Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want - Randy Pausch
Reality is what you run into when you’re wrong - Dallas Willard
Max Warmerdam is getting a lot of experience with reality. Once again, he was winning; once again, he lost. This loss came at the hands of Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who like Parham Maghsoodloo was not the passive recipient of a gift but earned his luck, so to speak. This was Warmerdam’s third unnecessary loss in his last four games, and while it has to be gutting he’s a young guy and will hopefully learn all the relevant lessons from these games and bounce back even stronger next time.
For Abdusattorov, it was an impressive display of fighting spirit, all the more impressive given that he was winning early on after some beautiful play in the middlegame. Warmerdam had shown his mettle, defending perfectly for a while to flip the evaluation. Abdusattorov managed to equalize, and as his opponent drifted into time trouble in the second control he kept the game complicated until Warmerdam snapped.
Abudsattorov’s reward is shared first place going into the last three rounds. His pairings look more amenable than his co-leader’s, so he’s looking like the favorite to win the title. His co-leader - there’s only one, as two dropped off the pace - is Dommaraju Gukesh, who defeated Alexander Donchenko. (And like Abdusattorov, he won with Black.) A risky opening could have left him in a bad way had Donchenko chosen the right move on move 15; instead, Donchenko’s error left Gukesh with the advantage, which soon became decisive as he outwitted his opponent in a tactical skirmish. From that point Donchenko’s resourceful defense was somewhat better than Gukesh’s technique, but when Gukesh needed to be precise he rose to the occasion and won.
The other co-leaders entering the round, Anish Giri and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, also had Black, against Alireza Firouzja and Vidit Gujrathi, respectively. They both drew comfortably, and trail the leaders by half a point.
One of the players a further half a point back was the day’s third (of three) winners: Ian Nepomniachtchi, who obtained a very, very small measure of revenge as he crushed Ding Liren with some nice tactics in a direct attacking game. It wasn’t a bad game by Nepo, but it was an awful game by Ding, who is looking very rusty. He has time to regain his form by the time he has to defend his title; if he doesn’t, his will be the shortest reign since Vasily Smyslov and Mikhail Tal lost their rematches to Mikhail Botvinnik back in 1958 and 1961, respectively. (I’m not counting the FIDE knockout champions.)
In the other games: Ju Wenjun had a significant advantage against Maghsoodloo before the latter managed to escape in a pawn-down ending, while Jorden Van Foreest’s attempt to surprise Wei Yi with the Trompowsky didn’t succeed, though he was able to make a draw after an uncomfortable moment or two.
Here are today’s games, with my notes. The players are off today (Thursday), and they resume with round 11 (of 13) on Friday with these pairings:
Gukesh (6.5) - Firouzja (5.5)
Praggnanandhaa (6) - Donchenko (3.5)
Maghsoodloo (4) - Vidit (5.5)
Abdusattorov (6.5) - Ju Wenjun (4)
Wei Yi (5.5) - Warmerdam (4)
Ding Liren (4) - Van Foreest (3.5)
Giri (6) - Nepomniachtchi (5.5)