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Jon Speelman - Overview of Candidates so far

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3/15/2016 A massive tournament like the Candidates is a tapestry w ith individual moves the threads that
are w oven together into games, rounds and eventually the complete picture. Early on, it's impossible to guess
w hat form that finished article w ill take, but there are many indications of the form and state of mind of the
players under a degree of tension they w ill have seldom experienced.

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I'm obviously in no w ay going to try to compete here w ith the splendid game by game accounts coming from
Sagar Shah in Moscow . But I w ould like to highlight some critical moments, often quite small seeming things,
w hich may indicate the players' level of confidence and of ambition.

3/15/2016 The
Candidates tournam ent
this year is tak ing place
in Moscow. Nak am ura,
Anand, Caruana,
Aronian, Svidler,
Karjak in, Topalov and Giri will fight for the
place in the W orld Cham pionship m atch.
Sim on W illiam s is doing a round up of
the day at 9pm CET. View the whole
schedule!

W e start w ith Visw anathan Anand. W hen ChessBase published the fascinating analysis by James Jorasch and
Chris Capobianco I, like many, w as most struck by the low success rate - just 6.7% - accorded to Anand. The
statistics generated by a million instances of a tournament certainly w on't be inaccurate, but the initial
assumptions are open to interpretation, and the events of the previous Candidates w hich Anand, supposedly
coming into it in dire form, dominated: demonstrated that tw o years ago at the age of 45, he w as more than
capable of pulling out the stops.

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His first round game against Levon Aronian in Khanty-Mansiysk 2014 w as fearsomely smooth. This time
against Veselin Topalov it w as less so and of course Topalov missed a big chance for a near haymaker w hen
he failed to play 20...Bxf2+.
Anand - Topalov

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What would have happened had Topalov seen 20...Bxf2?

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based on the rock -solid Lask er variation,

reinvigorated with new ideas by form er
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form ing the cornerstone of m any strong
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O n this 60 Minutes
renowned and
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critical positions and
shows how to handle
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First round games can have a huge impact on a tournament the most obvious recent instance being Magnus
Carlsen's loss on time against Topalov in the first round of Stavanger 2015 and the diametrically opposite
trajectories the tw o players took thereafter. Admittedly, Carlsen also lost to Topalov in the first round of the
Sinquefield Cup a couple of months later, but that w as a normal game and he recovered w hile Topalov later
sank.
The double miss of 20...Bxf2+ feels abnormal for tw o players of such class though both played reasonably
thereafter and Anand w as deadly after the time control. In a fourteen round tournament of unremitting
tension it's important to use your energy w isely. Anand's second round game against Levon Aronian w as an
excellent example of this as he got a very decent position out of the opening and then tried neither too much
nor too little accepting that if Aronian played w ell it w ould end up about equal. His third round game against
Fabiano Caruana w as also w ell w ithin limits w ith neither player going overboard.
In the pretournament statistical analysis, Caruana came out on top. This w as hardly a surprise and he show ed
his mettle as early as the sixth move of his first round game against Nakamura.
Nakamura - Caruana

The usual m ove order

is 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3
Nf3 cx d4 4 Nx d4 e5!? 5
Nb5 d5 6 cx d5 Bc5
bringing us to a very
sharp position. Andrew
MArtin shows this
variation from black 's
point of view.

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Position after 6. exd4

In positions like this 6...d5 might lead to slight suffering but should surely be perfectly defensible. I suppose
it's possible that Caruana nevertheless really disliked it but if w e put a positive spin on his choice of 6...Ne7 it
w as much braver and more challenging and although Nakamura later got an edge, Caruana defended himself
pretty convincingly.

Nakamura: nerves betraying him?

Nakamura has been trying to persuade himself in public and I presume in private too that it's possible to treat
the Candidates as a normal tournament. In round tw o against Karjakin, he certainly failed to do so. Recently
Nakamura has started to move from the King's Indian to "proper" openings against 1.d4. There is such heavy
theory against the KID that you can certainly see his point: scary though he is in these types of position the
fear factor may not be enough against w orld class players. But he's still clearly not entirely comfortable in QID
positions and the loss to Karjakin w as pretty miserable. Nakamura never looked happy and convinced himself
w hen he w as w orse but less so than he had been, that a combination w orked that patently didn't.
Karjakin - Nakamura

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Here Nakamura played 29...Nxg3??

W atching at home, I must admit that I didn't instantly see that Qf2 and Rc7 w ins, but I trust I w ould have
done so in a game and Nakamura w ould surely only fail to do so one time in a hundred - hardly the hallmark of
a normal tournament. He also got into trouble as W hite against Peter Svidler, w ho has show n excellent
preparation: though he then dug in and managed to save himself in this nasty endgame.
Nakamura - Svidler

Nakamura showed great resilience defending this difficult position.

The problem being that he found himself in it at all.
Svidler came out last in the Jorasch-Capobianco analysis. This doesn't seem too unreasonable since against
top guys he tends to operate on a fairly even keel so w hile there no reason at all that he should do badly, it's
also perhaps unlikely that he'll do very w ell. A slight hint of a lack of ambition and conviction - or perhaps just
realism - w as evident in the second round game against Topalov w here he chose to allow Topalov to bail out
immediately w ith 23.a4 rather than 23.a3 w hich w ould surely also have led to a draw but w as a little more
combative.
Svidler - Topalov

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After 22...a5
Svidler's very quick and assured opening play against Nakamura w as most impressive even if he failed in the
end to convert, but it could be argued that in order to be in contention he'll need to be converting advantages
such as the rook endgame above.
Anish Giri came third in the pre-tournament simulation. He had that fantastic run last year w hen he didn't lose
for some enormous number of (classical) games and is young, fit and extremely determined. The determination
w as in evidence in round one against Aronian w hen he w as able to continue the fight to the bitter, as w ellas
the second round game against Caruana that w as also a good fight w ith both players in pretty good form.

Anish Giri, one of the pre-tournament favorites

The round three game against Karjakin show ed both acting decisively.
Giri - Karjakin
Sagar Shah analysed this in detail yesterday but from my point of view the "truth " isn't as important as the
players' ability under this still unusual degree of tension to access their normal playing strength and make
sensible choices w hen faced w ith difficult decisions.
Karjakin's paw n sacrifice rather than trying to curl up into a ball show ed confidence in his positional
judgement, and 23...Be7, inviting almost commanding W hite to sacrifice, displayed further confidence in his
calculations.
Giri obliged but then decided rather than trying 26.e4 (w hich gives more scope but should also lead to a draw )
played 26.Nc5 w hich w as aesthetically pleasing and forced Karjakin to find an only move 27...Rf8 but hardly a
difficult defence. Online, I've seen some feeling that after sacrificing, Giri shouldn't then have forced a draw but
I presume that his plan is to avoid defeat and w in the odd game and he felt that "This is not the moment
Anish" (w ith apologies to Pink Panther fans).
The only other player to consider is Aronian w ho began by defending himself staunchly against Giri:
Giri - Aronian

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Aronian was in trouble in round one against Giri, but ultimately survived
You don't have to play 53...Rf4 here but you certainly w ant to and he show ed good judgement - and nerves to go into the paw n endgame and set up his fortress. Aronian next played Anand and kept his balance w hen
things could possibly have gone w rong if he'd lost his orientation; and then picked off Topalov w hen he
blundered.
So w hose smiling picture w ill w e see on the tapestry w hen the final threads are w oven together in a
fortnight's time? I'm afraid it's really too early for me to attempt a reveal yet but there are certainly some
indications.
In London, in 2013, Carlsen and Kramnik made 8.5/14 (+3) w hile in Khanty-Mansiysk 2015 Anand w as w ell
clear also on 8.5. This doesn't at the moment look like a tournament w hich somebody is going to run aw ay
w ith so I imagine that either 8.5 or possibly 9 w ill w in this time too. To get that sort of score the most likely
plan is to play it fairly safe and pick the odd opponent off.
Of the top three, Anand looks in very decent shape but not at his absolute best, Aronian is moving through
the gears and Karjakin has perhaps looked best of all w ith his calm ratcheting up of the tension against
Nakamura w hich led to Nakamura's blunder and then the very decisive actions w hich led quickly to a draw
against Giri.
The next tw o Caruana and Giri both look quite good and ready to pounce w hen the opportunity arises.
Svidler has show n some excellent opening preparation as Black (though the game as W hite against Topalov
w asn't great) but (in terms of his beloved cricket) has failed to get to the pitch of the ball in the subsequent
advantageous positions. Nakamura looks terribly nervous but could of course put a big run together if things
click. And Topalov is in bad shape.
The picture should be much clearer by the next rest day.

About the author

Jon w as born in 1956 and became a professional player in 1977
after graduating from W orcester College Oxford w here he read
mathematics. He became an IM in 1977 a GM in 1980 and w as a
member of the English Olympic team from 1980-2006.
Three times British Champion he played tw ice in the Candidates
reaching the semi-final (of w hat w as then a knockout series of
matches) in 1989 w hen he lost 4.5 - 3.5 to Jan Timman. He's tw ice
been a second at the w orld championship for Nigel Short and then
Visw anathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and
New York 1995.
He's w ritten the Observer (w eekly) since 1993 and The
Independent since 1998. W ith its closure (going online but w ithout
Jon on board) he's expanding online activity and is also now
offering online tuition.
He likes puzzles especially (cryptic) crossw ords and killer sudokus.
If you'd like to lambast Jon or otherw ise he can be contacted via
his email

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Topics
Jon Speelman, Candidates 2016

See also

Candidates R03: Aronian beats Topalov

3/13/2016 The tradition of one decisive game per day continues at the W orld
Championship Candidates 2016 in Moscow : w ith a black w in Levon Aronian joined
the leaders at 2.0/3. It w as by far the most interesting day so far all the games
had some or the other critical moment in them. Lets take a closer look w e have
extensive Elo-boosting analysis and some exclusive pictures from the venue in our
Round Three report. [Discuss]

Candidates R02: Nakamura implodes, Karjakin strikes!

3/12/2016 Svidler against Topalov w as a sedate draw . Anand and Aronian played
a theoretical battle w here both of them w ere excellently prepared. Giri and
Caruanas game promised quite a bit, but in the end also finished in a draw . The
game of the day w as surely Sergey Karjakins victory over Hikaru Nakamura. The
Russian put on the slow stove pressure and Nakamura simply self-destructed.
Detailed game analysis. [Discuss]

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chessbibliophile 21 minutes ago
Fascinating.More of Speelman please.

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