Candidates R14 – leaders lose, Carlsen qualifies

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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 fourteen report

By GM Alejandro Ramirez

The most spectacular tournament of recent years has come to an end. The drama of the last few rounds has been unprecedented in recent memory. The excitement brought spectators flocking to every chess site, even to the point of overloading some of them! The fans were eager to know who would challenge Anand, and here is how it all unfolded.

Gelfand-Grischuk ½-½

Grischuk’s Gruenfeld was more than sufficient to neutralize any attempts for a lastround victory by the Israeli, and the game ended in a draw after White’s king was too exposed and had to allow a perpetual.

Aronian-Radjabov 1-0

Aronian, who after the first half seemed to be the only one with chances to stop Carlsen from playing Anand, suffered some serious setbacks in the second half and tried to have a strong finish. Radjabov, who probably wants to forget this tournament as soon as possible and losing over thirty (!?) rating points in the process, was looking to at least not lose the last round. Unfortunately the Armenian’s will was stronger and a complicated game led to an interesting endgame in which White had two rooks for Black’s queen. Although theoretically equal, the endgame was more pleasant to play with White, and after Radjabov made just one slip Aronian’s brutal attack on the king was enough to win the game.

Carlsen-Svidler 0-1

Everyone knew the tournament situation. Carlsen would look for a win, and try to clinch first place regardless of Kramnik’s result. A typical Spanish gave White a very minimal edge, and both sides tried to attack the enemy king using their knights and long range bishops. On move 31, disaster strikes. Svidler’s simple mate threat on g2 can be parried in two ways: one is a simple tactic that uses Black’s king on f8 to not only trade off the dangerous light squared bishop, but it also won a pawn. The other simply gave Black a strong attack. Carlsen, maybe exhausted from his efforts, chose the latter and almost paid dearly. The advantage was too strong; the pair of bishops and extra pawn were too much even for the Norwegian magician. Svidler defeated Carlsen.

Ivanchuk-Kramnik 1-0

“If someone had told Volodia (Kramnik) that Carlsen would lose today, I’m afraid he wouldn’t have gone with the Pirc…” is the translation of Vallejo Pons earlier Facebook status. Truer words could not have been spoken! Knowing that the odds of Carlsen losing with White twice in one tournament were astronomical, Kramnik went for the all-out kill against Ivanchuk. However the Ukrainian is not someone to be trifled with.. He punished Kramnik’s excessive opening aggression, and quickly took over the initiative. A strong positional sacrifice left him with the pair of bishops and pressure all over the board, especially against the queenside pawns. Black’s position became increasingly worse with every move, until White’s passed b-pawn was too strong. It was all over. Ivanchuk equally slayed Kramnik and Carlsen, and the Norwegian edges out on tiebreak.

Pictures by Ray Morris-Hill

GM Daniel King shows the highlights of the last round

Current standings

The table displays Kramnik ahead on traditional tiebreak points, but the Candidates Tournament rules counts the number of wins – Carlsen five, Kramnik four – to break the tie, after the first tiebreaker, score against each other, was even.

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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.

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.