Three Winners in Spectacular Second Round FIDE Candidates’

In the second round of the 2014 FIDE Candidates’ Tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk “youth” a hard time against “experience”. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov blundered his queen in the opening (a QGD Manhattan system) and put up some resistance against Levon Aronian but in the end he couldn't hold it. In a game that was praised by experts, Peter Svidler defeated Dmitry Andreikin from a Kalashnikov Sicilian. Vladimir Kramnik beat Sergey Karjakin, who tried the Queen's Gambit Accepted. Kramnik and Svidler joined Anand in the lead with a score of 1.5/2.

All photos courtesy of the official website

After a first-round loss, who doesn't want to bounce back immediately? Preferably with a game that's not too long, maybe even a quick blunder by the opponent? Wouldn't that be great?

That's exactly what happened to Levon Aronian, who received an early gift from his opponent, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, in round 2 of the Candidates’ Tournament. Azerbaijan top grandmaster missed a tactic, and had to give up his queen as early as move 17. Even though it was too early to resign, the resulting positing was just lost, especially against the world number two.

“I was quite surprised [about 11...h6] but then I realized that Shakhriyar, a strong tactical player himself, just blundered a simple tactic. It happens quite a lot that tactical players sometimes don't see simple things,” said Aronian. The real mistake was made on move 13, as Mamedyarov admitted he had completely missed 14.Nde4.

Vishy Anand, the only winner of the first round, drew rather comfortably with Veselin Topalov. The Bulgarian approached his opponent's solid Slav-repertoire by playing around with move-orders (1.Nf3, postponing d2-d4) and then it was the Indian's turn to make it really original by going for 4...Nbd7 and 5...e5. Interestingly, this had been played before in a game between Mikhail Tal - Anand's favorite World Champion - and Vladimir Bagirov, back in 1987.

Black's play came down to a pawn sac, and as commentator Peter Heine Nielsen said on the official website, the question was whether Topalov would take some risks to hang on to it. Well, he did, but in a way that didn't scare his opponent the slightest. The game reached an ending where White ended up with two weak pawns, and almost by force a 4 vs. 3 rook ending was reached.

OK, Garry Kasparov once lost this to Jeroen Piket, and Anand had shown to be slightly vulnerable in rook endings in his match with Carlsen, but the Kasparov-Piket game was online (and rapid) and the endgames in Chennai were much more complicated. To put an end to all doubts, Anand impressively liquidated to a 2 vs. 1 pawn ending which he knew was drawn. He then enjoyed pointing out at the press conference that the position after 50...f5 is a mutual zugzwang position, meaning that if it's Black to move he loses. 

The game between Peter Svidler and Dmitry Andreikin was more or less decided by one, highly creative pawn move. Andreikin, who qualified for this event as finalist of the 2013 World Cup, managed to surprise his opponent with his opening choice: the Kalashnikov. At the press conference Svidler said he would have preferred to play Andreikin a bit later in the tournament, as he expected the unexpected!

 

This was the reason for his slighthly timid 6.c4, the positional alternative to the more critical 6.N1c3. “"Not the most critical but I shouldn't be involved in huge tactical complications,” said Svidler.

The players agreed that Black was absolutely fine after the opening, and on move 16 the critical position was reached. “Losing the sense of danger” (Andreikin), Back went for the tactical 16...b5, missing the creative pawn move 20.f4 in his calculations. An absolutely critical move with which White gained the upper hand. A few moves later Andreikin missed one more detail, giving his opponent the opportunity to finish the game in style. 

The position after move 28 reminded of the following game. Svidler rightly pointed out that “that was three pawns, not two - which make the difference.” (Did the players know that this famous game also started as Kalashnikov!?)

Vladimir Kramnik then also won, to join Anand and Svidler in first place. The 14th World Champion, who might be playing for his last chance to win back the title this year, beat Sergey Karjakin in a Queen's Gambit Accepted.

Kramnik came up with a new idea on move 9, and at the press conference Kramnik revealed that he had already prepared it for the 2013 Candidates’! Praising his opponent for finding several computer moves in a row, the 38-year-old Russian couldn't clearly point out where Black had gone wrong. Feeling that he had been outplayed basically from the start, Karjakin said: “I'm not ashamed that I lost. The game was quite interesting, I was fighting and I lost.”

Chairs in Chess

At the end of the last press conference the chairs that are used by the players were discussed. In the first round the players used fixed chairs, but for the second round they were given chairs on wheels. Nonetheless, Kramnik had asked for (and was given) a different, even more comfortable chair.

One of the hosts, Anastasiya Karlovich, reminded the journalists of the 2013 Paris Grand Prix, where Alexander Grischuk asked for a less comfortable chair to avoid falling asleep during the game. Kramnik then mentioned that Garry Kasparov did something similar in his match with him, but that he himself always prefers “the most comfortable chair possible.”

Pairings

Tomorrow is the last day that the four Russians are paired against each other: Andreikin-Karjakin, Svidler-Kramnik and Topalov-Aronian. The measure to have players from the same nationality playing each other at the start is to remove any doubts about them joining forces and help the strongest. It was Bobby Fischer who accused the Soviet participants of such a strategy at the 1962 Candidates’ Tournament. It's unlikely that the rule is really necessary these days, but it's not that harmful either. 

FIDE Candidates’ 2014 | Pairings & Results

FIDE Candidates’ 2014 | Round 2 Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Pts	SB
1	Anand, Viswanathan	2770	2998				½	1				1.5	1.5
2	Kramnik, Vladimir	2787	2928						1	½		1.5	0.75
3	Svidler, Peter	2758	2928						½	1		1.5	0.75
4	Topalov, Veselin	2785	2764	½							½	1.0	1.0
5	Aronian, Levon	2830	2764	0							1	1.0	0.5
6	Karjakin, Sergey	2766	2582		0	½						0.5	0.75
7	Andreikin, Dmitry	2709	2582		½	0						0.5	0.75
8	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	2757	2617				½	0				0.5	0.5

The 2014 FIDE Candidates’ Tournament is an 8-player double round robin with 4 rest days. The dates are March 13th-31st, 2014. Each day the rounds start at 15:00 local time which is 10:00 CET, 04:00 EST and 01:00 PST. The winner will have the right to challenge World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway in a world title match which is scheduled to take place in November 2014.