Candidates R6 – Carlsen, Aronian win, lead

From March 14 to April 1, 2013, FIDE and AGON – the World Chess Federation’s commercial partner – are staging the 2013 Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship 2013. It will be the strongest tournament of its kind in history. The venue is The IET, 2 Savoy Place, London. The Prize Fund to be shared by the players totals €510,000. The winner of the Candidates will become the Challenger to Viswanathan Anand who has reigned as World Champion since 2007. The main sponsor for the Candidates is State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic SOCAR, which has sponsored elite events chess in the past.

Round six report

By GM Alejandro Ramirez

Svidler-Carlsen 0-1

Svidler vs. Carlsen​ in round six

A quiet Spanish allowed Carlsen to show the world again and again that he can outplay anybody from any type of position. Every single move improved the Norwegian's position very slightly, until he held a strong advantage. Svidler blundered under pressure and was swiftly punished. A completely one-sided game, and a must see for Black exponents of the Spanish Defense.

Grischuk-Gelfand ½-½

A passive Rossolimo allowed Gelfand to equalize easily out of the opening, and soon afterwards Grischuk made an inexplicable blunder with 23. Nd6? which simply gave away an important central pawn. Just when Gelfand seemed to have complete control of the game, he started to play passively and allow his opponent back in the game. Eventually it was Gelfand that was forced to give a perpetual as his king was becoming dangerously weak.

Radjabov-Aronian 0-1

Yet another early d3 Spanish gave Black absolutely nothing to complain about. Radjabov’s quick aggression on the kingside yielded him an open g-file… and allowed black to counterplay on the h-file! A very unusual rooklift on the 6th rank brought Aronian’s rook barging to h6 and pressuring that weak h3 pawn, which tied down White’s pieces and created an interesting deadlock on the kingside. Aronian was incredibly persistent and continued looking for chances on the queenside. The pressure got to Radjabov who blundered in an uncomfortable, but very far from losing, position.

Kramnik-Ivanchuk ½-½

Whenever a game opens as a Catalan, and Kramnik is White, you can usually expect Black to be suffering positionally for a long time. This game was nothing like that, as Ivanchuk quickly surprised Kramnik with his odd placement of his bishop on d6. Quickly afterwards Kramnik was sacrificing an exchange, and then another piece, to open up Ivanchuk’s king! However the attack was not quite sufficient to break through, and in the final position Black had an extremely risky to choice to decline the perpetual check by the knight on h4 and f5, or to simply accept the draw. Ivanchuk chose the latter, and from a practical perspective it’s very hard to disagree with this decision.

Commented games coming soon...

GM Daniel King analyses the game Kramnik vs Ivanchuk

Current standings

Pictures by Ray Morris-Hill

Official broadcast of the round

All video broadcast here

Replay all games of the round

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Schedule and results

The games start at 14:00h = 2 p.m. London time = 15:00h European time, 17:00h Moscow, 8 a.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here. Note that Britain and Europe switch to Summer time on March 31, so that the last two rounds will start an hour earlier for places that do not swich or have already done so (e.g. USA). The commentary on Playchess begins one hour after the start of the games and is free for premium members.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.