The Next Big Event Starts on Sunday: The FTX Road to Miami, on the Meltwater Chess Tour

(A version of this post was originally published here.)

More details here. As the Meltwater tour has been around for a while now, many of you know the basic format: it’s a two-stage, 16 player, rapid event. A round robin cuts the field to eight players, who then engage in a series of knockout matches until there’s a winner; one-day matches for the quarter-finals and the semi-finals, and a two-day match for the finals.

As always with the Meltwater tour, the field includes many of the world’s absolute elite. This time around, Candidates Teimour Radjabov, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and Richard Rapport headline the field, along with Lenier Dominguez, Levon Aronian, and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

Three days to go.

Shankland is Mostly Right, But...

(Originally published here. Please subscribe to my Substack blog - thanks!)

I’m watching Sam Shankland’s Chess24 course “Why Play 1.d4?” (in part an ad for his Chessable course giving a 1.d4 repertoire), and in the third video he notes a repertoire issue. Suppose you’re a 1.d4 player who wants to avoid the Gruenfeld. No problem: you can start with 1.Nf3 (or 1.c4). If you’re a 1.e4 player trying to avoid certain openings with 1.Nf3, however, you’re stuck. You have to play 1.e4. If you start with 1.Nf3, then after Black’s two most popular moves, 1…Nf6 and 1…d5, you can’t get back to a 1.e4 opening.

That’s true, but if you’re worried about 1…e5 and the Petroff/Berlin/Marshall systems (and aren’t enthused about the Italian Game or other diversions from the Ruy), you could play 1.Nf3 and happily meet the reasonably popular 1…c5 with 2.e4. A less likely option, but one that occurred the very first time I beat a 2300 in a tournament game, you might get lucky and see this:

1.Nf3 f5!? 2.e4!? e5?? 3.Nxe5+-

You may think my punctuation is exaggerated, and it is…maybe. Two question marks for 2…e5, transposing into the Latvian, is perhaps half a question mark too many. Perhaps. As for the ‘+-’, that’s not an exaggeration. White does have a decisive advantage, not that Black will resign voluntarily at this point. (If Black realized how bad the Latvian was, 2…e5?? wouldn’t have appeared on the board. So the game might take another 15-20 move before Black throws in the towel.)

Anyway, the point is that while Shankland is right, speaking generally, it’s not impossible to find ways of reaching 1.e4 positions by transposition. Another move that can be used to that end is 1.Nc3. In case of 1…c5, there’s 2.e4, and it’s a Sicilian. No explanation is needed to explain how 1…c6 or 1…e6 will turn into e4 openings if White is so inclined, and likewise for pretty much any single-square pawn push Black might employ. What about 1…e5? This is known to be a small trap: 2.Nf3! Nc6 3.d4! exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Bg5 gives White a pleasant edge; the problem being that the natural 5…Be7? more or less loses to 6.Nf5, e.g. 6…0-0 7.Nxe7+ Qxe7 8.Nd5 Qe5 9.Bxf6 gxf6 10.e3 (better than the nervous 10.c3), and Black is lost.

There is a drawback to 1.Nc3, which is 1…d5. White can play 2.e4(?!), and if Black is kind it will transpose to normal 1.e4 lines, but Black is better after 2…d4. So White should be willing to play 2.d4 instead, when 2…Nf6 3.Bf4 is a very trendy line popularized by Baadur Jobava. (Note that 2…c6 or 2…e6 would allow a transposition to the Caro-Kann or the French, respectively, after 3.e4. Likewise, 2…Nf6 3.Bg5 e6 is a French after 4.e4.)

Another move the 1.Nc3 player must consider is 1…Nf6. Now 2.e4 e5 is a Vienna, which is not the most ambitious 1.e4 option for White. If you like it, then you’re set; if not, it’s possible to play 2.d4. If 2…d5, White plays 3.Bf4 - the Jobava line again - and if Black eschews 2…d5 White plays 3.e4, with a possible transposition to a favorable 1.e4 opening. (For example, 1.Nc3 Nf6 2.d4 d6 3.e4 g6 is a Pirc.)

Note: I’m not recommending 1.Nf3 for 1.e4-players - or recommending against it. And as I say in the title, I think Shankland is mostly right. I just want to insist on the “mostly” part: White does have some interesting transpositional options that can lead back to 1.e4 systems, even starting with 1.Nf3 (or 1.Nc3).

Various: Errata, Omissions, and More

(Originally published here, several days ago. Please subscribe to the Substack blog - thanks!)

Since many of you are subscribers, you’ll receive my original post by email, and if I correct an error you’re unlikely to notice. Hopefully the vast majority of my errors will be typos and not substantive, but errare humanum est and all that. So here’s a post in which I correct an error, include a link I neglected to add, and throw in a bunch of other links just for fun.

First, the error: In my annotations to Nepomniachtchi-Rapport in round 13 I stated that Nepo joined Smyslov and Spassky as the only two players in chess history to win back-to-back Candidates events. No one wrote in to correct me - thank you all for being too polite and/or too young to remember - but I forgot the great Viktor Korchnoi. “Viktor the Terrible” did it in 1977 and 1980, both times earning the right to face Anatoly Karpov for the title. Unlike Vassily Smyslov and Boris Spassky, who managed to defeat Mikhail Botvinnik and Tigran Petrosian, respectively, in their second attempts at the title, Korchnoi went 0 for 2 in title matches against Karpov. (Or 0 for 3, if one counts their Candidates final in 1974 as a de facto title match.)

Second, an omitted link: In my round 14 post I linked to a couple of sources that discuss Magnus Carlsen’s proposed alternative(s) to the standard classical format for the next World Championship. Here’s a source I didn’t link to (though it was linked within one of the articles I cited).

Third: Within that last link is a further link to a 19-move blitz win by Judit Polgar against Magnus Carlsen a couple of days ago. It’s really just her capitalizing on a one-move blunder, but still: when you beat the World Champion, it’s worth a little brag. Lest one get too excited about this, here’s a blitz game between them when something was actually at stake. (Complete with commentary from the legendary GM Dmitry Komarov. Who needs Andres Cantor?)

Finally, I thought of including this short clip from Carlsen in either yesterday’s or today’s recap, but didn’t. Still, it’s good for an odds-and-ends piece, so here you go.

Round 14 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepo Wins (Still); Ding Beats Nakamura to Take Second

(Originally published here several days ago. Please subscribe the Substack blog!)

Happy 4th of July, America; our candidates both lost. What could have been…

In truth, it would have been difficult for anyone to stop Ian Nepomniachtchi from winning the 2022 Candidates, who won the event going away. He played better than anyone else in the event, and whenever he found himself in trouble - as he did today - a combination of resourceful play and help from his opponents bailed him out. Jan-Krzysztof Duda has had a poor tournament, but today he had a real chance against Nepo. Nepo’s Petroff prep was good, but Duda managed to create a messy position with kingside attacking chances. Nepo committed several inaccuracies after the opening, and if Duda had played 23.Rxd8+ he would have had real winning chances. Instead, he played 23.hxg6, and precise play by Black allowed him to slide into a drawn ending.

Thus Nepomniachtchi finished with an undefeated 9.5/14, the greatest Candidates score since the current format was introduced back in 2013. (Caruana had the previous record with 9 points in 2018; all other winners scored 8.5.) He has earned the right for a title tilt with Magnus Carlsen; whether it’s a championship worth celebrating is something we’ll have to see. (More on this below.)

As has been repeated ad nauseam on the blog and elsewhere, it’s possible that Carlsen will decline to defend the title. If he doesn’t, then the second-place winner here will face Nepo for the title. Coming into the round Hikaru Nakamura was in clear second, half a point ahead of Ding Liren. The pairing was perfect: Ding vs. Nakamura, with Ding getting the white pieces. Ding had nothing for a long time, but with plenty of time on the clock Nakamura twice failed to play …Rd8. Ding gave him one more chance to save the game with a big error on move 38, but that one was also missed. From there Ding showed excellent technique, increasingly restricting his opponent’s pieces while gaining material. Overall, a very good game by Ding, and the culmination of a remarkable comeback in the second half of the tournament. If he gets a championship match with Nepomniachtchi it will be well-deserved.

Nakamura thus finished in third - or rather, in equal third (and technically, fourth on tiebreak) with Teimour Radjabov after the latter’s weird win against Richard Rapport. Radjabov played a terrible opening and was just about lost after 18 moves. But rather than prepare g5 with 19.h4 or with 19.Nh4 followed by Nf5 and then h4, Rapport went into Elmer Fudd mode with the dreadful 19.g5?? fxg5? 20.Nxg5??, and while Radjabov did what he could to “forgive” him, he kept making mistakes. Ultimately, Rapport was a piece down with no attack at all, and resigned after Black’s 33rd move.

Finally, the tournament came to an end with another poorly played game between the two players who had nightmarish second halves in the tournament. Fabiano Caruana was given a gift when Alireza Firouzja played 19…f5? This gave Caruana a risk-free positional advantage, but when he decided to open the board straight away Firouzja was right back in the game. Further errors before the time control left Firouzja with a winning ending with an extra pawn, but he was unable to maintain the advantage. Alas, it was Caruana who made the final error, on the last move of the second time control. There were multiple moves to keep the draw, but 60.Ne4? cost him a second pawn, and he resigned three moves later. What a nightmare for Caruana, who was an undefeated +3 in the first half and a winless -4 in the second.

The games (with my notes) are here, and here are the final standings:

1.Nepomniachtchi 9.5 (out of 14)

2.Ding 8

3-4.Radjabov, Nakamura 7.5

5.Caruana 6.5

6.Firouzja 6

7-8.Duda, Rapport 5.5

Now let’s get to “what’s next”. Carlsen hasn’t said what he’s going to do—not exactly. But it is known that he has been in talks with FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, and has apparently proposed that a match not be - or not just be - a classical competition, but include a rapid (and blitz?) component. One element (hopefully not the whole thing, which would make a joke of the traditional world championship) would be the sets of rapid games used in the Meltwater tour events. (There, they play a best-of-four rapid match on day 1, with the day’s overall score counting like a single regular game of chess: a point for a win, half a point each for a draw, and nothing for a loss. Day 2: the same thing, and if it’s 1-1 there’s a blitz playoff culminating in an Armageddon game.) Given the current prevalence of rapid events, I’m open to its being a component of a championship match (though I’d rather it wasn’t, except in case of a tied match), but think that at least half of the overall points in the match should come from classical games. There’s already a world rapid championship, and there’s still value to classical chess. It isn’t perfect chess, but it’s a lot closer to it than 15-minute chess.

For more on this, see here (scroll down) and here.

Round 13 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepo Clinches First; Nakamura in Solo Second

(Originally published here several days ago. If any of you haven't yet subscribed to the Substack blog, please do so!)

The question for round 14 of the Candidates is this: will there be one meaningful game, or none? The answer is up to none of the players, but to Magnus Carlsen. More on this below.

First things first: congratulations to Ian Nepomniachtchi! After another pro forma draw, this time against Richard Rapport, he clinched clear first in the tournament with a round to spare (which he did in the last Candidates, too), and guaranteed himself a World Championship match against…somebody. Hopefully Carlsen, but if he decides not to play it will be against the second-place finisher in this event.

Right now, that’s Hikaru Nakamura. He won against Jan-Krzysztof Duda, but it was a game he easily could have lost. After the careless 31.Rfd1 he was in grave danger after 31…Bg5 32.Rd3 b5!; fortunately, after 33.Ba3 Duda uncorked a howler. His 33…d5?? gave away his advantage, and a few moves later 37…Nd7?? lost the game. That brought Nakamura to +2 in the tournament for the first time, a point and a half behind Nepo and half a point ahead of Ding Liren.

Ding gave it his best shot against Alireza Firouzja, who played uncharacteristically solid chess today. (Losing two straight and barely surviving the third game can do that to a player.) Firouzja’s decision to go pawn-grabbing after Ding’s provocative 20…h5 heated things up, but after very good play by both sides the game finished in a repetition.

Finally, the game between Teimour Radjabov and Fabiano Caruana could have been kept the player in the hunt for second, had either man won. Caruana tried a sharp line against Radjabov’s Catalan, and while both players wanted more it soon petered out to a drawn ending, leaving both players eliminated from contention once Nakamura won.

So we’re left with only one (potentially) meaningful game tomorrow, with Ding having White in a must-win situation against Nakamura. If Ding wins, he’ll have play Nepomniachtchi for the title; otherwise, Nakamura will play Nepo for the title. (Unless Carlsen decides to play, in which case it’s Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi II, when we hope that the sequel will be better than the original. Fortunately this is real life, not Hollywood, so it probably will be.)

Here are today’s games, with my comments, and here are the pairings for the final round, to be played on Monday:

Rapport (5.5) - Radjabov (6.5)

Caruana (6.5) - Firouzja (5)

Ding (7) - Nakamura (7.5)

Duda (5) - Nepomniachtchi (9)

Kasparov on the Candidates

His commentary during round 12 on Nepomniachtchi, Firouzja, Caruana and more. Come for the chess, stay for the travel suggestions.

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.

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.

Round 11 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepomniachtchi vs. Ding for the World Championship?

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

“It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” - Anonymous

We commentators are remarkably insightful when it comes to explaining what has just happened, though this awesome gift of hindsight rarely translates into successful predictions the next time around. It turns out that commentators should not only avoid predictions before an event; they should also be careful about offering their explanations during an event. To wit:

After seven rounds of the Candidates, it was “obvious” that Fabiano Caruana was in great form, while Ding Liren was in bad shape. In Ding’s case, he was rusty when it came to top-level opposition, while he was probably burned out from all the games he played against relatively weak opposition in March as he scrambled to qualify for the tournament. That mad dash would also have taken away from time he would have spent in opening preparation. And for Caruana, just look at the games: great opening preparation, impressive victories, good fighting spirit - the whole package.

And now? Caruana has scored just half a point from his last four games, falling 2.5 points behind the leader and into fourth place, while Ding has only given up half a point from his last four games, winning three in a row and finding himself in clear second. Clearly, the narrative in the preceding paragraph was all wrong. Maybe Caruana’s form wasn’t entirely up to snuff - he failed to convert against Ian Nepomniachtchi in round 2, despite outpreparing and outplaying him, and once things got tough he fell apart. 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 don’t know what exactly has gone wrong for Caruana over the past four rounds, or even if there is some overarching explanation that transcends what went wrong in each of the four games. Likewise, it’s hard to know why exactly Ding has won his last three games, after going winless through the first eight rounds. Ding came close to winning in rounds 3 and 5, and had a nice advantage in game 2; what was different about those rounds compared to rounds 9-11? I don’t know.

It is possible to explain the details of the games themselves, though, and you’ll want to have a look at today’s game between Caruana and Ding. They came into the round tied for second with Hikaru Nakamura, a point and a half behind Nepomniachtchi. Caruana had the white pieces and played very well up to the time control. He hadn’t made the most of his chances, but still enjoyed a clear advantage and good winning chances. But somehow, things started to go wrong, a bit at a time, and by the third time control Caruana was fighting for his life. He didn’t manage it, making his final error on move 75 and resigning after three more moves.

As Nakamura didn’t manage to defeat Richard Rapport (despite trying until move 96!), Ding is now in clear second. He remains a point and a half behind Nepomniachtchi, who is almost certainly uncatchable at this point, with just three rounds left. Nepo won a nice game against Alireza Firouzja, who went a bit bonkers trying to blow Nepo off the board. It’s hard to say for sure, but Firouzja’s over-caffeinated approach may have been partially due to his having played 357 hyperbullet (30-second) games on Lichess the previous evening/night/early morning.

Finally, Teimour Radjabov and Jan-Krzysztof Duda played a game that suggested that they’d like to get the event over with and move on to the next one.

The games, with my notes, are here.

A reminder: If Carlsen carries out his threat not to defend his title, the top two finishers here will play for the crown. Should that come to pass, Nepo is practically guaranteed to qualify, as he is two full points ahead of Nakamura, who is alone in third place. Guess what tomorrow’s marquee matchup is?

Round 12 Pairings:

Rapport (4.5) - Caruana (5.5)

Ding (6.5) - Radjabov (5)

Duda (4.5) - Firouzja (4)

Nepomniachtchi (8) - Nakamura (6)

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)