It’s almost certainly too late for the chase pack in the 2022 Candidates tournament to make a real run at the title, but it’s nice to see that their slumber has finally come to an end. (See my comments about a “fresh start” in the round 8 post.) Going into round 9, four players had yet to win a game; now, only one.
We’ll get to that in a moment, but first: the Big Game. Fabiano Caruana had excellent chances to defeat Ian Nepomniachtchi in their game from the first cycle, but didn’t see or underestimated a critical idea at the end of the game and allowed a draw by repetition. Today, a point behind Nepo and needing a win, his excellent preparation gave him another shot at a full point. Caruana was highly critical of Richard Rapport’s opening disaster against Nepomniachtchi’s Petroff in round 7, and he showed the chess world how it’s supposed to be done. His 11.Nh4 was a very nice (almost) novelty, and while Nepo’s initial reaction was excellent he erred on move 17 and 18. The critical moment came on move 24; it’s White (Caruana) to move:
Happy solving! Suffice it to say that Caruana played the second best move, which allowed Nepo to scamper away to safety and an easy draw. Working out the details of the best move wasn’t easy (if it were, Caruana would have done it), but had he done so he’d have been winning, or near enough to winning to be a big favorite to reel in the point.
That was great news for Nepomniachtchi, and more was to come. Hikaru Nakamura could have joined Caruana in second with a win; instead, he lost to Teimour Radjabov, who had been winless up to that point. Perhaps Nakamura was in the wrong state of mind after his epic win over Caruana in the previous round, as he committed a serious misjudgment early on. His 12th and 13th moves baited Radjabov into grabbing a queenside pawn at the expense of kingside safety, but it turned out that Radjabov’s king was fine. As for the queenside pawn? That won the game. It was a surprisingly easy victory for Radjabov, who is back to -1, while Nakamura fell back to 50%, two points behind Nepo.
Richard Rapport’s first win came in round 8, but like Nakamura he was unable to build on it but instead took a step back. He was conquered by Alireza Firouzja, who exited the opening with a huge advantage and a massive attack. He made a couple of mistakes along the way, but Rapport did too, and the result was a very one-sided win for the young Frenchman. It was his first win of the tournament.
Ding Liren also winning for the first time in the tournament, grinding down Jan-Krzysztof Duda in a long game. The game looked (and was) very drawish for most of the first time control, but just before move 40 the position became more complex. Probably short of time, Duda made a major error on move 40, and while proving the win afterwards wasn’t so easy the world’s #2 was up to the challenge and got back to 50%. (The games, with my comments, are here.)
Now that the action is heating up…it’s time for a rest day. When play resumes on Wednesday, we’ll see these pairings for round 10:
Rapport (4) - Ding (4.5)
Duda (3) - Caruana (5.5)
Nepomniachtchi (6.5) - Radjabov (4)
Nakamura (4.5) - Firouzja (4)