Candidates R08: Caruana is back!

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 eight – Caruana is back!

Report from Moscow by Sagar Shah

GUM – a beautiful department store building directly facing Red Square in Moscow

Where is the Candidates tournament held? How is the playing venue? Where is tournament hall and where is the commentary room? Where do the journalists sit and where do the seconds of the players follow the games?

The entire venue of the Candidates 2016 is shown to you in this video. At the end there is also a clip of players entering the tournament hall. In short, if you are at home and are badly missing the fact that you are not in Moscow for the Candidates, then this video is for you!

This is going to be an extremely exciting second half of the tournament. As we move towards the last six rounds, we notice that only one point separates the top five players in the field. Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin are lead with 5.0/8, Vishy Anand and Fabiano Caruana are right behind them on 4.5/8 and Anish Giri is within a striking distance with 4.0/8. It’s true that Peter Svidler too has his chances on 3.5/8, but with every winning opportunity that he is misses it is becoming increasingly difficult. The eighth round turned out to be life changing one for one player, and that was Fabiano Caruana.

Fabiano Caruana – Hikaru Nakamura 1-0

Something about Rustam Kasimdzhanov’s mood made us believe that Fabiano was going to win today!
By the way the white spots in picture are not dirt specks on the lens, but snowflakes!

Fabiano has been having quite a topsy-turvy event – piece up against Topalov, pretty bad position against Svidler, Benoni experiment against Aronian and so on. Finally in the eighth round he played a clean game to beat Hikaru Nakamura. Our first question to the readers is:

Which opening do you think this position arose from?

It looks sharper than a Sicilian, but guess what – it was an Anti-Berlin! And by the looks of it, it seems as if Black is the first one who has reached the enemy king’s gates. But Fabiano knew that it was extremely important not to touch any of his kingside pawns. He hadn’t seen exactly this same position in his home preparation but had gone through similar ideas which helped him during the game.

Caruana just moved his rook from h1 to g1, and it won’t be an exaggerating to say that this turned out to be the winning move. Black took the pawn on a2 but the white king sat snugly on a1 behind the black pawn (reminds me of a poem that I wrote five years ago). In the end White’s attack broke through and Hikaru could do nothing better than to resign the game.

Hikaru Nakamura has been completely out of sorts in this event and every new idea
that he comes up with has been refuted pretty well by his opponents

But the good thing is that he is smiling and enjoying the process of playing chess.
And that’s why Nakamura is such a great player.

Daniel King on Round 8: Caruana vs Nakamura

Levon Aronian – Anish Giri

Anish Giri and Sopiko Guramishvili make their way to playing hall

Levon Aronian comes to the playing hall with his friend.
Can any of our readers recognize who Levon’s second is?

Nothing terribly exciting happened in this game. The players decided to repeat the first fourteen moves from their game in Zurich 2016. Aronian came up with a new idea. He hadn’t done any deep homework but had just found a move that keeps the position alive and went for it.

Aronian played 14.f3!? In the previous encounter Aronian had gone for 14.f4 and this was met with b6! and Bb7. Hence, the Armenian’s top priority today was to prevent the freeing move b6 but it didn’t really help as Anish got that move in anyway after a while.

“I would have been scared if I got a similar endgame against Kramnik,
but against Levon I was never really tense!” – Anish Giri in the press conference!

Did they synchronize the dress code?

Interview with Levon Aronian

Sagar Shah: You decided to repeat the same line that was played in Zurich 2016 rapid.

Levon Aronian: Yeah, I thought it is an interesting position to play. Optically it felt that White was better, but I didn’t play precisely. I feel it – there was more in the position.

So, you had prepared this 14.f3 idea in detail at home?

Not really. I just knew that f3 is an idea in the position. You are putting your king on f2 and just continuing to play. It’s an interesting position.

Are you consciously trying to play more endgames in this tournament?

I just want to any kind of positions as long as I have a chance to fight for an advantage. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s endgame or middlegame.

Can you tell us something about the j’adoube incident from your point of view? (For what Nakamura had to say, you can check out this video interview with Hikaru)

[After some thought] I don’t mind him doing what he did. I think Hikaru is a good person. I am good friends with his parents. It happens in the heat of the moment. It’s normal that such things happen in such a high profile event.

What did you tell him because that is not audible on the video?

I don’t remember. It’s difficult to remember because you are in a moment of huge stress. I don’t think it was anything offensive. That’s for sure.

You are 5.0/8 right now, so how do you think things have gone for you in this event?

It’s a great opportunity for me to be here. So I am trying to show that I deserve this chance.

The j’adoube incident between Nakamura and Aronian promises an exciting last round of the event

Peter Svidler – Sergey Karjakin

Peter Svidler discusses some final opening ideas with Maxim Matlakov at the start of the round

We know who Karjakin’s second is (Potkin), but who is the third person?!!

It won’t be wrong to say that both the players went back home with some sadness as well as some joy. But Karjakin was the one who lost out on a big opportunity because he was completely dominating out of the opening.

One look at the g2 bishop should be enough to convince you that this position is winning for Black. Sergey took the pawn on h3 which in itself wasn’t the error. He missed that White could play Qe5 when things were spiraling out of control and the g2 bishop had been liberated. Peter not only got a decent position but slowly began to outplay Karjakin. Towards the end he had a completely decisive advantage but he wasn’t able to convert his chance.

The most amazing thing about Sergey is that even after a long game he is full of energy.
He gives interviews to every journalist in great detail and is extremely down to earth.

Veselin Topalov – Viswanathan Anand

With the help of his second Grzegorz Gajewski (left), Vishy Anand has come up
with an interesting opening system against 1.d4

“I did not expect you to play this same opening again!” These were the words of Veselin Topalov in the press conference after the game. So what exactly is this opening that Anand has employed against Anish Giri and Veselin Topalov in back to back rounds and made two easy draws?

First of all Black begins in a well-known Queen’s Gambit Declined style by putting his pawns on e6 and d5 and knight on f6. He then deploys his other knight on d7 before committing the dark squared bishop. The bishop then moves to b4 changing the entire essence of the opening from the Queen’s Gambit Declined to a Nimzo Indian or a Ragozin. Without getting into too many technicalities, the conclusion is: this system has no real name as it has not been played at the highest level by top players. Anand is the first one who has put in a lot of effort to develop these ideas from scratch. And that is the reason why his opponents are unable to find a suitable antidote against it. The five-time World Champion has worked on it for months and his in-depth preparation cannot be refuted by Topalov in just one day. Hence, Vishy was confident enough to play it for the third time in this tournament.

When you make moves like 11.b3 in the opening,
you must agree that something has gone wrong for you!

20.Nf4 was a weird decision by Veselin. He not only spoilt his pawn structure but also gave his opponent a working queenside majority. Anand held the edge for quite some time but was unable to break through.

Players after the game usually pop in a few of the refreshments
to keep up their energy levels for the press conference and interviews

There is a shop in the tournament venue setup by AGON and FIDE which sells chess souvenirs. Here you can see iPhone covers, pens, broaches, bottles and postcards, all with the AGON logo on them.

There are also T-shits, bags, and all of this is available at affordable prices

WGM Elmira Mirzoeva (right), who works as a reporter and correspondent for the
Russian National Television channel, is seen here with the photographer of this report,
Amruta Mokal [picture by the official photographer of World Chess website]

5+0 – no increment! That’s the classical way of playing blitz!

Grandmaster Igor Naumkin came to the hall to kibitz the games

We hope for some “eye candy” encounters in the ninth round of the Candidates!

All photos by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India

Standings after eight rounds

Pairings and results

Roundup broadcasts

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