Candidates Tournament Part 3: Better Late Than Never

PHOTO: FIDE, Lennart Ootes

While it wasn’t exactly an adjournment per se (and certainly not a voluntary one!), there’s no question that the events of 2020 made for a one-of-a-kind situation in the Candidates Tournament with an unprecedented interruption of more than a year. As a reminder, here are the standings from where we left off at the end of the seventh round in 2020 after the first cycle:

ROUND 8
This round was critically important. How will the players acclimate after a whole year? There was the feeling that some would be more happy not playing in the midst of COVID-19 discussions and controversies, while others (like MVL) may have cooled down after such a great deal of time had elapsed. After all, many tournament victories have arisen from going on a winning streak at exactly the right time.

Right from the start we could see that the adjustment was not a trivial matter for the players. The most important game of the round was Caruana-Vachier Lagrave. After his trademark opening prep (and a few missed chances from the Frenchman), Fabi reached a more comfortable endgame and eventually ground out a win – a huge competitive result for the American. Caruana came within half a point of the leader (Nepomniachtchi) and, more importantly, showed that he was playing good chess in a must-win tournament.

The rest of the games held less intrigue. Nepomniachtchi took a quick draw against Giri, securing the tiebreak advantage if it came to that. (The first tiebreaker for this tournament was mutual score.) The battle of the Chinese players (Wang-Ding) could hardly be labeled as such, seeing that the Scotch opening quickly fizzled out into a decently well-known drawing line.

The only other decisive game of the round was Alekseenko-Grischuk. Grischuk played the French against the wildcard, a bit of an unusual choice for him. Soon an interesting position transitioned into a roughly even endgame.

Both players seemed to be committed to play for the win in this game, and when this is the case any position can become quite sharp very quickly. By move 40, Grischuk was up an exchange, but the position still remained completely even.

It is difficult to find black’s decisive mistake, but safe to say that Grischuk let time pressure get the best of him once again. He resigned as Alekseenko’s passed pawn was about to touch down on the 8th rank – a very Carlsen-esque win for the rookie!

ROUND 9
This was a round low on decisive games, which was unusual for the second half of this tournament. Only Giri prevailed, after squeezing the luckless Wang Hao in a Catalan:

The rest of the games ended peacefully. Grischuk-Nepo had interesting moments, but never really strayed from equality. Caruana missed the opportunity to take a hanging pawn against Alekseenko, and instead settled for a quick draw.

The last game of the round also happened to be the most exciting. Ding had a winning advantage out of the opening (avoiding MVL’s Grunfeld with 3. h4!?), and would have converted easily on any other day. In this game, however, he followed Fabi’s example and failed to grab an obviously hanging pawn. Only three moves later, he let the win slip, and was forced to acquiesce to a draw.

ROUND 10
Round 10 brought another stretch where the players fought their hardest, but … to no avail. The most clear-cut game was Caruana-Ding. Somewhere in the opening Fabi went wrong and Ding’s experience in the Ruy Lopez led him to obtain a slight edge. In the end, Fabiano defended well and held the draw.

MVL-Giri was a shining example of fighting chess. Out of a sharp Sveshnikov, MVL was definitely better and managed to win a pawn. Even so, this allowed black to obtain a decently stubborn blockade, and when the Frenchman played less than accurately Giri obtained strong counter play, steering the game towards an opposite-colored bishop draw.

Wang Hao-Grischuk was another French. The game continued along the usual paths, with Grischuk thinking for an hour on move 11, finding himself with a scant fifteen minutes remaining for the game until move 40.

The game remained equal even after a very enthusiastic queen sacrifice by Wang, but he soon took the concept too far, leaving Grischuk with a winning position. Despite this fact, the clock soon began to tell, justifying Wang’s gamble slightly.

Grischuk blundered on move 30, missing a brilliant point that allowed white to obtain an unbreachable fortress. Later it became clear that after this game Wang lost all confidence in himself (which could help explain his later results), and even considered withdrawing from the event.

The most critical game of the round also seemed to be the most effortless. Nepo simply demolished Alekseenko, consolidating his lead and taking an important step towards winning the tournament.

ROUND 11
The first result of this otherwise fighting round was a sucker punch for fans of Caruana. Nepomniachtchi never gave him a chance to complicate the game, and the draw allowed him to retain a small but stable lead over the rest of the field.

The rest of the games were as engaging as it gets. Alekseenko-Wang was an interesting Italian, where black went for the modern idea with … h6 and … g5. In the end these weaknesses allowed white to gain sufficient counter play and the longest game of the round ended in a deserved draw.

Grischuk-MVL was a very sharp Sicilian where one mistake from black nearly decided the result. Grischuk was dominating from that point onward. And yet on move 31, with his clock running on fumes, Grischuk missed a very crafty defensive resource from the slippery Frenchman. The game was brought back to even.

After missing a forced draw, MVL misplayed the complex material configuration of two rooks vs queen and pawn, and went on to lose a bishop endgame down a pawn.

With MVL’s chances of qualification just about zero, another player was only getting started. Giri dealt a heavy blow to Ding Liren, who had (up to this point) recovered quite well after a tough first half. Out of a Ruy Lopez, Giri played an interesting delayed capture on c6.

This was not the most critical test of black’s opening setup, and after castling queenside, Ding had a fine game. Soon after he went for a very energetic pawn sacrifice. Unfortunately for Ding, at a critical moment he played his move much faster than was necessary (too much online rapid chess?), and missed a strong defensive idea from white.

From that moment Giri went on the attack, and finished very elegantly, sacrificing a piece for decisive attacking play. I believe that his dubious reputation as a “drawing master” is severely misplaced! As this game clearly shows, Giri can undoubtedly be a very dynamic and interesting player.

At this point, Nepomniachtchi was positioned a slim half point ahead of the field. Here are the standings after eleven rounds of play: