Candidates, Round 8

Gukesh, Nakamura win; Gukesh now tied with Nepo for first.

The second cycle got underway, and unlike round 1 when the same pairings (with colors reversed) finished with four draws, this time two games had a winner and one of the draws had plenty of drama as well.

It would have been easy to assume that Dommaraju Gukesh wouldn’t bounce back so easily after his heartbreaking loss to Alireza Firouzja in round 7. The loss knocked him out of a tie for first with Ian Nepomniachtchi, which was all the more painful given that he may have believed he was going to end that round in clear first. Despite all that, he immediately bounced back, winning with Black against Santosh Vidit Gujrathi, his countryman who had himself been on the upswing. Gukesh’s play was impressive and opportunistic, exploiting Vidit’s overextension on the queenside to penetrate down the a-file, before turning the corner and rounding the game off with a beautiful mating attack. Kudos to Gukesh, both for winning a great game and for bouncing back from defeat.

Had Nepo defeated Nijat Abasov he’d have maintained his half-point lead. No doubt many expected this given the rating difference, their distance on the scoretable, and Abasov’s having gone 0-3 with Black in the first cycle. It was not to be. Nepo kept him under pressure throughout, but Abasov defended fearlessly and accurately to earn a draw. Abasov was impressive in the game, and it’s also impressive that in spite of everything that’s against him in this event he has maintained his psychological toughness throughout.

The day’s other winner was Hikaru Nakamura, who apparently won his fourth consecutive white game in classical chess against Fabiano Caruana. Caruana equalized out of the opening with Black, getting a strong knight on d5 blockading White’s isolated d-pawn at the expense of the bishop pair. At some point Caruana started to lose the thread of the game, and he wasn’t helped by falling into serious time trouble. Starting with 26.h4 Nakamura took over the initiative, and aside from a smallish error on move 30 played the rest of the game with great vigor. Caruana’s pieces grew more and more passive, and while his 33rd move was a blunder that lost immediately after 34.Ne7+ Kh8 35.Nd5!, Black was lost in any case.

This was a big result, allowing Nakamura to leapfrog Caruana into third place. Before the round Caruana was on +1, half a point behind Nepo, while Nakamura was a full point back with a 50% score. Now it’s the opposite, with Nakamura half a point behind Nepo and Gukesh, with the hitherto undefeated Caruana a full point back.

Finally, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa didn’t make the most of his opening advantage against Alireza Firouzja, and by move 21 the draw already looked inevitable.

The games, with my comments, are here; here are the pairings for round 9:

• Vidit (3.5) - Nakamura (4.5)

• Gukesh (5) - Praggnanandhaa (4.5)

• Firouzja (3) - Nepomniachtchi (5)

• Abasov (2.5) - Caruana (4)