Candidates R9 – Carlsen survives, Aronian loses

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 nine report

By GM Alejandro Ramirez

Kramnik-Carlsen ½-½

Carlsen is currently in a quantum state between being the most tenacious defender in the tournament and also the luckiest player I’ve seen. He yet again finds himself in deep trouble as Kramnik employs a home cooked variation of the Catalan that immediately puts him against the ropes. However, Carlsen finds resource after resource, avoids all the traps… manages to punish Kramnik for his one inaccuracy and the game is drawn.

Our guest commentator today is an old buddy, GM Ioan-Cristian Chirila from Romania.

Svidler-Grischuk ½-½

A bizarre Saemisch was the firework-filled attraction of the day. Svidler created a typical Saemisch bind in the center, but Grischuk would have none of it. By move 14 Black had already sacrificed a piece to open up the center and exploit White’s lack of development. Svidler wouldn’t play to Grischuk’s demands, and he himself sacrificed a queen for two pieces – leaving the material balance at a queen for Grischuk and three minor pieces for Svidler. The White player had most of the activity, and definitely he would be the only one to win in case of a decisive result, but Black’s counterplay against the exposed king was sufficient for this wild game to end peacefully.

Ivanchuk-Radjabov 1-0

This sedate game saw White keep a positional pressure for almost the entire game. Even in the double rook endgame, it was always Black that had to defend carefully so that his position would not collapse quickly. A slight slip was all it took for Ivanchuk to decisively penetrate with the rooks and collect the full point.

Gelfand-Aronian 1-0

Gelfand was unable to prove any advantage in Aronian’s favorite handling of the QGD. However, an unexpected blunder by the Armenian allowed Gelfand to pounce on Black’s position and emerge material up. This was all it took for the Israeli to get a decisive advantage, relegating Aronian to second place.

GM Ioan-Cristian Chirila Ioan-Cristian Chirila was born on January 6, 1991 in Bucharest. In 2001 he won the title of Junior Champion of Romania for under ten years, and the following year he repeated this achievement in the category of under twelve. In 2006 he won the U16 and in 2009 the U20 championships. He repeatedly represented Romania at the World and European Junior Championships in various age categories, achieving the greatest success in 2007 in Kemer, where he won the title of U16 World Champion. In 2006 and 2008, the Romanian team participated in the European Junior Championships U18 years, winning two medals for individual performance: gold in 2008, on board one, and silver in 2006, on the second board. In 2009 he won the individual European Championships in Budwie, and earned his GM title. His highest rating (on 1 March 2012) was 2,539.

Current standings

Pictures by Ray Morris-Hill

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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.

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