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 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)

Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finishes: Carlsen Still the Winner

A little joke for in the title, with an implicit nod to a very old SNL gag. As it was already known two rounds ago that Magnus Carlsen had won the tournament, it isn't exactly news, but what else is one to say at the end of the event?

One thing that can be said is that after losing his matches in rounds 7 and 8, he finished with a bang, defeating Wesley So 2.5-.5. Overall, it wasn't an especially smooth performance, but even so it was good enough to win with relative comfort (thanks to the headstart from the preliminary events).

For So, who started the event in second, also with a comfortable margin over his closest pursuer, it was a very poor tournament. He won two matches in the rapid portion, in rounds 1 and 3, won two matches in the blitz playoff (in rounds 5 and 8), and lost one match in the blitz playoff (in round 4). The other four matches were lost in rapid, and as a result he not only failed to catch up to Carlsen, he failed to maintain second - or even third place. (Only Anish Giri and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov had a worse tournament, if one excludes the headstart.)

Teimour Radjabov had already passed So in round 8, and with his 2.5-.5 win over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave he finished the event with an exclamation point, winning his last six matches without needing a single blitz playoff. Had there not been any headstarts and everything else remained the same, he would have won the tournament going away.

Levon Aronian also won his final match, against Mamedyarov, with a 2.5-.5 score, and leapfrogged So into third place. That was where he started the event, and while he was passed by Radjabov he in turn surpassed So.

Hikaru Nakamura started and ended the day in fifth, defeating Jan-Krzysztof Duda 3-1. Black won the first three games of the match, and in the last game Nakamura took a trip to the landfill, excavating 1.e4 e6 2.Qh5 out of the sewage. Of course White was worse in the opening and into the middlegame, but that isn't really why people play 2.Qh5, is it? It's tempting to say that this is just showing off or the chess equivalent of extending a certain digit at one's opponent, but let's give Nakamura the benefit of the doubt and assume the primary motivation was a genuine chess idea.

Here's a guess: Nakamura went for a King's Indian Attack setup, and because after Black played ...Nf6 White retreated the queen to e2 we might wonder why this isn't just a loss of time. In fact, it IS a loss of time, but perhaps Nakamura thinks that Black would and should go for a different setup - one not involving ...Nf6 - in case White plays the King's Indian Attack against the French in the usual way; that is, with 1.e4 e6 2.d3 d5 3.Nd2 etc. It's true that 3...Nf6 is the main move here, but there are other setups, like 3...c5 4.Ngf3 Nc6 5.g3 Bd6 6.Bg2 Nge7. Another point is that White must commit to Nd2 in the usual move order, while in the game White delayed the development of his knight for a long time, and when it finally moved it went to a3.

The point isn't that 2.Qh5 against the French is either tricky or good - it's neither - but it forces Black to solve some fresh problems, and at a shorter time control that can be difficult, especially against a player as fast as Nakamura.

Finally, in the battle for sixth, Vladislav Artemiev won game 4 after three draws to defeat Giri.

Here are the final standings. The overall score is given first, with the pure tournament score (out of a possible 27 points) given in parentheses:

1. Carlsen 31.5 (15)
2. Radjabov 27 (21)
3. Aronian 24 (16)
4. So 23.5 (11)
5. Nakamura 21 (17)
6. Artemiev 17.5 (14)
7. Giri 14.5 (9)
8. Vachier-Lagrave 13.5 (11)
9. Duda 12 (12)
10. Mamedyarov 9.5 (9)

Tournament website here. The next big event is the U.S. Championship (play starts Wednesday) and has all the top Americans in action except for Nakamura and Aronian (whose transfer from the Armenian federation is not yet complete). The Russian Championship starts a couple of days later, but with many of their best players not participating that event is far less interesting than it could and should be. (Ian Nepomniachtchi won't be participating, for good and obvious reasons, but neither are Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, Daniil Dubov, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Vladislav Artemiev, and Peter Svidler.)

Meltwater Champions Tour Final, Penultimate Round: Radjabov in Second

As noted yesterday, Magnus Carlsen clinched first place in the Meltwater Champions Tour Final with two rounds to spare. Wesley So was close enough, entering the tournament, that he could have contended for first if he had been in better form, while Teimour Radjabov, who has played extremely well, was just a bit too far back entering the event to catch up. But he has come awfully close, and with yet another match win today (over Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, 2.5-1.5 in the rapids) while Carlsen lost again (to Levon Aronian, 3-1) Carlsen's margin of victory is getting smaller and smaller. Moreover, with Wesley So only managing to overcome Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the blitz tiebreaks (3.5-2.5 overall), Radjabov has passed him to take over clear second place.

In the other two matches, Anish Giri defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2.5-1.5, while Hikaru Nakamura beat Vladislav Artemiev 3.5-2.5 in the blitz tiebreaks. Here are the standings, with a round to go:

1. Carlsen 28.5
2. Radjabov 24
3. So 23.5
4. Aronian 21
5. Nakamura 18
6-7. Artemiev, Giri 14.5
8. Vachier-Lagrave 13.5
9. Duda 12
10. Mamedyarov 9.5

Three players are in the running for second - remember that winning the match in the rapids gives that player 3 points, while winning in the blitz playoff or the Armageddon gives him 2 points (a blitz/Armageddon loss gives a player 1 point, a loss in the rapids gives 0). Here are the final round pairings:

Carlsen - So
MVL - Radjabov
Mamedyarov - Aronian
Duda - Nakamura
Artemiev - Giri

(The first-named player has White in the odd-numbered games.)

The Fighting Chess Index

Before you have a look at GM David Smerdon's top 50 and how he calculated his "fighting chess index", take a guess as to who was #1 from 2015-2020. Some of you may be surprised (at least those of you with long memories and a hatred for the "B-word"). And you probably won't be surprised by who came in last, at least if you've been paying attention. Regardless, it's fun, and there are surprises like alleged drawmeister Anish Giri finishing ahead of Daniil Dubov (as noted by HT recipient Ross Hytnen).

Thoughts?

This and That From Here and There

Let's catch up on some other news, and take note of some interesting matters from around the web.

1. Carlsen wins the FTX Crypto Cup

Old news, but for those who didn't follow the event, it's worth going back and browsing the games. After the preliminaries of this rapid event the quarterfinal pairings, in bracket order, were as follows:

• Caruana vs. Nepomniachtchi
• MVL vs. So
• Nakamura vs. Carlsen
• Giri vs. Radjabov

It would have been interesting to have a world championship match preview, but it didn't happen. In fact, both players were nearly eliminated in the quarters. They both split each day's mini-matches, and the two-game blitz tiebreakers were both drawn as well. It came down to a pair of Armageddon games, with both Carlsen and Nepo needing to win with White. And they did. The other matches were won more smoothly by their victors. So won both mini-matches against Vachier-Lagrave, while Radjabov won the first day's match against Giri and drew the second to advance.

In the semis no tiebreaks were required. Carlsen and Radjabov drew the first day's match, with Carlsen winning game three and Radjabov saving the day with a win in game 4; on day two, however, Carlsen won games 1 and 4 without a defeat to advance. Nepomniachtchi failed to join Carlsen in the final, however. So won one game on day 1 to win that match, and won game three on day 2 to clinch at least a draw in the second day's match, guaranteeing match victory and ending the contest.

The Carlsen-So final was epic, as the kids say. Carlsen won the first game with Black, but So equalized the first day's match with a win in the third game and saved the day. On day 2 Carlsen again struck first, winning the first game, and again So got revenge, this time in game 2, and once again the match finished in a tie. It was on to the blitz tiebreaker, and this time So won first - with Black, no less. Big problem? Maybe, but not too big a problem. Carlsen got his revenge, and then won the Armageddon game with White to win the match and the tournament. There was also a battle for third place, and Nepo won it, drawing the first day's mini-match against Radjabov before winning the second one.

2. World Chess Championship 2022

In November, as alluded to in the previous entry, Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi will have their world championship match. It was supposed to happen last year, of course (assuming Nepo had managed to win the Candidates last year, had it been played straight through without the one-year break after the first cycle), with another cycle culminating in a world championship match in 2022. One might think that the year's delay would push that back as well, but no: FIDE is going to have a world championship match in 2022 after all. One other note - one I at least wholeheartedly approve of: Teimour Radjabov will get a direct spot in that event. More here.

3. 10 Positions Chess Engines (Allegedly) Just Don't Understand

While some of the positions mentioned in this article still display relative blind spots for engines, quite a few of these positions are perfectly well "understood" by engines. One example is the Topalov-Shirov game in section three, where Stockfish on my mediocre computer recognizes 47...Bh3 as the winning move, and the only winning move, after less than seven seconds. Or to take another hoary old example, the Arshak Petrosian-Laszlo Hazai game is another fairy tale. White's 46.Nxb6+ is often given one or two question marks, but if you play around with the position you'll see that the standard story of how White could have won is a myth. Or back to section 3, where the computer has no trouble seeing Spassky's 50.c5. Or in the game Brzozka-Bronstein, it doesn't take too long for the comp to find 48...Rxb3+. So while the article should be taken with a horse-sized salt lick, there's still some entertainment value to be had.

4. Endgame Studies for and by Jan Timman

Have a look here. The last study given by Timman, at the end of the article, is really extraordinary. I would also add - and will say more about this soon - that Harold van der Heijden's study database (he is the director of the contest, a fine composer in his own right, and the compiler of the premier endgame study database) is a terrific value, very much worth buying for anyone interested in endgame studies for either aesthetic value or as a training tool. More info here.

Chess and Politics: Armenia and Azerbaijan

Here's an interesting but somewhat rambling article that seems to at least mention practically everything in contemporary chess: the Queen's Gambit, women in chess, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, online chess, how much the top chess streamers are making, that Kasparov, Levon Aronian, and Teimour Radjabov* all had Jewish fathers, etc. The focus, though, is on the tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and some of the ways this has played out in the lives of Kasparov, Aronian, and to a lesser degree Radajbov. It's a sad state of affairs, but worth your time, especially if you're unfamiliar with the always simmering tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

* A minor note: the piece refers to Teimour Radjabov as once the youngest player to earn the grandmaster title. This is not true, though some made the claim at the time, too: the record-holder when Radjabov earned the title was Bu Xiangzhi, who was born in 1985 and became a grandmaster aged 13 years, 10 months and 13 days. Radjabov, born in 1987, earned the title at the age of 14 years and 14 days. (See here and here.)

Catching up on the Airthings Masters: The Aronian-Rajdabov Final Starts Tomorrow (Saturday)

While Levon Aronian and Teimour Radjabov are obviously great players, it's still surprising that they're the finalists of this 15'+10" tournament, rather than, say, Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, or Wesley So. Are the times a-changing?

When I first mentioned the event it was the day after Christmas, after the first of three day of the preliminary stage of the tournament. Because it was set up so that eight of the 12 players would qualify for the knockout stage, it was unsurprising that the early action featured a lot of draws and safe chess. Day two was even worse, with only three decisive games out of 24. Only on day three did the energy increase, with eight of the 16 games finishing with a winner. Here's how things wound up, in tiebreak order:

1-3. Carlsen, So, Nakamura 6.5 (of 11)

4-5. Nepomniachtchi, Radjabov 6

6. Aronian 5.5

7-10. Vachier-Lagrave, Dubov, Harikrishna, Grischuk 5

11-12. Giri, Anton 4.5

Vachier-Lagrave and Dubov made it; Harikrishna and Grischuk did not. This would have been especially painful for Grischuk, as he lost in the last round, with White, to MVL.

The quarterfinals (and the semis) were two-day affairs. Both days consisted of four-game mini-matches, and if the overall score was 1-1 a blitz tiebreak followed by an Armageddon game, if necessary, would determine the winner.

The pairings followed by usual KO format: 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, etc., so the pairings were Carlsen vs. Dubov, So vs. MVL, Nakamura vs. Aronian, and Nepo vs. Radjabov.

In the Carlsen-Dubov match, Carlsen won game 1...and that was it! Dubov won game 3 and the first day's match was split, while Dubov won games 1 and 3 to go with a draw in the second game, and the top seed was shown an early exit.

How about So? Day 1 was a disaster for him. He managed to draw his black games, but lost twice with the white pieces to go down 3-1. He came back on day 2, winning the first game and drawing the next three to equalize the match. It was on to the blitz tiebreak, and the pattern repeated itself: Vachier-Lagrave won first, but So won the rematch to force an Armageddon game. So enjoyed an edge with White, but couldn't convert it, and with the draw MVL won the match and advanced to the semis.

But surely, you say, Nakamura would qualify for the next round? As you know from the headline, he didn't. (And don't call me "Shirley".) On day 1, Aronian's win in the second game was enough to win the first mini-match, and by winning the first two games on day 2 Aronian clinched match victory. (I'm not sure how exactly they scored the second day, as Nakamura could have split the second mini-match with two wins. Even if he had succeeded, he still would have lost the overall match, so those games weren't played.)

Finally, the Nepomniachtchi-Radjabov match came down to the wire. The first day finished with four draws, but day two had some blood. Radjabov won the first game with the white pieces, and in a must-win situation in game four Nepo ground out a win in an opposite-colored bishop endgame. The blitz playoff was even more dramatic, with first Nepomniachtchi and then Radjabov winning with Black. Finally, an Armageddon game, and since Radjabov had the black pieces the draw gave him match victory.

On to the semis. On day 1, Aronian won games 1 and 4 against MVL while Radjabov won games 3 and 4 against Dubov, and both day 1 winners finished ahead of schedule on day 2 as well. Radjabov won the first two games to clinch, while Aronian drew the first two games before winning game three to punch his ticket to the final.

The two-day final starts tomorrow, and if any of their games aren't interesting cheer up: there's a playoff for third place between MVL and Dubov as well.

Event website here.

Some Chess Today: The Pepe Cuenca Invitational

In anticipation of the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, which starts this coming Saturday, Chess24 is first holding the Pepe Cuenca Invitational, which started today. (Pepe Cuenca is a Spanish GM and their main Spanish-language commentator. A bit more of him later today, I think.)

Today two matches took place, between Teimour Radjabov and David Anton, and between Vladislav Artemiev and Leinier Dominguez. (Name orders randomized - no spoilers here.) There will be two matches tomorrow, between Peter Svidler and Santosh Vidit, and between Pentala Harikrishna and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Here are today's matches, with live commentary by Svidler himself and Jan Gustafsson:

Carlsen, Radjabov, Dvorkovich, and Kramnik on the Candidates Stoppage

Here. (For those who don't know, Arkady Dvorkovich is the FIDE President.)