Vishy Anand simply refuses to give up on his quest to force a third match with Magnus Carlsen. In Round 11 of the Candidates Tournament he won a technical tour-de-force against Sergey Karjakin to catch Fabiano Caruana in the lead, after the latter missed a huge chance to beat Veselin Topalov. Peter Svidler struck a blow to Levon Aronian’s hopes with a counter-attacking first win, while Anish Giri notched up 11 draws after a late blunder ruined a winning position against Hikaru Nakamura.
After Anand's victory Karjakin is no longer in the leading group, for the first time since Round 2 | photo: World Chess
Moscow Candidates Round 11 results
The tension is becoming unbearable in Moscow, with the result of all four games on Thursday arguably determined by errors we wouldn’t normally witness from players of this class.
If anyone knows about handling such tension, though, it’s Vishy Anand, who shrugged off his loss to Fabiano Caruana the day before to score a fourth win with the white pieces. Crucially it came against tournament co-leader Sergey Karjakin, who after a fast start had drawn six games in a row, and looked on course for a seventh until, as he later admitted, he relaxed too soon and Vishy’s technique took over.
Jan Gustafsson takes us through the encounter:
After the game Vishy was proud of his performance and revealed his second, Grzegorz Gajewski, had discovered the ending wasn’t as innocuous as it seemed:
The official Russian commentator on the tournament, Sergey Shipov, is answering questions from fans daily on the KasparovChess forum. After the game he was asked whether he really believed Anand might offer a draw with White to his main rival:
Yes, after move 20 the position would be appropriate for that. But after move 30 White already had an edge, so Anand had a reason to play on. But Karjakin… that was a terrible disappointment! A supergrandmaster had no right to lose that ending so meekly. Unforgiveable. With play like that you’ve got no business in a World Championship match.
Another forum member suggested that the final statement applies to all the players in the tournament, to which Shipov responded:
No, it doesn’t apply to Giri. He isn’t losing and he isn’t getting into bad positions. He’s playing with a margin of safety. That’s very important in a match. But getting to a match without winning at all is impossible…
Which brings us to…
It seemed for a very long time that this game would provide Dutch chess fans with some reason to celebrate on a dark day for Dutch, and world, football, since the news of Johan Cruyff’s death at 68 had spread just after the round began.
Giri has of course been on a very long drawing streak, but with the lead in the tournament only at +2 a single win would put him firmly in contention for overall victory. He played the Giuoco Piano, not for a quiet life but to dodge Nakamura’s likely Berlin Defence in the Ruy Lopez. Things went like clockwork for the Dutch star, who gained a better structure and was able to carry out a standard plan with a minority attack on the queenside.
Giri just can't shake that drawing habit, however hard he tries | photo: World Chess
Soon he had a big advantage, and despite some unconvincing moments the edge had grown to be winning by move 50, when it all went wrong:
Giri’s patience had run out:
50.Re5! should win a pawn and the game, but instead Anish went for 50.Nxg7?, when he was dismayed to see 50…Qxg7! – at a glance that seems to be losing to 51.Rg3, but you didn’t need to be as brilliant a tactician as Hikaru to spot 51…Rg5!
Of course you can’t take the rook with the pawn while the queen is en-prise, so after 52.Rxg5 hxg5 53.Qxd5 Giri had to come to terms with an 11th draw in 11 games.
That wasn’t the only missed chance of the round.
Early on this game seemed to be going Veselin Topalov’s way, with the Bulgarian former World Champion explaining his opening choice as follows:
Obviously [10.Qa4] is not a move that refutes the line, but there are many ways for Black to go wrong and we couldn’t see a clear way for Black to be better.
Topalov got to play one of his trademark exchange sacrifices:
13.hxg4! Qxh1, when after 14.Bxe5 Qc6 15.Bd4 Caruana felt his 15…Ra8 was already a mistake (15…Ra6! was better). Suddenly White was threatening a devastating attack on the kingside, but some clever defence saw Caruana equalise, and when Topalov failed to force a draw by perpetual check Black took over.
It hasn't always been easy, to put it mildly, but Caruana's fighting spirit in bad positions has kept him unbeaten in Moscow | photo: World Chess
Fabiano looked certain to move into the sole lead on +3, until he slipped in time trouble by moving his rook away from the vital c-file, allowing 39.Rc2!
Suddenly White has the big threat of Rxc5 and pushing the b-pawn, while, for instance, 39…Bxf2?? 40.Rc8 mate illustrates Black’s other issue. Even here 39…Kf8! is probably winning, since it turns out Black is in time to stop the b-pawn in all lines, but that wasn’t trivial to see with seconds remaining. Instead after 39…g5 40.Bxg5 Rxe5 41.Bf6 Rd5 Caruana took the no doubt wise decision to settle for a draw, since the white bishops are monsters. He summed up:
In any case, I was ready to finish this game!
That leaves a game that finally brought some joy to Peter Svidler’s legion of fans!
Peter had been doing a good job in Moscow of living up to the pre-tournament remarks of Vladimir Kramnik, who noted Svidler had actually been the best-prepared player in the 2013 Candidates Tournament in London. On Thursday, though, it wasn’t about the opening, as the 7-time Russian Champion admitted:
I’ve had plenty of good positions in this tournament and won none of them, and today I eventually won a position which you cannot describe as good at all.
Levon was soon on top, but one of the tournament favourites has had a very shaky few rounds. He lost to Anand, then managed to convert a winning position into one he almost lost against Topalov. In that game Veselin said afterwards that the move 13.Nh4!? had struck him as “coffeehouse”. In Round 11 our commentator, Jan Gustafsson, also had the impression that Levon was aiming for one-move tricks rather than finding a convincing plan. In the Armenian’s defence, some of the tricks were very close to working, but Svidler held on before ultimately seizing the initiative.
In the post-game press conference even Aronian was struggling to smile, as his World Championship hopes now hang by a thread | photo: World Chess
Although Svidler played the Slav, his Grünfeld instincts took over in the endgame. He sacrificed a pawn for activity, resisted what must have been a real urge to force a draw by repetition (42…Kg8!) and then needed only a couple of mistakes from his opponent to haul in the full point. 46.Qd2? was the last straw:
46…Qb1+! 47.Kf2 Ra8! (threatening Ra2) 48.Qe1 Qb2+ and Aronian resigned, since after 49.Qe2 Qxd4+ the white pawns fall and the black b-pawn will queen.
Svidler summed up afterwards:
I felt that the fact that I’ve played in so many [Candidates Tournaments] might be in my favour, because I know what to expect - I have maybe a slightly better grasp of what it entails to play in a tournament like this. But judging by my play, experience doesn’t count for very much when you can’t win a single game!
I thought at the beginning of the tournament I was doing most things right – apart from the fact I was completely incapable of winning a game out of very good positions. When this continues happening it’s a problem, and winning my first game in Round 11 is a bit late. Better late than never, obviously, but it’s a bit late.
It is late, but Peter has been here before. In the London
Candidates mentioned above he also beat Aronian in Round 11, and then went on
to beat Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen in the remaining three rounds,
ending in third place only half a point behind Carlsen and Kramnik.
The favourites now, though, are of course Caruana and Anand in the lead (note Fabiano holds the tiebreak over Vishy after winning their individual match-up), and Karjakin, who although he lost in Round 11 is only half a point off the pace:
You can see their remaining games and recent results below (hover over a player name in the cross table above to see the fixtures for the other players). Caruana and Karjakin have two games with White, but may be hindered by playing each other in the final round. Anand has two games with Black, but his opponents have done less well in the tournament - plus against players other than Caruana, Vishy is better on the second tiebreak of most wins.
Of course with the field so bunched you can’t rule out anyone in the top 6, with Svidler, Aronian or Giri knowing two, or better three, wins would make them realistic tournament winners. The top three may fancy their chances of breaking clear in Round 12, though:
Needless to say, don’t miss our Round 12 live commentary with Robin van Kampen joining Jan Gustafsson in the chess24 studio. You can watch the Round 11 show below:
You can also watch the games in our free mobile apps:
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