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Chess - the world in black and white


Rorshach

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Really strange given how fast Caruana played. He didn't spend any time before Ding was down to .. what, 25 minutes? And at no point was he better according to comp eval - it just looks very much like a bluff (or, rather, a complicated and difficult position, but one which is objectively worse if you opponent plays well).

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Caruana was never better according to the engines, but he was pretty close to being equal despite being down two pawns.   Which is pretty good for grandmaster preparation as Black, really.  (The rule of thumb in the late 90s and early 2000s seemed to be that if the engine thought you were equal despite having sacrificed material you were probably actually better, but obviously computers are a bit more advanced now.)

Looking at the clock times, I think Caruana had to start thinking after Ding played 18. Qf5 (which doesn't seem to be the first choice engine move, so he might not have looked at it) . He started going wrong around then too, but probably kept playing fast because of Ding's clock situation (or just a sense that if Ding was having a bad tournament he'd make errors if pressed).

Not sure why he's insisting on playing this out now though.  Although I'd have said the same about Giri's game yesterday, of course.

Of the other games, I was slightly surprised by Nepo agreeing to a draw in a position that seemed pretty good for him against the weakest player in the tournament.  But otherwise this has seemed a fairly quiet day compared to the first two.

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Didn't Nepo end up in a perpetual of some sort? Didn't look at it a lot, but at first glance that was what I thought.

And, yes, Caruana was close to equal two pawns down. But IIRC, that was after Qf5 - comp first line with Qc1 (I think) was still +2. Academic, of course.

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1 hour ago, Plessiez said:

Looking at the clock times, I think Caruana had to start thinking after Ding played 18. Qf5 (which doesn't seem to be the first choice engine move, so he might not have looked at it) . He started going wrong around then too, but probably kept playing fast because of Ding's clock situation (or just a sense that if Ding was having a bad tournament he'd make errors if pressed).

18.Qf5 was a natural move, so of course he looked into it. More likely he couldn't recall the specifics. At some points lines just tend to blur into each other. Does that move belong into this line, or that line. Then there are move order issues, that is particularly true in sharp/double edged lines.

You mess that up, you end up playing a position with a material deficit.

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Anysways, for the tournament, this actually puts Ding right back into the action. I still hold Caruana as my pick to win, and with yesterday's loss he's only half a point ahead of Ding. Nepo and Wang Hao are both on +1, but I doubt Wang Hao will manage to keep up, and I think Nepo is too erratic. 

MVL is also +1. He is well positioned, and has already played Ding and Caruana once. In with a shot, he is.

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19 hours ago, Rorshach said:

Didn't Nepo end up in a perpetual of some sort? Didn't look at it a lot, but at first glance that was what I thought.

Oh, yeah, you're right.  I'd missed the end of the game -- the last position I'd seen was just after Black had castled and had been seeming to get a hold of the position.   At the press conference Nepomniatchi said that he'd thought he was worse even then, which was why he allowed Alekseenko to play 34. Qxf7 and then go for the perpetual.   Which actually makes quite a lot of sense on reflection, given how the game had actually gone; arguably Alekseenko was unlucky not to get more out of it.

4 hours ago, Bearbert Dondarrion said:

Grischuk has been in a better position in all three games so far but only got 3 draw in time trouble.  If he starts converting his advantages, he can win the tournament for sure.

I can't see Grischuk ever getting over his time trouble addiction, honestly.  And although he's had decent positions, the other way to look at this is that he's already had White against the eighth and sixth seeds and only managed to get two draws.  I don't think that's a great start.

4 hours ago, Rorshach said:

Anysways, for the tournament, this actually puts Ding right back into the action. I still hold Caruana as my pick to win, and with yesterday's loss he's only half a point ahead of Ding. Nepo and Wang Hao are both on +1, but I doubt Wang Hao will manage to keep up, and I think Nepo is too erratic. 

MVL is also +1. He is well positioned, and has already played Ding and Caruana once. In with a shot, he is.

Ding's win against Caruana helps him a lot with the tiebreakers (as long as he can avoid losing in the round 10 rematch, of course), but I think he's still got a lot of work to do.  I'd agree that Caruana is still the favourite, with MVL and Nepomniatchi both close behind.  But with both the original favourites dropping points early on, I wouldn't be surprised if the final winning margin was smaller this year than in previous years.

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57 minutes ago, Plessiez said:

I can't see Grischuk ever getting over his time trouble addiction, honestly.  And although he's had decent positions, the other way to look at this is that he's already had White against the eighth and sixth seeds and only managed to get two draws.  I don't think that's a great start.

Agreed. 

Grischuk is a very good player, but his time management has always been shaky. It's just as much a joke these days as Giri's solidity.

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Grischuk can play chess. However he wants to find the best move in any given moment, so he calculates a lot and burns up a lot of time (quite often on what seems to be fairly obvious moves). Of course he is actually calculating quite deeply. But at least it makes a good running gag. BUt yeah, not a great start. It was solid, but solid shouldn't cut it, and he wasn't among my picks for the match against Carlsen anyway. I think MVL is right now in the best position. But it's all too early tell. With all the players being between +1 and -1, it's really an open field. Let's wait for the standing at the halfway point. I am curious how Caruana will respond to his loss, and if Ding just needed this win to find his footing.

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I'm interested to see how Caruana plays tomorrow, too. Not that I think he'd be rattled by a loss, he generally doesn't seem to be. But his prep has been really interesting so far, and I wonder if he continues with the complicated sidelines.

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He will. I think Carlsen said, that Caruana's advantage over Ding is, that he is better at picking off weaker players. So MVL replacing Radja was arguably not in his best interest. Caruana doesn't play Ding every round, who (like Caruana) is able to pick the top two engine moves over a prolongued period of time. E.g. if he catches Grischuk offguard, Sascha will also find reasonable moves, but will burn up too much time in the process. That'll cause Sascha a lot of pain (as he'd need to find good moves to stay in the game and not to get an edge). And he is not as patient as Ding. Aleeksenko is imho a prime candidate to run into something and then just get knocked out by Fabiano. And with Wang Hao, I just doubt his repertoire is deep enough and he has not played that much top level chess during the past few years.

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Well, two draws as of now.

Ding-Giri, and MVL has let Sascha off the hook.

Wang Hao - Alekseenko also heading for the draw.

And somehow Caruana managed to make a mess ouf of a pretty promising position. Will probably still be a draw, but he is the one having to fight for it now.

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Yesterday's games were a bit dull, compared to the excitement of the first three rounds, but today's games look a bit more interesting. 

Alekseenko-MVL looks incredibly complex; equal according to the engine but very easy for either side to go wrong.  Both players seemed to be in prep (or at least bluffing that they were) until move 17; Alekseenko then took about ten minutes before playing 17. Rxg6 and then after MVL's almost instant reply of 17. ... Rxc3 he started thinking ... and about fifty minute later, he's still thinking.

Oh, wait - he found 18 Nxe6!.  Should be fun.

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54 minutes ago, Plessiez said:

And meanwhile Caruana might be losing against Giri...

If he manages to lose against Anish, he shouldn't win the Candidates. 

This is The Truth, as revealed to us by The Ancients.

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Nepo is on +2 now. Had Caruana lost, he would have been on -1. 

So, yeah, that would have been .. challenging. 

Right now, on -1, we have Ding, and he's playing Nepo tomorrow (as black). We are not yet in "must win"-territory, but for Ding this is absolutely "can't lose" if he still harbours hope of winning the Candidates.

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I think Nepomniatchi is becoming the clear favourite now, given not just results so far but the way today's games are going.  Ding just looks to be lost against Nepo after palying 31. ... Qg4 and although Grischuk is (obviously) in time trouble, his position against Caruana seems very solid.

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Yes, no matter how the rest of the games end, Nepo will have a one-point lead after six games. If Caruana doesn't manage to win (and Grischuk should be able to hold, but we'll see), he'll be 1,5 points behind. 

Starting to look like this Candidates is Nepo's to lose - though still relatively early.

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