Round 3 of the 2022 Candidates

Four draws and a near-miss.

(Two wins in round 1, one win in round 2, and no wins today. Hopefully the trend will reverse itself, or on Tuesday after the rest day there will be -1 wins, and no one wants that.)

After two rounds of all-out action at the 2022 Candidates, today’s play showed some signs of fatigue and some questionable opening preparation, too. In main lines with White, neither Fabiano Caruana (in a Najdorf against Jan-Krzysztof Duda) nor Teimour Radjabov (in a Catalan against Ian Nepomniachtchi) showed anything at all. I don’t mean that they had novelties that were solved at the board; I mean that they didn’t seem to have done any homework at all. Neither Duda nor Nepo had the slightest difficulty, and Nepo’s game saw a handshake on move 30 while Caruana had to prove the draw (which he did without breaking a sweat, thanks especially to 38.c5!).

The leaders thus remained in the lead, and waited to see if anyone would catch them. Alireza Firouzja came fairly close to doing so. He had a nice new idea against Hikaru Nakamura, sacrificing a piece late in the opening. Nakamura reacted perfectly for the first few moves, but an inaccuracy on move 20 forced him to defend a dangerous ending with a rook, bishop, and a kingside majority for Firouzja against a rook, knight, and queenside majority for Nakamura. It seemed that Firouzja made some progress - maybe - but shouldn’t have exchanged rooks. As far as I can tell, the position remains drawn even with the rooks on the board, but it’s a clear draw once they’re gone - assuming perfect play by Nakamura. And to his credit, he delivered, making a study-like draw in the bishop vs. knight ending.

In that game the winning chances were only practical, but in the fourth game, between Ding Liren and Richard Rapport, they were real. Rapport came out of the opening with a lost position without Ding’s playing a single new move (until Ding’s novelty, which was obvious, the computer’s first choice, and an improvement over an online rapid game between Giri and Nepo, a game that Rapport couldn’t have missed). It’s unlikely that Rapport’s preparation could have been that bad, so my guess is that he mixed up moves at the board. Whatever the case, he was busted. Luckily for him, Ding played the right move on move 22 but apparently talked himself out of the intended follow-up a move later. Ding remained with a better-to-winning advantage until move 29, when the capture on g6 squandered what was left of his chances. Rapport only needed to make the right decision on move 33, and he did, after which the game speedily finished in a draw at the time control.

(Today’s games, with my notes, are here.)

The status quo has been maintained, and the players will get some needed rest on Monday. Round 4 will be on Tuesday, with these pairings:

Rapport (1.5) - Nakamura (1.5)

Nepomniachtchi (2) - Firouzja (1.5)

Duda (1.5) - Radjabov (1)

Ding (1) - Caruana (2)

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