It was an exciting day of competition at the Candidates Tournaments after Round 12 today as the Tournament Leaders suffered crushing losses at the cusp of the tournament climax. This sure promises to be a most thrilling last few days as the curtains fall on this years Candidates Tournament. Sergey Karjakin beat Fabiano Caruana with the white pieces in a solid and dominating performance after making a superb exchange sacrifice and making the rest of a game a clinical study in positional play and very original style that’s typical of Sergey Karjakin- cool, calm, calculated and very clinical- ice cold! Shakhriyar Mamedyarov went down to Ding Liren making an ambitious attempt to come on top with hopes of overtaking Fabi on the leaderboard.
Grischuk-Aronian drew their game that really didn’t have anything going as none took much of a chance. The game between Kramnik and Wesley So also ended in a tame draw after forty moves and as there wasn’t anything remarkable on that board either.
The tournament is now blown wide open after twelve rounds as the tables have pretty much been reversed on the leaderboard! After starting off with 1 point out of 4 rounds Sergey Karjakin is now the tournament leader with a better tiebreak over Fabiano Caruana! They’re followed by three players – Mamedyarov, Liren, Grischuk on 6.5 points and Kramnik with 5 points. Levon is the wounded beast at the bottom of the table and I’m counting on him to make a crushing impact on someone’s hopes this tournament as it has always happened at every Candidates Tournament since Anand won the rematch with Carlsen in 2014.
What happened today was a repeat of when Kramnik & Carlsen both tournament leaders at the Candidates Tournament in 2013 lost their last round games when the tournament outcome was near certain, except that this time around the tournament is up for grabs for everyone beyond just a tiebreak calculation! Karjakin was two points or more behind the leader till round eight and he just blew the pack in the next four rounds by winning against Kramnik & Aronian to set up the big match in his second match with Fabi. Fabi had everyone wondering if he was running out of steam after missing the win against Ding Liren in round nine. And it sure seems like that. The World Championship Match is also a test of stamina to sit through twelve games – thats not much compared to previous Championship Matches when it was a best of twenty four games or even longer – and the Candidates Matches tests the stamina with a wider field. That round nine game and his missed chances against the Chinese must be sure haunting him after round twelve. All eyes on the solid and stellar Sergey Karjakin as he has the stamina, the coolness and the execution of a marathon runner on the chess circuit.
Ceremonial First Move on Board #1 -Photo: World Chess
Fabi realizes thats its curtains! -Photo: Maria Emilianova / Chess.com
Fabi resigns as Sergey’s King is going to make his way to support the ‘g’ pawn to promotion while his King is tied down to stopping the white ‘b’ pawn. Brilliant execution by Karjakin. -Photo: Maria Emilianova / Chess.com
Rd 12 Press Conference – Karjakin v Caruana
Round twelve brought another potential of a challenger in Ding Liren. Finally notching his first win of the tournament after all the draws and that too showing stellar class against the Tournament Leader! Ding lacked the fighting spirit through the last few rounds but he has very enterprising style and he can be very calm under pressure as he displayed in putting up a stubborn defense to Caruana in round nine. Someone would say it was just a matter of time before he broke out of the spell at this level as players’ stamina and resilience it tested in this tournament. The tournament leaders were looking to hold the lead and may be Shakhriyar was gunning for the Chinese at the start of the round by starting with his pet 1.d4, but Ding Liren has a broad opening repertoire and he has shown superb fluency in the Queens Gambit, the Slav, the Catalan lines arising out of this opening move and he showed his comfort playing this one into the Semi-Tarrasch of the Queens Gambit Declined! A beautiful game by Ding that changed the Tournament Scorecard!
Mamdyarov stops the clock that ends the spell of draws for Ding! -Photo: Maria Emilianova / Chess.com
