Candidates Rd11: All Null

The FIDE Candidates Tournament is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk (Russia). The first round will start on Thursday, March 13 at 3 p.m. local time, the final round is on Sunday, March 30, 2014. The event is a double round robin (14 rounds). The time control is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 and 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61. The tournament will determine the challenger who will face the reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a title match later this year. The prize fund is 600,000 Euros (= US $832,000), the first place 135,000 and last (8th) place 25,000 Euros.

Round Eleven

Daniel King shows the games Kramnik vs Anand and Topalov vs Karjakin

Andreikin, Dmitry ½-½ Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar

Despite the lack of complexity in the position Andreikin
consumed more than an hour to reach move 17

Andreikin employed the Catalan to which Mamedyarov seemed very well prepared against. Andreikin's time consumption was hefty but he was unable to come up with a convincing way of putting pressure on Mamedyarov's position. With some accurate defense the game fizzled into a drawn endgame that the players played on for a while without any real hope of winning for either side.

The Catalan was neutralized yet again here

Svidler, Peter ½-½ Aronian, Levon
Svidler's Reti set-up was anything but dangerous to Aronian. Using a well known plan to gift the pair of bishops in return for a symmetrical position with no weaknesses Aronian was able to hold equality with almost no problems. Only one open file meant that all the major pieces were traded off on the c1 square and the ensuing endgame with two bishops against a knight and a bishop gave just a symbolic advantage to the Russian player who decided not to press the issue too much.

Svidler was probably not too happy with Aronian's ultra solid choice

He pushed all his queenside pawns, but even that
expansion didn't amount to any advantage

Svidler's 50% puts him as close as anyone else to Anand

Topalov, Veselin ½-½ Karjakin, Sergey

Trying to finish the tournament in a high note today almost backfired on Topalov

The Candidates tournament is not only just a tournament where the next challenger is selected. It's a competition where the real you is under test. Kramnik was my big hope before the tournament and he did show good chess. I think his best performance was the game against Aronian. I was expecting the same kind of actitude today as well. However, after losing two games in a row it simply was too much to ask. The opening line was too mild in the current situation. I know I would rather lose one more game and opt for lines like 1.e4 c5 2.b3 instead of relying on a Novelty like 11.Na3. Ofcourse it was too late. Mistakes were made earlier and Anand knows his opponent very well and the battle was over very early. Anand shows that he is fully recovered after his disastrous match against Carlsen.

I believe that his performance might be a big surprise for his colleagues. Most likely they underestimated him. It looks like they did not follow the match at all. Magnus did show how to handle Anand. Keep the position closed and boring. Topalov's choise of Najdorf against Anand was like self-destruction and it was. Mamedyarov did the same, but with white pieces. Anand did not show the most entertaining chess, but he controlled his trumps and struck when opportunity came. The tournament is not over yet, but nobody doubts who is going to be the winner. Everybody was curious about Karjakin. When Kramnik just blundered the Q:b7! he got a free point. Still it seems for me that Karjakin is too practical. Looks like he is counting the ELO points in every game instead of taking risks. Most disappointing was his game against Svidler. Today however, he had the most interesting game of the round. - Jaan Ehlvest

Jaan Ehlvest Jaan has been a grandmaster since 1987 and was part of the World Elite of chess, reaching rank #5 in 1991 with a FIDE Rating of 2650. He was also part of the Olympic gold-winning USSR team in Thessaloniki, 1988. Nowadays Jaan plays for the United States of America and he resides between the USA and his native country of Estonia. He was named Estonia's sportsman of the year in 1987 and 1989. His tournament victories are countless. He has Master's degree in psychology and is an active coach and author today. His children's manual may be found at www.chessgymnasium.com. Interesting comments of some old Anand-Kasparov encounters you may found at www.chess-secrets.net

Kramnik, Vladimir ½-½ Anand, Viswanathan
Kramnik attempted a new idea in the Catalan with his 11.Na3!? However the Indian thought for 15 minutes and seemed to refute the attempt over the board. Black's precise queen maneuvers and pawn sacrifice left White's position in disarray. White managed to untangle a little, but not without allowing Black strong activity and allowing him to provoke some weaknesses around White's king.

Like in last year's Candidates against Carlsen, Kramnik uncorks
something new in the Catalan in a decisive game

It's possible that at some point Anand even started thinking about winning, as he was playing completely risk-free and White's position had a couple of holes in it. However his advantage was infinitesimal and he decided to play it safe, capture the last remaining pawn of white on the queenside and transpose into a dead drawn endgame, thus securing his lead.

Unfortunately for him this time around it didn't go his way

Anand cooly sacrificed a pawn, put his pieces where
they belonged and more than equalized

Only three rounds to go, this man has reasons to smile

Time is running out for the challengers. Anand finishes with two whites out of three, and tomorrow's will be against Andreikin. Will he try to seal the deal with a victory, or will a draw allow a contender to put pressure on the Indian player near the finish round?

Games of the round:

Click on drop-down menu for all games

Standings after eleven rounds

Photos from the official website

Schedule and results

Note: the games are played at 3 PM local time, which is 10 a.m. CET (Paris) and 5 a.m. EST (New York). Click here if you are uncertain what that means for your local time.

Playchess commentary

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