguez in Pool B, and the two Americans, Nakamura and Aronian, were in Pool A.

MVL needed to defeat Sam Shankland to keep his hopes alive, but despite his excellent prep (paying careful attention to obscure email games!) Shankland defended like a boss and drew the game.

Dominguez would have retained a chance with a win or even a draw against Vincent Keymer, but a big tactical error in a worse position led to his getting knocked out of the hunt.

That left Nakamura and Aronian, who were tied for the lead in group A. Nakamura and Aronian had Black against Esipenko and Oparin, respectively, and they both got into trouble as well. Aronian in particular had a terrible game, losing speedily and brutally to Oparin. Oparin now led the group with 3.5 points, and with Esipenko on the attack might have won it. Esipenko missed a subtle chance to win, but still retained equality almost to the end of the game; had he done so, Oparin and Nakamura would have contested a playoff. Instead, Esipenko erred in probable time trouble, and Nakamura pulled out the win - of the game, the Pool, and of a Candidates spot, along with Jan-Krzysztof Duda.

Here are those four critical games, with my comments.

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.

Caruana vs. MVL Finishes off the Round of 16 in the Speed Chess Championship

The last match of the first round, between Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, is now history, and it's time for the quarterfinals, which will start on Thursday (December 2 - all the quarterfinal matches are scheduled to coincide with rest days in the World Championship match). For those who didn't catch the live broadcast but want to watch it without spoilers, I'll post the result in the comments; here are the other results, followed by the quarterfinals schedule:

• Anish Giri vs. Jan-Krzysztof Duda: Giri won 14-12
• Shakhriyar Mamedyarov vs. Ding Liren: Ding won 14-12
• Richard Rapport vs. Alexey Sarana: Rapport won 16.5-14.5
• Alexander Grischuk vs. Nihal Sarin: Sarin won 15.5-10.5
• Levon Aronian vs. Daniil Dubov: Aronian won 15-12
• Hikaru Nakamura vs. Peter Svidler: Nakamura won 22-10 (it was close until the bullet, when, IIRC, Nakamura ran off nine wins in a row at one point)
• Wesley So vs. Jeffery Xiong: So won 18-14
• Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs. Fabiano Caruana: See the comments!

Quarterfinals Pairings:

• Richard Rapport vs. Nihal Sarin: December 2 at 10 a.m. EST/16:00 CET
• Ding Liren vs. Levon Aronian: December 6 at 9 a.m. EST/15:00 CET
• Hikaru Nakamura vs. Anish Giri: December 6 at 1 p.m. EST/19:00 CET
• Wesley So vs. Caruana/MVL: December 9 at 1 p.m. EST/19:00 CET

FIDE Grand Swiss: Five Leaders After Six Rounds

Alireza Firouzja, Evgenij Najer, and Alexei Shirov continue to lead the FIDE Grand Swiss after six rounds of 11, but they have been joined by two more players. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave butchered Pavel Ponkratov, while Krishnan Sasikiran overcame Alexandr Predke with Black to make it a five-way tie at 4.5/6. Another 15 players are just half a point back, including Fabiano Caruana, so obviously nothing has been decided at this point.

A few words about some of the games. Firouzja had some winning chances against Shirov, but Mr. Fire on Board's aggressive counterattack saved the day - barely. Najer was definitely winning against Caruana, who may have been taking too many chances in the hopes of defeating a significantly lower-rated opponent. It very nearly cost him the game; indeed, even at the end, when Najer allowed/blundered into a three-time repetition, Caruana's position was probably lost. As already noted above, MVL won in brutal fashion against Ponkratov; all three games mentioned in this paragraph are given, with my comments, here - as are three other games, included on account of some nice tactical points.

Here are the round 7 pairings for the top 10 boards:

1. Firouzja (4.5) - Najer (4.5)
2. Sasikiran (4.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (4.5)
3. Esipenko (4) - Shirov (4.5)
4. Caruana (4) - Sevian (4)
5. Anton (4) - Dubov (4)
6. Yu (4) - Deac (4)
7. Navara (4) - Sarana (4)
8. Petrosyan (4) - Korobov (4)
9. Sargissian (4) - Sarin (4)
10. Tari (4) - Sjugirov (4)

Sinquefield Cup, Round 9: Five More Draws Means MVL Wins the Tournament

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave drew his game with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, but it wasn't for a lack of effort on Mamedyarov's part! Just kidding: the game barely lasted five minutes and repeated a draw that has been used at least seven times since it first showed up last December. The draw guaranteed that MVL would at worst finish in a tie for first, while it also increased the likelihood that Mamedyarov would finish third in the overall Grand Chess Tour standings, thereby picking up a $25,000 bonus.

If Fabiano Caruana had won his last game (which was also the last game to finish), with Black against Richard Rapport, he would have tied for first with Vachier-Lagrave and would have let him leapfrog Mamedyarov into third in the GCT. He tried hard from the very beginning, and outplayed Rapport to achieve some winning chances in the second time control. Rapport defended well enough, however, and so Caruana came up just short in both his quests. (He did, however, *just* manage to keep his rating at 2800--2799.7, to be exact, which will be rounded up at the end of the month.)

Also coming short in the race for first place in the tournament were Wesley So and Leinier Dominguez. If either player won their head-to-head game they'd join MVL in first, but after a brief but genuine game they split the point. For So, it was the loss of one battle, but he won the war: he took first in the overall GCT race, winning the $100,000 bonus; MVL came in second and made an extra $50k.

In the games that weren't relevant to the race for first, Peter Svidler was winning in the opening against Jeffery Xiong, but repeatedly let the youngster slip away. He didn't seem to have the energy he needed to finish the job. By contrast, I don't think Sam Shankland or Dariusz Swiercz ever had a substantial advantage against each other before the game petered out into a drawn opposite-colored bishop ending.

The last round games, with my comments, are here; these are the final standings:

• 1. Vachier-Lagrave 6 (out of 9)
• 2-4. Caruana, Dominguez, So 5.5
• 5. Rapport 4.5
• 6-8. Xiong, Mamedyarov, Shankland 4
• 9. Svidler 3.5
• 10. Swiercz 2.5

The next events on the calendar both start on September 7. There's Norway Chess, starring both Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi; and there's also a Chess960 event in St. Louis with Wesley So, Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, Garry Kasparov and six other players.

Sinquefield Cup, Round 8: MVL Continues to Lead the Tournament; So Clinches GCT Title after Five Draws

There weren't any decisive games, but it wasn't for want of effort from the players - or from a lack of opportunities. Nevertheless, all five games were drawn, and as a result Wesley So has clinched overall victory in the Grand Chess Tour. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave can't catch him, but he is guaranteed second in the tour and continues to lead the Sinquefield Cup with a round to go, half a point of ahead of So, Fabiano Caruana, and Leinier Dominguez.

The game of the round involved the two players who starred in the previous paragraph: MVL and So. Vachier-Lagrave tried an almost brand-new idea for White in the 5.Re1 Anti-Berlin - one chosen against him, interestingly enough, by David Paravyan in last month's World Cup. So could have gone for some very sharp possibilities, but as he is Wesley So and not Shakhriyar Mamedyarov or Richard Rapport, he played it safe, neutralized his opponent's small initiative, and by move 23 it was obvious that the game was headed for a draw. It took until move 50 before they reached bare kings and called it a day, but it was nevertheless the first game to finish, with some games still in the early teens (if not earlier) at that point.

Would Dominguez or Caruana catch up to MVL? Caruana pressed a bit against Peter Svidler, but the 8-time Russian champ played well enough to hold without many problems. Black's counterplay against Caruana's kingside forced a trade of queens, after which the opposite-colored bishops made the draw relatively routine. As for Dominguez, his game with Sam Shankland was equal most of the way, but the game finished in a repetition that alternated between Dominguez blundering and Shankland failing to take advantage of it.

Jeffery Xiong also had good winning chances against Mamedyarov, but a possible inaccuracy and an outright error on move 28 allowed Shakh to escape with a nice tactical shot. A pity for Xiong, who has missed more than one opportunity in the tournament. But hey, he's only 20 - this counts as "experience". He'll be back, scarier than before.

Finally, Dariusz Swiercz was better throughout his game with Richard Rapport. Rapport took chances throughout the game, with plenty of justification: his opponent is the lowest-rated player in the event, is in last place, always gets into time trouble (in this game, too), and his tournament situation demanded it. To his credit, he never pushed the risk too far, and the eventual draw was a reasonable result after a well-played game by both contestants.

The games are here, and these are the pairings for tomorrow's final round:

• Mamedyarov (3.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (5.5)
• Svidler (3) - Xiong (3.5)
• Rapport (4) - Caruana (5)
• Shankland (3.5) - Swiercz (2)
• So (5) - Dominguez (5)

Sinquefield Cup, Round 7: MVL Leads, Three Players Half a Point Behind

Entering the round, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Leinier Dominguez, and Wesley So were tied for first, with Fabiano Caruana half a point behind. By the end of the round, for the first time in the tournament, there was a single leader: Vachier-Lagrave. He defeated Jeffery Xiong, while Dominguez and So drew their games to fall into a second place tie with Caruana, who defeated Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

For MVL, it was his fourth win of the event, and he was somewhat fortunate. Xiong was doing fine on the black side of the Berlin endgame until he blundered with 18...hxg4??, blind to the danger on the h-file. Had he played 18...g6 he would have been better, especially against Vachier-Lagrave's intended continuation. If, if, if.

So could do a bit of what-iffing as well. He had a big advantage against Sam Shankland, of a sort one would normally expect him to convert to a win. Very uncharacteristically, he quickly let it slip away, and the game soon ended in a repetition.

Dominguez had nothing to feel bad about in his game, except his opponent's high-quality prep and play. Dominguez found a fascinating gambit idea as Black against the Queen's Gambit sideline chosen by Richard Rapport. He did everything right...but so did his opponent, who had apparently researched the idea as well. The result was a well-played draw.

Caruana's game with Mamedyarov was a very complicated affair, with both sides playing - justifiably! - for a win. Mamedyarov probably had the better chances, at least practically, with much more time on the clock and the option of a safe pawn-up ending for the taking (even if it was objectively drawn if Caruana reacted correctly). Instead, he used most of his time choosing an incredibly risky option, and when Caruana made the obvious rejoinder used half his remaining time and chose a very poor move. Mamedyarov fought a while longer, but even though Caruana's clock went down to three seconds at one point (scary, but not nearly as much as it would be were it not for the 30-second increment) he was unable to save the game.

Finally, the only game without first-place implications was the battle between the tailenders. Dariusz Swiercz got greedy on the black side of an Anti-Marshall against Peter Svidler, and paid the price.

With two rounds to go, there is still everything to play for, both for the tournament and the overall Grand Chess Tour standings. If MVL takes clear first in the tournament and So finishes no higher than fifth, the Frenchman will take the overall title and the $100,000 bonus. And since they play tomorrow, with Vachier-Lagrave having the white pieces, it's far from impossible that he could push So back into 4th - which would be a tie for fourth-fifth if Rapport wins his game. And there's still one more round after that, too, which will see So face off against Dominguez. And while neither Mamedyarov nor Caruana could take first or second in the GCT, they are battling for third. Mamedyarov had a big lead coming into the event, but now he's tied for 6th-8th while Caruana is in the running for first. Anything is possible in that race, too.

Anyway, here are the games, with my comments, and here are the pairings for both round 8 and round 9. It has been quite the tournament.

Round 8:

• Xiong (3) - Mamedyarov (3)
• Caruana (4.5) - Svidler (2.5)
• Swiercz (1.5) - Rapport (3.5)
• Vachier-Lagrave (5) - So (4.5)
• Dominguez (4.5) - Shankland (3)

Round 9:

• Mamedyarov - Vachier-Lagrave
• Svidler - Xiong
• Rapport - Caruana
• Shankland - Swiercz
• So - Dominguez