Candidates R06: Anand beats Svidler, Aronian wins

The 2016 FIDE World Chess Candidates Tournament is a 14-round event, which determines the next Challenger to Magnus Carlsen's title, is taking place in Moscow from March 10–30. Eight players, including six of the World’s top-ten rated grandmasters. The time control is 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game, plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move one. The guaranteed prize fund is US $420,000.

Candidates round six – Karjakin and Aronian lead!

Note that ChessBase is doing daily one-hour roundup shows after each round

Player’s outside their hotel Four Seasons

It was by far the worst weather in Moscow since the tournament began. The skies were overcast and it was already snowing a bit. The players covered with thick layers of winter wear proceeded to the tournament hall. It’s a six minute walk from the official hotel Four Seasons to the venue in the Central Telegraph.

This video shows seven of the eight players (Peter Svidler missing) leaving the Hotel Four Seasons to go to the tournament hall. It also gives you a feel of what the hotel and the surroundings are and also how far the venue is from the official hotel.

After his experiments with the Benoni yesterday,
Fabiano came well prepared for his game against Sergey Karjakin

Sergey Karjakin received wishes from his second Vladimir Potkin before the game

And off he went in an upbeat mood!

The nice thing about Levon Aronian is that he speaks in a
friendly manner with whoever meets him, even before the game

“Look at the amount of preparation youngsters have these days!”
Veselin Topalov and Silvio Danailov enter the playing hall with Peter Svidler

Did you revise 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.h4!? Sopiko and her husband Anish Giri

Anand came to the playing hall determined to do some damage!

Viswanathan Anand – Peter Svidler 1-0

The game of the day had to be Viswanathan Anand’s emphatic victory over Peter Svidler. It was ironical that Peter, who has shown excellent preparation at this event – blitzing 25 moves of theory against Nakamura, was mated by Anand in just 24 moves!

Vishy Anand and Peter Svidler have been friends off the board for close to two decades now.
Their first encounter with each other dates all the way back to 1998.

It is an open question as to what Anand would have done if Peter would have opted for the Berlin move order with 3…Nf6. But instead the Russian went for the main line of the Closed Ruy Lopez, clearly angling to play the Marshall. Anand put an end to these ambitions by playing a4, and here Peter sprung the first surprise of the game.

In all thirteen games that have reached the position after 8.a4 in Svidler’s praxis, he has gone 8…b4. Today was the first time he went 8…Bb7. No wonder, Anand was confused and took quite some time to make his moves from this point onwards. His play was natural in the style of the Ruy Lopez – developing the knight to d2, bishop came back to c2 and then going for the d4 push. Svidler could have surely played it much safer in the middlegame, but he took up the challenge and went for the following position.

To take or not to take, that is the question!

This was a critical position where Anand took quite some time. There are a lot of captures. As Anand correctly pointed out that the main question to him was whether to take on b5 or not. On one hand keeping the a-file closed keeps the rook on the back rank safeguarding it. On the other hand the a1-rook doesn't take part in the game. It is a very difficult decision to make and almost impossible to see what possibilities may arise after say eight to ten moves. But this is where intuition comes into the picture and Anand felt that bringing the a1 rook into the game was more important and that’s why he took on b5.

At this point I went to tournament hall to check out what exactly was going on. I expected Anand to be looking happy while Svidler would be at the board with his head in his hands. But the scene I saw was completely opposite. Peter had just captured the rook on a8 and was moving around confidently. Anand on the other hand was nervous, fidgety, biting his nails and looked as if he was the one on the back foot. But it was clear that Vishy was calculating the details of his final attack, anxious to make sure that his opponent had no defensive resources. And in the above position he picked up his knight and made the best move 20.Ng5!

As storm clouds gather around the black king Peter played his final trick: queen to a5. Anand immediately pushed his pawn to h4 – and Svidler resigned! Anand’s h4 looks like a normal move but the point is subtle. 24…Qe1+ 25.Kh2 Ne2 is met with the move 26.Nh3! and the g1 square is controlled. The same wouldn’t have been possible with the pawn on h3.

While Anand’s play was truly fantastic, one must give it to Svidler for being
such a sport and taking the defeat in a very graceful manner

Fabiano Caruana – Sergey Karjakin 0.5-0.5 – Karjakin’s brilliant defense

It was a fight between Fabiano Caruana’s excellent home preparation against Karjakin’s tenacity

It seems as if it is complete impossible to beat Sergey Karjakin in this tournament. Once again we saw the topical variation of the Queen’s Indian essayed by Karjakin with Ba6, Bb4-Be7 and d5 and we reached the following position.

Anish Giri had opted for 11.Ne5, Topalov went for 11.Rb1 and now Caruana played the move 11.a3. Apart from the obvious idea of playing b4, this move had a deeper point. Let’s have a look at what it was.

Although Karjakin didn’t play the move 14…Bf8, this position shows the point of White’s play. The rook can move to a2 and then to d2. And a2 is a much safer square than Topalov’s Rb2, which invited Black to go for Bd6. After 15.Ra2 Bd6 would simply lose to 16.Nxd5.

The move d5-d4 demonstrates what great form Karjakin is in. He sacrificed his c4 knight to push his d-pawn all the way down to the board. And he had calculated just about everything. Caruana could do nothing better than to accept the draw.

If Karjakin can defend such difficult positions his chances of winning the Candidates are really high

Veselin Topalov – Anish Giri 0.5-0.5 – Topalov’s moment of innovation

It is obvious that Topalov is having a tough time at this Candidates tournament. Being on –2
he has to indulge in wacky play to keep himself interested in the event. And he came up with…

All of opening theory is thrown out of the window once this move is made. While it is true that this move has been played only 27 times before, it has been played by GM Simon Williams in seven of his games. Can we call it the Williams’ line? An amazing co-incidence lies in the fact that the English GM has recorded an interactive video for ChessBase Magazine 171 which is due to release on 29th of March.

Have a sneak into the seven minute video to get an idea about the 3.h4 move

The ChessBase Magazine 171 will be available in the ChessBase
Shop on the 29th of March, but you can pre-order it here

The three white pawns on the fourth rank definitely are a great sight

Topalov has switched to a daredevil mode in this tournament. He doesn’t really care
much about results – what he is looking for is an interesting game of chess.

A word from the horse’s mouth about why he chose the move 3.h4

Giri’s solution: Topalov made his move 3.h4 and left the board for Anish to think.
The Dutch grandmaster did so for nearly ten minutes and replied with…

…the Benko Gambit!

Anish explains his thought process in choosing how to respond to 3.h4

The game was interesting. Topalov didn’t really get any advantage out of the opening. He could well have been worse. Anish had typical Benko-like compensation – he kept pressing and in the end was even a pawn up. But Topalov defended staunchly and made a draw.

Levon Aronian – Hikaru Nakamura 1-0 – Nakamura’s j’adoube controversy

The game between Aronian and Nakamura was the last one to end on this day. The opening and the middlegame were surely quite interesting, but the real action was in the endgame. Nakamura was defending an inferior endgame for quite some time and looked well within the reach of a draw. The following position was reached after move 74.

Nakamura (Black) is on the move here. Hikaru thought for a while and brought his hand down on the board, very clearly touching his king with the intention to move it. At that moment he realized what a grave blunder it would be to give up the f6 square especially because Ra6+ can be met with Rd6. Hence, with his hand on the king he said “J’adoube.” This was of course unfair as he clearly wanted to move the king. Aronian lifted his hands in the air in protest and called the arbiter. Hikaru Nakamura without any argument moved his king to f8 and after Kf6 duly lost the game.

This two minute video shows exactly what transpired

The American grandmaster is having a dismal tournament with two losses and now this j’adoube controversy. Maybe we should all go easy on him as the pressure of competition often makes people do things involuntarily. However what will surely not go well with the organizers is Hikaru’s behavior after the game. He left the playing hall in a hurry, clearly not wanting to wait for the press conference. It was the first time in this event that both the players were not present at a press conference after the game. In doing so he flouted two FIDE regulations for the Candidates:

3.11.1. If a player fails to appear at the Players' Meeting, the Opening or Closing Ceremony or any approved function of the Championship such as official receptions, press conferences or interviews, or conducts himself in a manner contrary to the spirit of sportsmanship or the FIDE Code of Ethics, then he shall suffer the following penalty: 5% of his prize money shall be forfeited to the Organisers and a further 5% to FIDE for each breach. In cases of serious misconduct the player may be disqualified from the event and the World Chess Championship cycle.

3.12.2. All players are required to make themselves available for post-game press conferences, of not more than 20 minutes duration, immediately after the game. All winners and medalists are obliged to attend the final press conference after the event has ended and to provide an exclusive interview for the FIDE website, if requested by the FIDE Press Officer. Players violating these rules will be subjected to the penalties mentioned in the event regulations.

We will have to wait and watch what actions will be taken against Nakamura for not attending the post-game conference.

Aronian’s (flawed) endgame lesson

As Nakamura didn’t arrive to the press conference it was Aronian talking to Kosteniuk and Miroshnichenko. One of the questions posed to Aronian was whether the endgame was winning if Nakamura had not played Kf8.

Aronian was quite confident that this endgame was winning for White. In his element he made the press conference extremely entertaining as he jokingly behaved like a teacher who was showing the method to win this endgame to his students. As Levon said on numerous occasions, even he wasn’t 100% sure about the winning method, he was sure that the position was winning. Watch him explain the intricacies of this endgame in the video below:

You can watch the entire press conference or you can
skip to the relevant endgame part which begins at around five minutes.

The funny thing is that the position is not winning. Black can hold on with accurate play. Here is my analysis:

Aronian confidently saying that his position was winning when actually it was not, and Nakamura’s j’adoube incident led to a pretty angry Facebook post by ACP President Emil Sutovsky:

“I am sorry, but Aronian pretending this endgame to be winning left me speechless. I put it mildly. This sounds like complete rubbish. The plan he claimed to "know" and to be "simply winning" just doesn't work and has more than one refutation. Top player is not supposed to mislead hundreds of thousands people this way. Also the way Levon conveyed his "knowledge" was quite shocking. But still less shocking than Nakamura trying to j'adoube his king after he started making the move. The players must be really under severe pressure in this event. Sorry I have to write it instead of praising Anand or singling out Karjakin's brilliant defence. But I really believe that being a top player means a highest responsibility towards the entire Chess World.”

What do you do when the tension of watching the games becomes too much? You start playing!

Sixth round was the last day of Alexandra Kosteniuk’s role as a commentator.
She ended it with a blitz game against her husband Pavel Tregubov!

Even at ten at night there were a lot of youngsters playing against each other
on the chess sets set up in the tournament hall

All pictures by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India

Standings after six rounds

Pairings and results

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