Candidates Rd2: Three wins and the race is on

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 two

A nice shot of the stage and spectator area from behind the stage

After a slightly hesitant start in round one, in which Vishy Anand was only player able to break out of his shell ready for outright war, round two set the stage for open hostility by the other competitors.

It was both the longest game and the shortest

Topalov-Anand was a classic clash, in which the Bulgarian sidestepped the massive preparation he knew Anand would still have stored up from his World Championship match, and played a flexible Reti setup. This led to uncharted waters as of 7…Bd6. Black gave a pawn to complete his development and play against the fractured pawn structure, which was enough to keep the balance but no more. It is almost ironic that when they shook hands on move 54, with their bare kings, their game was the first to end, despite having the most moves played of all the skirmishes in the round.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Levon Aronian shake hands before the game

Levon Aronian had commented in the round one press conference after his loss that statistically he had a record for playing better after a loss, and he felt this. He quipped that he had might as well get it out of the way as early as possible. Still, even he could not have predicted what happened though, when Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, a great tactician in his own right, carelessly went astray in a Queen’s Gambit, and fell for a vicious tactic that lost his queen.

This was the position after Mamedyarov's ill-fated 13...Ne7?
White to play and win. (Answer below)

Aronian is already on the comeback trail

The conversion was far from straightforward, and the Armenian spent quite some time trying to cope with the winning, but very unorthodox position, causing his fans to worry whether he might fail to win, but he reeled in the point and self-fulfilled his prophecy.

Answer to position: After 14.Ne4!! dxe4 15.Nxe4 the queen is trapped with 15...Qh4 16.g3 Qh3 17.Nf2 and Black has nothing better to do than 17...Qxf1+.

Dmitry Andreikin chose the Sicilian Kalashnikov as his weapon of choice against Peter Svidler’s 1.e4, and seemed unprepared when Svidler improvised a novelty (13.b4) two moves after Black had entered a less travelled route with 11…Qg5. Andreikin failed to find the best continuation, and blundered with 22….Bd3 missing White’s zwischenzug 24.Nf5! after which he is essentially lost. Some precise calculation was required on Peter’s part, but he had seen it through and the game was over by move 31.

The post-mortem with Svidler and Andreikin

GM Alejandro Ramirez annotates:

Karjakin found out why Kramnik is considered the foremost openings analyst of the day

The game of the day was unquestionably the battle of the Ks. 20 years back, a reference to the Ks was a clear and unmistakable allusion to the two greatest players of the day, but today it was a battle of generations between Vladimir Kramnik and Sergey Karjakin. As guest grandmaster commentator, GM Rafael Leitão, notes "It is almost a general consensus among professional chessplayers that no one has better opening preparation than Kramnik."

GM Rafael Leitão annotates:

Vladimir Kramnik was all smiles after the game

Curiously, Anatoly Karpov, one of the Ks alluded to above, went on record saying that he felt that of the two highest-rated Russian players in the tournament, Sergey Karjakin had the greatest chances. Obviously, they must have forgotten to send the memo to Kramnik. Nevertheless, a fantastic game showing that the Candidates tournament is well and truly underway.

About Rafael Leitão Rafael Leitão is the top-ranked player in Brazil with 2645 FIDE, having won the Brazilian championship six times, the first in 1996, and the most recent in 2013. He is also the only Brazilian to have won World Youth titles, with gold in under-12 in 1991 and in the under-18 section in 1996. More information can be found at his official website.

GM Daniel King shares highlights of round two:

Games of the round:

Click on drop-down menu for all games

Standings after two rounds

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

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.