World Cup: Round 6, Day 2 (Updated/Corrected)
Carlsen, Caruana, and Abasov(!) advance; Pragg strikes back to force a playoff.
The 2023 World Cup is down to the final…five. There are three semi-finalists, two of whom one would guessed at the start of the event and a third not even his parents would have picked. (Probably.) As for the identity of the fourth semi-finalist, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s tiebreaker.
We begin with Magnus Carlsen, who defeated Dommaraju Gukesh in their first game, and needed only a draw with White today to advance. Early on things went swimmingly, and despite playing 2.c3 against the Sicilian he obtained a small advantage. At some point, however, perhaps because he was torn between wanting to play the best moves and wanting to kill the game and make a draw, Gukesh started to outplay him. Black’s advantage was never that large, but it was genuine and the trend was in his favor. Small inaccuracies on moves 31 and 33 gave Carlsen a nice opportunity, and he grabbed it with the excellent 34.Nxe3. This sacrificed a pawn, but it led to the elimination of all the queenside pawns. Carlsen handled the rest perfectly, and made an easy draw. It was a pity for Gukesh, the #3 seed amongst the final eight, to be paired with Carlsen in the quarters, but that’s how it goes. Besides, he will have other opportunities to qualify for next year’s Candidates, and given his rate of improvement I wouldn’t rule it out. (Though it is less likely than not that he won’t make it this time around.)
Next up, Fabiano Caruana. He was fortunate to survive against Leinier Dominguez yesterday, but survive he did. Today, he was the player with the opportunity to play for a win, and unlike Dominguez he was able to put the ball in the back of the net. Dominguez played well almost from beginning to end, but he made a serious error with 38…b5. This cut his queen off for just long enough for White (Caruana) to create threats. The best Dominguez could do was give up a pawn to stabilize his position, but in the end Caruana ground out the victory in 94 moves. A pity for Dominguez, who has been reaching for the Candidates for years now, but without success. (Yet.)
Someone whose possible participation in the Candidates seems completely unbelievable is Nijat Abasov, a 28-year-old perennial mid-2600 player. Whether he’s playing out of his mind or his opponents have specialized in self-destruction is debatable - probably a bit of both - but somehow he has managed to triumph over Anish Giri, Peter Svidler, and now Vidit Gujrathi, just to name his best-known victims. Today’s triumph was bizarre. Abasov played well (except for 19.Qd2), but Vidit’s play was unrecognizably bad and resulted in his getting demolished. Somehow, Abasov is headed for the Candidates, unless he loses his next two matches and Carlsen decides he’s going to play in the Candidates after all.
Finally, there’s the match between Arjun Erigaisi and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. Erigaisi won game one with Black, but Pragg managed to get a game with Black against another 2.c3 Sicilian. (Carlsen and Erigaisi both dusted this off the shelf. Both were fine in the opening, but both wound up worse later on.) Erigaisi reached a drawish ending a pawn down, but let himself get tied up. Pragg outplayed him and achieved a winning advantage, and although he made one serious error on move 34 the position was still challenging for Erigaisi, and he was unable to save the game. So they’re off to tiebreaks, with the winner probably guaranteeing himself a spot in the Candidates (again, depending on Carlsen’s whim).
Here are today’s games, with my comments. Tomorrow, we’ll see who plays Caruana. (Carlsen will play Abasov.) [UPDATE/CORRECTION: I had reversed Carlsen and Caruana in this paragraph.]