Candidates R09: Anand beats Aronian

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.

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Candidates round nine – Vishy joins Karjakin at the top

Report from Moscow by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal

This is shaping out to be a keenly contested Candidates Tournament. After nine rounds no one can be sure on who will win the event. To be fair, it seems as if four players – Karjakin and Anand on 5.5/9, and Caruana and Aronian on 5.0/9, have excellent chances of winning the tournament. Compare this to the previous Candidates in 2014 and you will see the difference.

Khanty Mansiysk 2014 – standings after nine rounds:

In 2014 after nine rounds Anand was literally running away with the tournament, and
the fact that he had already played Aronian twice made him a favourite by a huge margin.

Moscow 2016 – standings after nine rounds:

It doesn’t come as a surprise that chess journalists have flocked to Moscow
from all over the world to cover this event

And there is no age bar for being a good reporter as this young boy shows. He can be seen
donning many hats which include taking pictures, posing with the stars and playing blitz!

Round nine on the 21st of March was a day filled with hard-fighting chess. All the four games for the first time in this event went above the initial time control of 40 moves, although once again we were treated to only one decisive result. And that game could well have a huge role to play in the outcome of the tournament. Vishy Anand, who was half point behind his opponent Levon Aronian, beat him with the white pieces. Although this was the game of the day, the other three battles were filled with interest and definitely had moments from which we can learn something.

Viswanathan Anand – Levon Aronian 1-0

In recent times Levon Aronian seems to bring out the best in Anand. The Indian won a brilliant game at the Tata Steel 2013, followed by a fine victory in the Candidates 2014 and a theoretically important win in the Zurich Chess Challenge in 2015. Continuing the trend of one fine victory every year, Vishy played an excellent endgame yesterday, in the smooth style of Capablanca or Smyslov, to score the full point. Here’s a piece of statistic: Prior to the Candidates Vishy had the position of 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 from the white side 369 times in his games. Out of these he had played 3.Bb5 on 356 occasions – 3.Bc4 was played by him only seven times! There was absolutely no way for Aronian to guess that Vishy would go for Giuoco Piano.

“The Italian has come back into fashion recently, especially with the plan of Na3-c2-e3,
so I thought I would give it a try” is how Vishy explained his choice of playing 3.Bc4

Surprise me – what are you going to play today?

White’s advantage was nothing special. He had a small pull thanks to the e4 vs d6 structure. But Aronian made a few careless moves and soon slid into a difficult ending. Objectively the endgame should be drawn, but it was not at all easy for the Armenian.

Strong players like Vishy know when to change the character of the position. Anand knows that if he goes for a kingside pawn storm nothing much will come out of it. On the other hand in this position with the king coming to f5 and the opponent in severe time pressure (two moves to reach the time control) things can go completely wrong. Hence, this was a smart decision. Levon traded the pawn on e4 for the pawn on g7, but the king activity turned out to be the decisive factor that ended the game in White’s favour.

It was a job well done for Vishy who, along with Sergey Karjakin, now leads the tournament on 5.5/9. Interestingly the five-time World Champion has the greatest number of wins in this event – three, one more than Karjakin and Aronian.

Anish Giri – Fabiano Caruana 0.5 – 0.5

There is a reason why Fabiano Caruana is interested in other games, while Anish is concentrated as ever – the American came completely prepared for the game, unleashing an interesting idea in the 3.f3 Grunfeld, with 11…Na6 instead of the more common 11…Nbd7.

11…Na6 is a new idea at the top level, with only two games having been played before.
But this was not where Fabiano’s preparation ended – it went all the way until the 18th move.

The idea of Bf5 giving up the g6 and h7 pawns looks dangerous for sure
(for both sides!), but Anish had everything under control

That’s the intensity required to refute the ideas of a well prepared opponent

It seems that Caruana messed up his preparation. After 23 moves he was completely lost, having no compensation for the three missing pawns.

After this it was a case of fighting as hard as you can and posing maximum problems to your opponent. Anish missed a straightforward win with 24.Ke1. After that he was always better, but there was no clear win in sight. The two bishops combined with the exposed white king made it difficult to make progress. It was clear that Giri tried his best, pressing on for 96 moves and more than seven hours, but in the end it was insufficient for victory.

Fabiano! Each and every game that he plays in this event is filled with excitement.

Sopiko: it can get lonely when your husband plays more than seven hours and then …

…has to give interviews and …

… sign autographs!

Hikaru Nakamura – Sergey Karjakin 0.5-0.5

Hikaru Nakamura is not fighting for the top spots at the tournament any more,
but he can definitely have an impact by beating the leaders like Karjakin

We will definitely have to name this line in the Queen’s Indian as the Karjakin Variation. Four games in this tournament have reached exactly the same position for the Russian. While Anish’s 11.Ne5 and Fabiano’s 11.a3 were interesting, Nakamura went for Topalov’s 11.Rb1. He had come well prepared to the game and was blitzing out his moves. He sacrificed an exchange for some compensation. Karjakin saw the dangers and immediately returned the material. The resulting position was quite equal, but the players fought on until there was nothing left to play for. A good fighting game of chess.

Veselin Topalov – Peter Svidler 0.5-0.5

After the j’adoube incident, the safest moment to adjust your pieces is on your opponent’s time?!

Peter Svidler seems to be the only player in the world who is playing the main line of the closed variation of the Ruy Lopez from the black side. While “only” is surely an overstatement, the general trend at the top level shows a marked increase in popularity of the 3…Nf6 Berlin as compared to 3…a6. And Peter might well make the change pretty soon after the dismal result he has had with 3…a6 in this event. First he lost in 24 moves against Vishy Anand, and today against Veselin Topalov he was almost on the ropes. Peter’s opening choice is also the reason why Veselin decided to begin with 1.e4 instead of his customary Queen’s Pawn Opening.

In reply to Svidler’s 17…d5, Topalov jumped with his knight to e5. This was a move underestimated by Peter. In the press conference Svidler said, “I am lucky that the position is not completely lost here” – which definitely says something about the strength of 18.Ne5! The position kept getting worse for Svidler, and the critical moment of the game arrived on the 32nd move:

Svidler has just played his knight to d3 attacking the bishop on e5. The best move for White would have been 32.Be2! with the neat point that 32…Nxe5 loses to 33.Bxb5 axb5 34.Re1! Either the knight on e5 would fall or the bishop on a8. This relatively simple tactical solution was missed by both the players. It is true that 32.Be2 can be met with 32…Rb3, but even that leads to a bad position after 33.Rc1! In the end Topalov couldn’t make the most of his chances and Svidler clung on to his dear life. The result was a draw after 47 moves.

Oh. My. God. Topalov’s moment-of-truth reaction when he realized
that he could have won the game in just three moves

Elina Edgeeva is a chess enthusiast and is developing a tactics app for mobile platforms.
She is enjoying the atmosphere in the Candidates and learning a lot in the process.

Ian Nepomniachtchi takes time out from his grueling commentary schedule to check his messages

The press room

All photos by Amruta Mokal of ChessBase India

Standings after nine rounds

Sergey Karjakin and Vishy Anand jointly lead the tournament. The Russian has the better tiebreak at the moment, as he has defeated Vishy Anand in their personal encounter. However, Anand has the better second tiebreak because he has the most number of wins. The game between the leaders will take place in the eleventh round. But before that we have the tenth round on Wednesday, after the rest day on Tuesday! This tournament is definitely heading to an exciting finish: be sure to relax and unwind today so that you can be back on the chess board tomorrow to follow the live games that begin at 15.00 hours Moscow time!

Pairings and results

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