Round 5 of the 2022 Candidates
More Near-Misses
The tension is building in the 2022 Candidates. The players are fighting hard and demonstrating impressive opening preparation. The only thing that has been missing is efficient technique: the last several rounds have seen players leave lots of half-points on the table, and it happened twice today, in round 5.
This happened in perhaps the most important game of the round, with tournament leader Ian Nepomniachtchi getting into all sorts of trouble on the black side of a Petroff against Hikaru Nakamura. Nepo’s odd 16…Qe4 and bad 17…Qg4 left him with a lost position. Nakamura enjoyed a winning advantage, and probably would have won after 21.Nh4 or 23.Nh4. But even after that he was winning - 25.Nd4 kept a decisive advantage, and as late as move 28 he would have kept a large (though maybe not winning) plus with 28.Bc3. He burned lots of time, but let the advantage slip to the point where Nepo might have started to think about playing for a win with …Qg5 on move 30 or 32.
Carlsen was commenting on Chess24, and produced what may have been the most memeable moment of the event. When Nepomniachtchi instantly played 32…Qd6, going along with Nakamura’s offered repetition, Carlsen was loudly and emphatically critical, saying this:
How do you play …Qd6 in one second? That’s so undisciplined! Smell the blood in the water, dude! Be a ****ing shark!
This explains a lot about who Carlsen is, and why he has been the world’s top player for such a long time. (It doesn’t explain everything: he is tremendously talented and has worked very hard, but it does explain something.) But temperament aside, he’s right: Nakamura was way behind on the clock and discouraged, and it would have been a perfect time for Nepo to play for more. The position after 32…Qg5 is about equal, but the momentum would have been entirely on Black’s side. Instead, a draw, and that was enough to keep Nepo in clear first. (Had Nakamura won, there would have been a three-way tie for first on +1 with Nakamura Nepomniachtchi, and Caruana sharing the honors.)
That’s because Fabiano Caruana only managed a draw against Richard Rapport. He played very aggressively on the white side of a Taimanov Sicilian, and it was probably something he had specially prepared. Nevertheless, Rapport handled the position better, and at one point in this short and wild game had an advantage. The comparatively calm line that kept the plus wasn’t as attractive as the path he chose, however, which let Caruana escape after a couple of precise moves. It was a short game, but a thrilling one.
The longest game of the round was another heartbreaker for Ding Liren. He played very well with Black against Teimour Radjabov, and was winning shortly before the time control. Unfortunately for the tournament’s top seed, he didn’t play …Bxd4 on moves 39 or 40, when it would have won. When he finally played it on move 41, it was only good enough for a draw, which is how the game ended. Ding has had plenty of advantages in the tournament, but has yet to notch his first win.
Finally, the game between Alireza Firouzja and Jan-Krzysztof Duda was the dud of the round. Perhaps Firouzja could have had a slight advantage at one point, but for the most part it was a well-played game by both sides that was almost always quite equal.
Here are today’s games, with my notes, and here are the pairings for round 6:
Radjabov (2) - Rapport (2.5)
Firouzja (2) - Caruana (3)
Nakamura (2.5) - Ding (2)
Nepomniachtchi (3.5) - Duda (2.5)