Jon Speelman: The Candidates after round six

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.

Standings after six rounds

The second tranche of three rounds in Moscow clarified matters to some extent but also raised many questions. You don't have to be a clairvoyant to see that the bottom three, Peter Svidler, Hikaru Nakamura and Veselin Topalov are in bad shape and unlikely to win. None of them has won a game.

Svidler has generally played well until the debacle against Anand but never looked convincing when playing for a win; Topalov's 3.h4!? against Giri was very wonderful but did smack rather of desperation and he spent most of the rest of the game on the back foot; and Nakamura has made two dreadful blunders. 29...Nxg3?? against Sergey Karjakin was bad enough. While the touch move farrago against Aronian when he clearly intended 74...Kf8?? not realising that the rook was now able to go to d6, is very far from his normal level.

Showing nerves: Hikaru Nakamura

L. Aronian - H. Nakamura, position before 74...Kf8??

S. Karjakin - H. Nakamura, position before 29...Nxg3??

V. Topalov - A. Giri, position after 3.h4!?
Topalov needs to turn his tournament around and chose shock therapy against Giri with 3.h4.
But the shock rebounded against him as Giri coped excellently
and hoped for "future creativity from my opponents."

The top half is much less clear, though especially the form of the two lurkers, Fabiano Caruana and Giri, who have drawn all six of their games thus far. Up to the first rest day, Sergey Karjakin had shown the best form and he underlined this in round four when he beat Viswanathan Anand for the first time after 26 previous attempts. It was a huge moment for him and he consolidated with two draws as Black against Topalov and Caruana, negotiating difficult positions in both games: just for a few moves early on against Topalov but long term against Caruana.

Karjakin still looks in great shape but the big question is whether he's a "good leader". It's something I posed to the statisticians James Jorasch and Chris Capobianco (without an answer yet as I write): though while previous tournaments will provide some indication the Candidates is so singular that we'll just have to see.

Sergey Karjakin goes with 4.0/6 into the rest day and leads the field together with...

Aronian is also in fine form. He's a player whose results tend to vary quite widely and has thus far been very much in the ascendant. He played the attack against Caruana very confidently showing the proper regard for his intuition in a really complicated position (though Caruana defended staunchly); and put serious pressure on Nakamura to precipitate his collapse.

...Levon Aronian, who also has 4.0/6.

Anand must have been at the very least surprised to lose to Karjakin and his play in that game, especially 18...Ba6, betrayed nerves.

S. Karjakin - V. Anand, position after 18...Ba6?
Anand likes to simplify when he's playing to draw but would
he have played a move as negative as ...Ba6 in normal circumstances?

But he's recovered really well with a fairly quiet game against Nakamura to regain his composure and then the fierce win against Svidler. Svidler to some extent gave it to him on a plate but he still had to find and analyse the refutation.

V. Anand - P. Svidler, position before 20.Ng5.
20.Ng5! is winning but missable on a bad day.

Vishy Anand and Peter Svidler at the press conference.

And so to those two "lurkers". Giri has been playing very carefully, aiming above all to avoid loss. He's succeeded but needs to start winning at least the odd game to get into contention.

Anish Giri

Caruana's tournament has been much more dramatic with one huge missed opportunity against Topalov and good chances against Karjakin too though it was never simple. He must be a bit frustrated but has been trying every game and a small spark could still ignite his tournament.

F. Caruana - V. Topalov, position before 41.R1b5?
It's pretty extraordinary that Caruana failed to play
41.Rxf6 Qxf6 42.Rb2 after the time control.

Of course they're still under half way through and any one of them could still embark on a huge run. But I think it'll be hard for the last three in particular, partly because of the timing of the rest days. There are many instances of double round tournaments which have indeed had two very different halves. But the most striking instances have been when the two halves are separated geographically - and so indeed almost two different tournaments. One example would be the Sao Paulo - Bilbao Grand Slam 2011.

1st half in Sao Paulo

2nd half in Bilbao

Moscow is more a tournament of "five fifths". The rest days are after rounds 3, 6, 9 and 12 which means that the two halves elide into each other without a rest after round seven. And I suspect that somehow makes it harder psychologically to change gear and convince yourself you've got a clean slate. In any case, we'll soon see. This is one that could easily run to the very end - great for the spectators but murder for the players involved.

Photos: Amruta Mokal

Pairings and results

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