Round 2 of the 2022 Candidates Tournament: Nakamura Wins, Caruana and Rapport *Almost* Win

(Originally posted here, last night. Please subscribe to my Substack blog, where my posts will be published first.)

There was only one win today, in round 2 of the 2022 Candidates tournament, but the games were no less exciting or hard-fought than they were yesterday.

The marquee matchup was between the two leaders, who were also the winners of the last two Candidates tournaments. With White, one might have expected Ian Nepomniachtchi to put the pressure on Fabiano Caruana; the reality was entirely the opposite. Caruana’s remarkable novelty, 10…Ng4, invited mind-boggling complications, had White chosen 11.Re2 Qf6 12.d4. (I analyzed this variation in detail, with an assist from my friend Alex Herrera. If you look at no other chess today, do look at that analysis. The variations - and I’m sure that Team Caruana had worked all of them out, and more, before the game - are breathtaking.) Nepo sidestepped 12.d4 for only slightly calmer variations, sacrificing first one pawn and then another to build a kingside attack. Caruana played more or less perfectly up until Nepo’s 30.Bb2, but short of time (and probably understandably nervous about the complications) decided against the critical 30…Rxb2. As far as I can tell, Black is winning there, but it’s not simple at all, especially without a lot of time to work things out. He therefore allowed a repetition, and the pre-round leaders exited the round the same way.

One player won, but since he - Hikaru Nakamura - had lost in round 1, this only brought him back to 50%. His victim was Teimour Radjabov, and the game was a long one that went back and forth between Nakamura having a serious advantage to Radjabov achieving equality. This happened so many times that the recap would be as long as the analysis. So have look there; all I’ll say here is that it was a tribute to Nakamura’s doggedness that he pulled out the win.

The sanest game of the day was between Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Ding Liren. Ding “won” the first half of the game, but after his 23…g5? it was Duda who was pressing. His 34.Bd2?! seemed a bit careless, and after 34…f5! Ding equalized. Ding could have played more ambitiously near the end, but seemed set on making a draw, which was agreed just after the first time control.

Finally, Alireza Firouzja turned 19 today, but Richard Rapport very nearly gave him the worst possible “present”. The opening was slightly bizarre, with Rapport’s 9.c5 creating a position with a striking resemblance to the position he suffered against Duda (with reversed colors) in round 1. Rapport outplayed Firouzja and had a winning double-rook ending, but he failed to convert. The win was never obvious, but I’ve found three moments (technically four, but that’s because one of the positions was repeated) where White could have won. In the end, Firouzja avoided a loss on his birthday, and while his play in the first two rounds has been shaky, he has survived, is still just half a point out of first place, and has gotten two of his black games out of the way.

The games, with my analysis, are here. These are the pairings for round 3, tomorrow (Sunday):

Ding (.5) - Rapport (1)

Caruana (1.5) - Duda (1)

Radjabov (.5) - Nepomniachtchi (1.5)

Firouzja (1) - Nakamura (1)

Round 1 of the 2022 Candidates Tournament: Wins for Nepomniachtchi and Caruana

(Originally posted here, yesterday. Please subscribe to my Substack blog, where my posts will be published first.)

Round 1 of the 2022 Candidates lived up to the spectators’ hopes. All four games were exciting, two finished with a winner, and all four could have been decisive. Moreover, there was a significant upset, the openings were exciting - really, there was a bit of everything today.

The first game to finish was between the co-favorite (with Fabiano Caruana), Ding Liren, against the winner of the last Candidates tournament, Ian Nepomniachtchi. While I didn’t expect Nepo to win the event (and it’s a still long ways off, though if he wins tomorrow he’ll already be the favorite) I did warn that he probably had a big stock of opening ideas from his preparation for the match with Magnus Carlsen. Ding played the English, and Nepo chose a very aggressive line in reply. Ding seemed uncertain and inadequately prepared for the variation, and his passivity in the face of Nepo’s attack soon proved fatal. As Caruana put it afterward, Ding was blown off the board.

That game finished in just 32 moves; the other games all lasted well into the second time control. The second game to finish was the other decisive affair, the all-American battle between Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. Caruana obtained an advantage from the opening, but let it slip. The critical moment came on move 21, when Caruana played 21.b3 to scare Nakamura away from castling by hand to the queenside. He should have done so anyway, but instead played 21…0-0?, allowing White to enjoy good attacking chances until forever against Black’s exposed king. Both sides made inaccuracies from time to time, but Black’s chronic king problems eventually proved his undoing.

The other games were long, exciting, and will leave the white players with some regrets. Jan-Krzysztof Duda surprised Richard Rapport in the opening, and when Rapport played the awful 8…g6? he was already practically lost after 9.c5! (and unquestionably lost after 12.0-0). Over the next 20-25 moves or so Duda would give away his advantage, a bit at a time, only to get a fresh opportunity to play for a win (and achieve it with good play). His last big chance was missed on move 33, and while Rapport still had to defend for another 36 moves, Duda never got another chance to play for a win.

Finally, the battle between the oldest player, Teimour Radjabov, and the youngest player, Alireza Firouzja, was full of action in the first time control. With Black, Firouzja chose a strategically risky line, and then on move 18 essayed a very interesting exchange sac. Radjabov found a great response, offering a pawn and then the exchange back in pursuit of a kingside attack, and when Firouzja erred on move 25 Radjabov obtained serious chances to play for a win. Firouzja recovered well, and when Radjabov’s 31st move let most of the advantage slip. He managed to reach a pawn-up rook ending, but holding it was child’s play for Firouzja, and the game was drawn after 71 moves.

(All four games, with my analysis, are here.)

Here’s what we have to look forward to tomorrow (Saturday) in round 2:

Rapport (.5) - Firouzja (.5)
Nakamura (0) - Radjabov (.5)
Nepomniachtchi (1) - Caruana (1)
Duda (.5) - Ding (0)

Carlsen's Candidates Predictions

Caruana and Ding are his picks.

(Originally posted yesterday, here. Please subscribe at my Substack blog, where my posts will be published first.)

No shock there: the conventional wisdom is conventional wisdom for a reason. It’s not surprising that Magnus Carlsen agrees with the betting favorites, Fabiano Caruana and Ding Liren. There are some (mild) surprises in his assessments of the rest of the field. He places Alireza Firouzja and Ian Nepomniachtchi in the “dark horse” category; players who are underdogs but with a real chance of winning the tournament.

The other four, he gives little-to-no chance. He thinks Richard Rapport has a very slight chance, while he thinks Hikaru Nakamura “will probably have a decent event”, but not decent enough for a “real chance”. And Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Teimour Radjabov? No shot.

A Last Appetizer Before the Candidates

One great game from each of the contenders.

(Originally posted here. Please subscribe at my Substack blog, where my posts will be published first.)

The players in the Candidates, which starts in just a few hours, are obviously among the best in the world, and as such have won many brilliant games in their chess careers. Each could well be the subject of an “X’s Best Games” volume - and at least two of them are.

We can’t produce the equivalent of such a volume here, but as one last aperitif before the tournament starts, I’ve selected one game from each player to give a little taste of what they are capable of. These may not be in every case their best game (in fact, I’m sure it’s not in at least several cases), but all the games are interesting, exciting, and give a glimpse into what these players are capable of.

Have a look, enjoy, and if you think I missed a Kasparov-Topalov level game for one of the players, let me know in the comments what game should have been included.

An Interview with Caruana

A wide-ranging discussion on the eve of the Candidates.

(Originally posted here. Please subscribe at my Substack blog, where my posts will be published first.)

Have a look, here.

Richard Rapport, Romanian

Bad luck for Hungary, and Rex Sinquefield needs to up his game.

(Originally posted here. Please subscribe at my Substack blog, where my posts will be published first.)

Apparently the U. S. of A. is not the only country in the habit of buying up foreign grandmasters! Romanian gambling entrepreneur Sacha Dragic is apparently behind Richard Rapport’s switching federations from his native Hungary to neighboring Romania.

Congrats to Romanian chess fans, and my condolences to Hungarian chess fans. Hungary has had some great players over the years, and one of the greatest players of all time was of Hungarian descent. Peter Leko came within a draw in the last game of a world championship match of winning the title, but the top title remains elusive. With Rapport’s departure, the wait for this great chess country will be a little longer.

Database Oddities

What is and isn't there? You'd be surprised. (Published earlier on my Substack page. Please subscribe there!)

If you’re old enough to remember the Guinness Book of World Records (it still exists, but it’s probably not the mega-bestseller it used to be), you might remember that for many years it claimed that the shortest master game was this “classic” between the French players Gibaud and Lazard: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nd2 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.h3?? Ne3 0-1.

Terrible chess all around: 2.Nd2 is artificial at best, 2…e5 is an utterly unjustified gambit, and of course 4.h3 is catastrophically bad. But what’s more important is that the game never actually happened. (Which is a pity for anyone who made a bar bet on the game and consulted Guinness for the truth; the whole point of the Guinness Book was to give carefully researched and verified answers to those making inquiries and bets about such matters.) Or rather, it sort of happened - there was a game between those two players, won by Black, with that general tactical idea. But it wasn’t a tournament game, and it went a few moves longer. (See here for a longer discussion and a look at the relevant documentary evidence.)

I was curious, though: maybe Mssrs. Gibaud and Lazard never played the game given above, but did anyone else? Apparently not, at least not according to ChessBase’s reasonably complete Online Database. There are 1655 games that proceeded 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nd2, after which 34 hopeful souls essayed 2…e5, probably hoping to replicate Lazard’s (alleged) triumph. 28 of the 34 white players took on e5, all of the black players played 3…Ng4, and…not one of their prayers were answered! Overall, Black’s results were fine, but not one of the 28 white players repeated (pseudo-) Gibaud’s 4.h3(??).

Now, normally you’d think, “Well, of course not. Why would we expect White to make such a blunder?” That’s a very reasonable thought on your part. The problem, however, is that when you go exploring in the database you’ll find far worse than 4.h3.

For example:

1.f3? e5 2.g4?? Qh4# is there (Pakfolska-Firnhaber, email 2014).

1.f4 e6 2.g4 was played twice(!), but in neither game did Black deliver the mate(!!).

Mercifully, there are no games that started 1.f3 e6 2.g4, 1.f4 e5 2.g4, 1.g4 e5 2.f3/f4 or 1.g4 e6 2.f3/f4.

Not too many cases of “Fool’s Mate”, then, which is encouraging. But “Scholar’s Mate”? There are too many possible move orders, so I decided to look in the Mega Database for games finishing with White playing 4.Qxf7 mate. How many did I find? One hundred and seventy five! Most of the players were unrated, with a significant minority coming from girls’ events. (I’ve certainly seen boys fall for it, but apparently their coaches did a better job of getting it out of their system before the played in database-worthy events.) But it was not only very young newbies who fell prey. Quite a few had respectable club ratings in the 1700-1800 range, and there was even a player rated 2334(??!) who (allegedly?) allowed it. Turning the tables, another 51 players on the white side allowed 4…Qxf2#. So it becomes increasingly surprising that no one has replicated Gibaud-Lazard.

Another elementary trap (and back to the Online Database as our source): 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.Bf4 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+ 6.Nbd2 Qe7 7.a3 Ngxe5 8.axb4?? Nd3#. This comes in three versions. One we just gave, a second sees Black play 7…Ncxe5 instead and give mate on the next move, and the third has White play 8.Nxe5 (it could be the knight from c6 or the knight from g4 - it comes to the same thing) Nxe5 and then walk into 9.axb4?? Nd3#. Here are the numbers for this one: Version 1: 94 cases. Version 2: 15 cases. Version 3: 11 cases. To Black’s credit, the mate was executed in every instance.

One more: 1.e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 and now either 4…Nf6 5.Qe2 Nbd7?? or 4…Nd7 5.Qe2 Ngf6?? shows up 19 times (most famously in the 1950 game Keres-Arlamowski), and all 19 times White played 6.Nd6#.

I’m sure the examples can be multiplied; if any especially egregious cases have caught your attention, feel free to mention them in the comments.

The 2022 Candidates Starts Tomorrow: A Look Ahead (Updated)

(Originally posted here. Please subscribe at my Substack blog, where my posts will be published first.)

Candidates tournaments (and sometimes matches) are designed to select the challenger for the next world championship match, though on at least three occasions something went awry between the two stages. In 1974, Anatoly Karpov edged Viktor Korchnoi 12.5-11.5 in the Candidates final to earn a match with Bobby Fischer, but when Fischer proposed terms that were unacceptable to FIDE he was eventually stripped of his title, making the Karpov-Korchnoi match the de facto World Championship.

In 1993, Nigel Short defeated Jan Timman in their Candidates final to earn a match with Garry Kasparov. That match did occur, but they broke off from FIDE, who promptly had Timman and Short’s victim in the Candidates semi-final, Karpov, face off for a competing World Championship match. The split was only repaired in 2006.

In 1998, Alexei Shirov and Vladimir Kramnik faced off for the right to play Kasparov in the non-FIDE branch of the World Championship. Shirov defeated Kramnik, but when Kasparov couldn’t find organizers to pay as much as he thought the match merited he eventually dropped Shirov as a challenger, tried to recruit Viswanathan Anand, and then finally played…you guessed it, Kramnik, who defeated him.

So why do I bring up these cases where the Candidates in some way or other failed to properly connect with the World Championship? It’s because the current champion, Magnus Carlsen, has suggested that he may not play the winner of this Candidates event, unless perhaps his challenger is the young French (by way of Iran) star Alireza Firouzja. So it might turn out that what we’re calling the Candidates will in retrospect prove to be the World Championship.

In all of the cases above, the Candidates winner was determined by a series of knockout matches, but for the last few cycles FIDE has used a tournament format, a double round-robin with eight players. Those eight players, and the basis of their qualification, are as follows:

1. Ian Nepomniachtchi (the losing finalist in the last World Championship match)

2. Teimour Radjabov (FIDE compensation for his missing out on the last Candidates due to his protest concerning their COVID policy)

3. Jan-Krzysztof Duda (winner of the 2021 World Cup)

4. Alireza Firouzja (winner of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss)

5. Fabiano Caruana (runner-up of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss)

6. Hikaru Nakamura (winner of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix)

7. Richard Rapport (runner-up of the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix)

8. Ding Liren (rating qualifier, replacing Sergey Karjakin, who had qualified as the runner-up of the 2021 World Cup but was banned due to his remarks in favor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine)

So that’s who’s playing. Now for the event specifics: Play will run from tomorrow, June 17 through July 4, in Madrid, Spain. There will be one round a day for three consecutive days, followed by a rest day. There will be 14 rounds, and - a wonderful change - in case there’s a tie for first there will be a playoff on July 5. This is a huge improvement over the previous policy of settling things by tiebreaks, which led to tragic last rounds in 2013 and 2016.

The tournament website is here, and these are the pairings for round 1, which starts tomorrow at 15:00 CEST (= 9 a.m. ET in the U.S.):

Duda - Rapport

Ding Liren - Nepomniachtchi

Caruana - Nakamura

Radjabov - Firouzja

Note that the Caruana-Nakamura pairing has to take place in round 1 (and the reverse pairing in round 8) because of the long-running FIDE rule that players from the same country must face off at the start of each cycle. This is a very good rule, designed to prevent collusion. It’s not that there’s any reason to think that Caruana would throw a game to Nakamura or vice-versa. There’s no reason to doubt either player’s integrity, and as far as I’m aware they aren’t friends (I don’t mean that they’re enemies, only that they aren’t particularly close), but it’s best to avoid the appearance and the temptation for wrongdoing. (FIDE didn’t seem particularly worried about this when it came to Ding Liren’s string of all-Chinese tournaments when he was trying to qualify for the Candidates, but their lapse there doesn’t obviate the fact that it’s a good rule in the Candidates and for norm events.)

Finally, let’s offer predictions, or most modestly, some preliminary thoughts.

Nepomniachtchi: He is strong enough to win - he won the last Candidates, after all - and he will have a large store of ideas from the work he did for his match with Carlsen. On the other hand, he got bruised pretty badly by Carlsen, and he may not have recovered his confidence. If he gets off to an excellent start he’ll have a shot, but I think he’s unlikely to win.

Radjabov: Virtually no chance.

Duda: He is a dangerous player, capable of beating anyone and everyone. I wouldn’t call him the favorite, but I would not be too surprised if he won the event.

Firouzja: When it comes to talent and strength, he is definitely one of the favorites. On paper, it’s between him, Ding Liren, and Fabiano Caruana. His most recent performance wasn’t fantastic, though, and he has shown nerves in high-pressure situations. Only 18 (he turns 19 on Sunday), his lack of experience may prove his undoing. If he doesn’t become the champion this time around, I’d expect him to be the favorite the next time around. He might win this time, too—hopefully it will come down to chess and not to some psychological disaster.

Caruana: If he can recover his best form, he is the favorite, period. Even if he’s only playing reasonably well, I expect him to be in the running to the end.

Nakamura: He was #2 in the world at one point, and he is the world’s #2 in rapid and #1 in blitz. He is capable of just about anything, and he is a great competitor. He is resilient, tricky, and confident, and if he gets off to a good start he’ll have a chance.

Rapport: Easily underestimated, he was #5 in the world a month ago and is still #8. He hasn’t won many elite events, and his penchant for offbeat openings makes it easy to underestimate him. I expect him to be in the middle-to-upper middle of the pack, but would be surprised to see him win.

Ding Liren: It’s hard to know what kind of form he’s in, as the slew of games he played a couple of months ago to qualify were low pressure games, and almost entirely against non-elite opposition. (Only Wei Yi was over 2700, if I recall correctly.) Nevertheless, he is the world’s #2 player at the moment, and is to my mind the co-favorite with Caruana.

In sum, if Caruana plays his best chess, he wins. If not, then he’s a co-favorite with Ding, with Firouzja having a chance if he can overcome his sometimes shaky nerves and his lack of experience. Duda and Nakamura are my dark horses, Nepo and Rapport are very unlikely to win but are strong enough to do it if everything goes right, and Radjabov…will not win.

Of course, predictions are nonsense - even my prediction about Radjabov is nonsense. Let’s see whose nonsense comes closest: predict away!

Update: The date for the start of play has been corrected - it is June 17 (Friday), not June 16 (Thursday).

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.

Computers Ruin Everything: Fire On Board Edition

Alexei Shirov was one of the very strongest players in the world from the mid-90s through around 2010, and even more than for his strength he was (and is!) celebrated for his creativity. Shirov entitled both of his chess autobiographies Fire On Board, and with good reason, too. His ability to create, and outwit his opponents, in the most insanely complex positions made him an heir to the great Mikhail Tal, and the chess world was all the richer for it.

For many of us, 2010 was not all that long ago, but there are plenty of kids for whom Shirov is mostly a name and not a figure of great familiarity. And while there are “oldies” stations galore playing the music of the 1990s and 2000s, very few of chess’s greatest hits get the equivalent of air time.

So, during a recent lesson I wanted to give one of my students a little sampler of what made Shirov great, and decided to show him a remarkable bit of analysis in the Sveshnikov Sicilian that he came up with and played against Veselin Topalov. Shirov discusses this with understandable pride in the chapter “Notes on Creativity” in Fire On Board Part II: 1997-2004, and I started showing it to my student. Out of curiosity, and hoping that it would make Shirov’s creativity even more impressive, I ran the engine while entering the moves.

Sigh…

Have a look here, as we see what Shirov did and thought, and how Stockfish blew a hole in the idea.