Richard Rapport has a 96% chance of playing in the FIDE Candidates Tournament after defeating Dmitry Andreikin in the second game of the final to win the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix. The Hungarian no. 1 described his decision to play on with two minutes on his clock rather than take a draw as taking destiny into his own hands and a “leap of faith”. It was richly rewarded, as Dmitry Andreikin, who commented, “I can only applaud him”, went astray in complications that neither player could fully fathom.
You can replay all the games from the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix using the selector below.
And here’s the day’s live commentary from Peter Svidler and Lawrence Trent.
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The final of the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix was decided by Richard Rapport winning the second game, meaning no tiebreaks were required as Richard won the match 1.5:0.5.
After a quiet opening on Day 1 of the final, normal service was resumed on Day 2, with Richard Rapport and Dmitry Andreikin competing to take the game into ever more offbeat waters. Dmitry repeated the 3…a6!? he’d played against Sam Shankland earlier in the tournament, while Richard decided to meet “fire with fire” with 5.a3!?
Richard commented afterwards:
This is kind of a half-nonsense move, half-serious, because I’m kind of mirroring him, but it had some ideas actually.
In the end Dmitry thought for around 12 minutes before playing 5…h6, and what followed was an extremely tense struggle. Richard felt his 8.Be5!? was “over-ambitious”, even though it was the computer’s top move, and it was only 14.Rd1?! that both players questioned.
Dmitry commented:
I had a normal position after the opening. It was an interesting, rare line, but he made a very bad move, maybe not very bad, but bad move Rd1, and provoked me to go active, because I played Qa5 with the idea of taking on a3. He played Rc1, so he gave me one tempo, absolutely free, and I started to think how to play… not for a win, but to create an initiative, and spent a lot of time.
14…Qa5!? was met by 15.Rc1, with Richard also unimpressed with his own play.
Rd1 and suddenly things got out of hand. He could also have taken on f4, but Qa5 was extremely unpleasant, and here I decided, of course out of desperation, just to admit that my mental level wasn’t too high at this point and just to play Rc1. I played last move Rd1, so it doesn’t take a genius to understand that this is not so good for White here.
Richard Rapport and Dmitry Andreikin before the decisive game | photo: Mark Livshitz, FIDE
It wasn’t as bad for White as it looked, however, since it seems the Bxa3 idea Dmitry was trying to get to work simply doesn’t, which meant the 23 minutes he spent pondering it were in vain. Time would later become a key factor.
Dmitry chose 15…0-0 and got a healthy position. What followed was logical, until on move 22 Richard decided not to go for his originally intended 22.f4, feeling it was too drawish, and instead chose 22.b4!?, which was met by 22…Qa4!
Richard admitted the move was strong, and was forced to go for a line that seemed only to draw: 23.Nf4 Bxf4 24.exf4 Qc6 25.Qe3 Ne4 (Richard felt 25…Re4 was a more sure way to force a repetition) 26.f3 Rc3 27.Qd4 Rc4 28.Qe3 Rc3 29.Qd4 Rc4.
This was the key moment of the whole game, tournament, and arguably of Richard Rapport’s career to date. All Richard needed to do was tell the arbiter his next move would be 30.Qe3 and it would be an instant draw by 3-fold repetition, with the players coming back on Monday to play tiebreaks.
As he kept thinking and his time dropped from 14 minutes to two minutes, Richard accepting the draw seemed more and more likely. He commented afterwards:
That would have been a reasonable decision, because I went down to two minutes, but then I decided, I don’t know how to put it, I decided to take my destiny into my own hands, let’s put it this way, and gamble a little bit.
Richard Rapport's gamble was richly rewarded | photo: Mark Livshitz, FIDE
In another interview, Richard elaborated that he’d come into the day intending to go “all the way”.
That moment in the game was the result of a mindset, because I wasn’t really afraid of tiebreaks, even though Dmitry is extremely strong in playoffs, I believe, but I was just thinking that I would like to have my chances in classical. That was, if you will, the stepping stone to decide, because I could claim a draw basically with Qe3, even without making a move, and I played Qe5, which of course I couldn’t calculate till the end, and if you look at it with the engine it’s just the same good move, but it poses problems for both of us to solve, me included, with very little time, so it was kind of a gamble.
You can say it was an easy draw for him and he made a mistake and I wasn’t risking anything, but I think none of us really knew what was the evaluation, and I just took this leap of faith, if you will, just purely from a sporting point of view.
That’s how Richard decided to go for 30.Qe5!?
It was a choice that Dmitry, who had proven brilliant at exploiting mistakes by his opponents previously in the event, initially welcomed.
I was very optimistic about it. I thought it’s great, I’ve provoked him into it, and I was very optimistic, but when I started to calculate…
Suddenly, with both players short on time, every move mattered. After 30…Nd2 31.f5! there was already a major choice to be made.
31…Qb6+! 32.Kh1 Nxf1 33.fxe6+ Kg8! is a forced line where it seems it’s White who has to play accurately to draw (e.g. 34.Qb8+ Kh7 35.Bf5+ g6 36.Bxg6+!), and it was the kind of variation that had led our commentators to wonder why Richard would go for something like this instead of just taking an instant draw.
What discouraged Dmitry from playing it, however, was a line that both he and Richard had thought was winning for White: 34.e7? What they’d missed was the solution after 34…Nxg3+ 35.Kg2 Rc2+ 36.Kxg3 Qg1+ 37.Kh4
In fact here 37…Qg5+! wins for Black. After the exchange of queens Black has a rook against a bishop, since the e7-pawn can easily be stopped.
In the game 31…Nxf1 was also ok, however, and it was only after 32.fxe6+ that Dmitry played the losing move.
It turns out 32…Ke7! could still have saved the day, since after 33.Qxg7+ Kd6 34.Qf8+ Kc7 35.e7, when Richard pointed out Black’s problem is not the pawn queening but the threat of Qd8 checkmate, there’s still a lifeline.
35…Qb6+! works to force a draw, with the white king having nowhere to hide after e.g. 36.Kh1 Nxg3+!
Instead in the game Dmitry played 32…Ke8 and was hit by 33.Qxg7!
This was what he’d overlooked.
I missed Qg7. That’s very strange, but ok, maybe I’m tired already, but ok, when he played Qe5 I thought we will play and maybe I will win, but once again it was great for White, for Richard. I can only applaud him.
There’s no longer any escape for the king since 33…Kd8 runs into 34.e7+! (among other moves), while after 33…Qb6+ 34.Kxf1 Rc1+ 35.Ke2 you would assume, from a distance, that Black has some way to keep the pressure on the king.
But 35…Rc2 is simply met by 36.Kd3, while the black queen has no time to join in the action given the threat of checkmate with Qf7 and Qd7. Dmitry tried one last roll of the dice with 35…Re1+ 36.Kxe1 Qe3+.
Richard understood his opponent:
He went for Re1+. First of all, it’s kind of desperate, but second, it’s kind of reasonable. It’s kind of a gamble, we’re both on seconds, and there is no idea basically for Black to hold on to the rook, because after move 40 I will just probably be winning. So he goes for Re1+, which is either a draw or just loses on the spot.
It was the second, though that wasn’t immediately obvious. Richard continued:
Luckily for me — of course I couldn’t see it in advance — but in this position after checks, I have this idea of Ka1, and the idea is he would need to go Qf1+ without my bishop protecting the square.
Richard pointed out that after 45…Qd1+ 46.Ka2 Black would need to play the impossible move 46…Qd1-c4 to draw. Or, again, as he also noted, 45…Qf1+ with the queen coming to c4 or e2 next, would be a draw. For a little inside joke Dmitry played 45…Qf1+ anyway, but it was of course met by 46.Bxf1 Black resigns, and the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix was over.
It was a tough finish for Dmitry, with Richard sympathising.
Chess is a profession that requires you to accept all its ups and downs. Like, for instance, Dmitry, he thought — which was reasonable, I believe — that it will be a draw after Qe3, and he will play tiebreaks. And then 10 minutes later he’s in enormous stress, and 15 minutes later it’s all over for him and he has to adjust to this. It’s a very hard profession.
Dmitry Andreikin just missed out, but he'd still had a great tournament | photo: Mark Livshitz, FIDE
Dmitry noted, however, that luck was on his side when he came back from lost positions against Etienne Bacrot and Anish Giri, and overall he was happy with how the event had gone.
I’m not in the best form now, because I was in my best form about 10 years ago, but now it’s normal. I’m happy to be here, it was great days for me.
Dmitry is also still very much in the fight for a Candidates Tournament spot.
Things are uncertain off the board, however, with Dmitry no doubt contemplating whether or not to return to Russia.
I don’t know about my plans, about chess. I don’t know my plans about life. It’s very sharp — we’ll see what happens next.
For Richard, meanwhile, the victory means he’s completed his two Grand Prix events (in the graphic above only Vidit has also played two events) and has a wonderful chance of reaching his first ever Candidates Tournament, since it’s very unlikely that two players will be able to finish ahead of him after the 3rd and final Grand Prix in Berlin.
The 25-year-old was happy to have scored his greatest success to date in the city where he lives with his wife, Serbian WGM Jovana Rapport.
Usually for me trips are connected to events and results, so of course you have favourite places, but usually they connect to when you play well… so for me Belgrade will actually not be influenced by this event, as funny as it is, even though this is probably the biggest success of my career to date. It will still be influenced by my love, my marriage, my life, really, so I’m just happy that this overall beautiful picture wasn’t ruined by chess.
He also credited his wife.
She’s my only support, actually. I have to thank her for everything, for putting up with me. I’m very difficult on normal days, but during tournaments I think it goes to 100x the volume.
The result of the tournament means that Richard is almost sure of a spot in the 2022 Candidates Tournament, though he noted himself.
I’m extremely happy, but about the Candidates I feel like mathematically it’s still possible for me not to qualify which, knowing myself, is a real possibility!
Chess by the Numbers gives Richard a 96.7% chance of making it.
For him to fail one of the players on 7 points needs to win in Berlin (reaching 20 points), while Nakamura also wins his group to reach 20 points or more. It would still then come down to tiebreaks.
What works in Rapport’s favour is that the top scorers other than himself — Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian and Dmitry Andreikin — all start in the same pool in Berlin, so that only one of them can overtake him.
That unfortunate draw has caused some controversy.
The 3rd and final leg of the FIDE Grand Prix starts on March 22nd in Berlin, with many unknowns, not least of which is whether all five Russian players will make it there and be able to play. So far Nikita Vitiugov, Grigoriy Oparin and Alexandr Predke have all gone through the process of giving up their Russian Chess Federation membership to instead play under the FIDE flag, while Andreikin and Daniil Dubov are yet to do so.
Nikita Vitiugov's federation is now given as FIDE | screenshot: FIDE
They may not need to for the Grand Prix, but, for instance, it’s now a requirement if Russian players want to play in any official European Chess Union events such as the European Championship.
At stake in the Grand Prix are two places in the Candidates Tournament.
There are more doubts there, since Sergey Karjakin looks set to lose his spot after cheering on Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine (a FIDE Ethics Commission decision is pending) while Ian Nepomniachtchi’s spot might also be in doubt if FIDE moves more in line with other world sporting bodies that have completely excluded Russian athletes.
If players are unable to play there won’t be any extra spots for the Grand Prix, however, with the regulations stating:
2. 3. If any replacement is needed, the highest-rated player in the FIDE May 2022 standard rating list shall be invited, provided he/she has at least 30 standard games rated in the FIDE rating lists from June 2021 to May 2022.
That would currently be Ding Liren, but only if he can manage to arrange to play sufficient games (he’s currently 26 short), with Levon Aronian and Wesley So the next highest rated players among those yet to qualify.
No-one will regret seeing Richard Rapport getting a chance to qualify for a World Championship match | photo: Mark Livshitz
The next top level action, however, will be the 2nd stage of the $1.6 million Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, that starts this Saturday, March 19th. More details will be coming very soon!
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