Candidates Final: Karjakin grabs second

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 Fourteen

Daniel King shows the game Aronian vs Karjakin

The exciting 2014 Candidates Tournament has come to an end. Overall the tournament was incredibly hard fought, with battles, blunders, deep preparations, complete opening surprises and basically everything that fuels a fantastic event. Anand is without a doubt the deserved winner, but that was not was what at stake today.

FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov came in to see the last round of the event

Aronian, Levon 0-1 Karjakin, Sergey
The longest game by time by far in the tournament, clocking in at almost seven hours. Aronian decided to completely side-step the Sicilian by playing a strange 2.Nc3 3.Bc4 kind of set-up. Karjakin had no problems from the opening, but the position did become interesting.

Karjakin handled Aronian's strange opening without problems

Aronian won a pawn, but in exchange Karjakin received fabulous compensation in the form of active rooks and pressure across the board. Karjakin followed up with another strong sacrifice, this time the exchange on f3, and White's king position became unstable while Black had very strong pieces. Aronian almost immediately gave his material back but Black's pressure endured. This portion of the tournament was certainly far from accurate, but Black emerged with the advantage.

White obtained a passed pawn but his passive pieces and exposed king kept giving him headaches. Eventually Karjakin's pressure took a toll on Aronian who made a series of mistakes, losing him a piece. The ensuing Queen vs. Queen and Bishop endgame was certainly lost, but not trivially so. Karjakin's technique was spot on and he claims second place.

The difference between a draw and a win was about 40,000 Euros.
Not a bad reason to fight on.

Anand, Viswanathan ½-½ Svidler, Peter
With the tournament already in the bag it didn't make any sense for Anand to play for blood or to show anything new in his preparation. Svidler's Marshall was more than sufficient to jump into an easily drawn endgame.

Hard to press with Black against someone
that has no interest in allowing complications

Making a ceremonial first move in the now Challenger's board

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar ½-½ Kramnik, Vladimir
Kramnik easily diffused Mamedyarov's Nimzo-Indian and it quickly fizzled out to a draw.

Money is split, so tiebreaks are not an issue if not fighting for first

Topalov, Veselin ½-½ Andreikin, Dmitry
The other hard-fought game of the round. White always had some lingering positional advantages in the position, especially targeting Black's weak pawns on the kingside. However Andreikin always had some nagging counterplay with his active pieces. Topalov managed to win a pawn but his own structure was compromised, eventually leading to an easily drawn bishop endgame.

Topalov played for a win but Andreikin held his own

Topalov finished in last, but he still gets 17,000 Euros

Games of the round:

Click on drop-down menu for all games

Standings after thirteen 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.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.