The Candidates Tournament ended with an emphatic victory for Javokhir Sindarov, who secured the right to challenge Gukesh Dommaraju for the world title. In the latest instalment of his C-Squared Podcast - hosted by Cristian Chirila - Fabiano Caruana reflects on a tournament that slipped away from him midway through, while also offering an assessment of Sindarov's remarkable performance.
Caruana describes Sindarov's run as one of the strongest Candidates performances he has ever seen. He compares it to the dominant victory achieved by Veselin Topalov at the 2005 FIDE World Championship in San Luis, Argentina.
Though much has been said about Sindarov's record-breaking 10/14 performance (the highest score achieved in this era of the Candidates), Topalov achieved the same plus-six score in the San Luis event, played with the same format. Back then, two parallel World Championship cycles were taking place, with Topalov's victory allowing him to face Vladimir Kramnik in the 2006 reunification match.
A major theme of the podcast discussion is Sindarov's opening preparation. Caruana repeatedly points out how well prepared the Uzbek grandmaster was in a wide variety of positions, including sidelines and somewhat rare continuations. According to him, Sindarov seemed ready for almost every important variation, often emerging from the opening with a comfortable position and a significant advantage on the clock.
The video also provides an honest assessment of Caruana's own event. He explains that, despite a strong start, he often felt uncomfortable in the opening phase and was frequently placed under pressure early in games. He identifies his loss to Sindarov and his failure to press harder in certain positions as important moments in the tournament, especially once Sindarov continued to collect victories and widen the gap.
There is also discussion of other major storylines from the event. Caruana comments on Hikaru Nakamura's loss to Sindarov after an opening mistake.
Nakamura blamed his seconds for not including 12.0-0 in his files. However, Caruana suggests that responsibility lay more with Nakamura himself than with his seconds, as it is the player's duty to go over the lines, checking their validity instead of just clicking through them mindlessly.
The conversation then turns to the likely dynamics of the forthcoming World Championship match. Caruana gives Sindarov a slight edge against Gukesh, though he expects the match to be close. While he acknowledges that Sindarov currently appears to be in better form, he notes that Gukesh, who is still 19 years old, has already shown in the past that he can recover quickly and perform at the highest level when it matters most.
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