Chess may be a draw with perfect play. Happily, none of us are capable of perfect play, so when you hear players talk about the draw death of classical chess you can feel free to roll your eyes (at least mentally - we don’t want to be rude) and not give it a moment’s thought. Even the best players, including the eight candidates, make inaccuracies and errors in their most impressive games. And so it is that yesterday’s drawfest gave way to today’s bloodbath, with four decisive games out of four.
The least impressive win and least interesting game, surprisingly, was Fabiano Caruana’s win over Nijat Abasov. One would think that the top seed beating the lowest seed with the white pieces would result from something impressive: better prep and/or showing his greater tactical or strategic skill. That’s a reasonable expectation, but it’s not what happened. Caruana outplayed Abasov in the opening and early middlegame, but the players traded inaccuracies and the game often looked (much) closer to a draw than a White win. Fortunately for Caruana, Abasov blundered with more than enough time on his clock, supposing he was forcing an easily drawn ending. He instead found himself with a choice between surrendering his queen or getting mated, and the game came to an anticlimactic finish.
The other three games were thrillers - which is not to say that they were blunder-free. Ian Nepomniachtchi and Alireza Firouzja fought through a middlegame that saw both sides pushing for a kingside attack. First Firouzja was better, then Nepo had the upper hand, and then Firouzja had the chance to make an immediate draw. The general drift was in Nepo’s favor, and then Firouzja blundered outright with 29…Qg6??, giving away a piece. It took another 15 moves or so for Nepo to blow out all the embers, but the game was essentially decided by that one move. A pity for Firouzja, whose time trouble killed him.
Time trouble was not the cause of Hikaru Nakamura’s loss to Santosh Vidit. Vidit had some excellent prep (with Black) in a sharp, brand-new Berlin line, and Nakamura’s uncharacteristically poor calculation (by his own admission) turned what was a dangerous situation for the American into a fatal one. A very nice game by Vidit, and a very poor one for Nakamura. (It happens; all you can do is laugh it off and get ready for the next round.)
Finally, Praggnanandhaa R. and Gukesh D. had a crazy, crazy battle in a gambit line in the Catalan. Both players made mistakes, but the game wasn’t decided until Pragg missed or eschewed 25.Nh6+. Gukesh finished accurately and joined his countryman Vidit, along with previous Candidates winners Caruana and Nepomniachtchi in a four-way tie for first.
Here are today’s games, with my comments. The pairings for round 3 are:
Abasov - Nakamura
Firouzja - Caruana
Gukesh - Nepomniachtchi
Vidit - Praggnanandhaa
In the Women’s Candidates, Tan Zhongyi won again, defeating Pragg’s sister Vaishali to maintain clear first with a 2-0 score. The day’s other winner was Aleksandra Goryachkina, who defeated Anna Muzychuk to reach clear second with 1.5/2.