What is chess strategy anyway? Herman Grooten seeks to explain using the so-called “Table of Elements” attributed to Steinitz by Lasker. Grooten also heavily employs Nimzowitsch in the latter half of the book to explain certain concepts (such as the open file, control of the 7th rank, etc). The sum total here is a 26-chapter tome (including some tests, solutions to problems, and an epilogue) that acts as a positional sampler for the higher things in chess.

As far as what Steinitz’s (Lasker’s?) table of elements are, Grooten lays these out as follows:

Permanent advantages

1. Material advantage

2. Bad king position

3. Passed pawns in the middlegame.

4. Weak pawns for the opponent

5. Strong and weak squares

6. Pawn islands

7. Strong pawn center

8. Control of a diagonal

9. Control of a file

10. Bishop Pair

11. Control of a rank

Temporary advantages:

12. Bad piece posiiton

13. Inharmoniously placed pieces

14. Advantage in development

15. Concentration of pieces in the center (centralization)

16. Space advantage

Once offered, Grooten does his best to explain these by example after example and more-or-less succeeds.

Overall Grooten doesn’t present anything groundbreakingly new here, and I think that’s one of the book’s strengths. He simply organizes and shows the classical ideas with a lot of examples. Much like game collections based on teaching strategy (such as Michael Stean’s Simple Chess), the more mis-matched players provide the clearest examples, and these mismatches occurred more often back then, in the 19th and 20th century, than today. Therefore, Chess Strategy for Club Players relies on the faithful classics, but this does not stop Grooten from choosing positions his students, friends, and colleagues played, when they fit the bill properly. One historical quirk of this book is that even in its 3rd edition it precedes AlphaZero and the unleashing of neural networks on the royal game by a couple years, and therefore Grooten found some games against new-at-the-time computer chess engines to be relevant examples for teaching strategic and positional concepts (with the machines on the losing end of these bouts). This is more a testament to just how incredible machine learning has gotten when it comes to our understanding of chess than a mark against the book.

Grooten’s explanations benefit from his experience as a teacher and a coach, and I find that he is easy to understand, if a bit dry in his presentation, though sometimes Grooten’s wit peaks through. Analysis does not go extremely deep, but sufficiently enough to explain through some key variations. Everything is organized in a sensible manner such that the reader probably won’t feel lost as new ideas and plans are built on top of earlier-presented ones. One great improvement over especially older strategy books is that Grooten doesn’t employ the typically opaque prose in describing the features of a position or effect of a piece. Despite drawing liberally upon Nimzowitsch’s ideas, he never obfuscates the meaning through philosophical meandering. One small thing I have noticed is that Grooten often follows the established narrative of how chess strategy came to arise, and how the history of it should be taught. Students keen on history should still look at the “romantics” for developing strategy, because these waters run deeper than first meet the eye, but Grooten doesn’t delve very far into this era, sticking with Steinitz and those who followed him.

Overall this is one of those books that slots nicely in the intermediate to advanced level of chess player skill, and should be considered once a player reaches a rating of 1500-1600 over the board. It’s not a one-stop-shop to fix everything, but rather a broad sampling of different strategic and positional ideas to improve one’s game beyond brute-force tactics. The book is worth multiple reads and revisits (I’ve gone through it at least three times in the last six years), as long as the student is able and willing to play lots of longer games to learn how to apply the methods and ideas contained within. However, it’s not one-size-fits-all nor do I think it is perfect in its presentation. I have both the book and Chessable version, and in my opinion, the book version is better if you’re more interested in reading. The Chessable version, though outdated by Chessable’s own standards for courses today, is better if you’re more interested in practicing, though not every trainable is made equal. Overall I enjoy the book more than the course.

4/5

Other chess strategy resources I’ve reviewed:

Thank you to for the review copy.

Thinking Sideways’s subtitle is apt: it’s about how to think like a chess player and win at life.

For long-time chess players, a lot of the relayed experience about chess will sound very familiar, but the advice given is still helpful and needs to be repeated for those young in the world (either the real world, or just new to chess). Besides being a national chess champion, Jennifer is also a poker pro, and the intersection between that game, chess, and real life lessons to be gleaned from them is broader than one might expect, and is among the more entertaining aspects of this book.

Thinking Sideways is a brisk and enjoyable read, with each chapter demonstrating concise recommendations and a healthy dose of anecdotes from the author’s own life, as well as the experience of others (fellow chess players, poker pros, or other friends and acquaintances) whom she admires for their ability to look at things a little bit differently.

Examining one’s own life through their experience with chess can be a very enlightening practice, and Jennifer goes through seven chapters, detailing decision-making, time management, memory, pattern recognition, ambition (both as a virtue and as a vice), knowing one’s strengths, and risk-taking, and concludes with one last critical way to think sideways: making the game (life, chess, poker, society) better rather than just being better.

Chess players who have been in the game for a while will most likely nod along in approval as they read through Jennifer’s takeaways from the game and how she took those principles (or came up with new ones) to succeed away from the board as well; I think that the advice given is generally sound, and can help us have a healthier mindset toward our passions, hobbies, and ambitions. Even if it’s things you’ve thought of before, seeing it written down can help concretize those things in your thinking patterns, as it’s good to be reminded of good advice every once in a while. These are things that work well in the chess hall, in relationships, or business meetings.

The most striking chapter for me was the one on ambition. For this chapter, Jennifer interviewed reformed chess cheaters on their motivations for cheating and what got them to stop. Nowadays, chess is a bit of an international meme for the cheating scandals especially surrounding American GM Hans Niemann’s teenage past; but to take a more serious look at the people who have engaged in cheating is something I wish we could get more of, because the psychology can be quite fascinating. This obviously requires understanding listeners and readers and willful interviewees, but I hope that more doors like this can be opened in the future thanks to Jennifer’s work.

My other favorite chapter in this book is the final one, about taking risks. Non-chess players may be surprised to learn that chess games, matches, and tournaments are loaded with risks, but most adult players are familiar with risk aversion and passive thinking and how this can turn a game from a win to a loss. I really appreciated Jennifer’s emphasis on becoming outcome blind, pointing out the correlation/causation fallacy that exists between good decisions and bad results and vice versa. Instead of an outcome-oriented approach, it’s better long-term to use a process-oriented approach, because of luck or the lack thereof in life (this is where poker really shines, right?) Sometimes things turn out unexpectedly, and it’s not always the fault of your process; so becoming blind to outcomes can lead to a happier life. Good processes average out to good outcomes, over time, even though sometimes you just lose. The road to mastery in chess, poker, and life is riddled with thousands of losses on the way to the win, so Jennifer’s advice is to fail sideways — there are always new things to be learned from our failures, and the risk we take by not taking risks is greater than if we do the cold plunge and try hard — no one becomes a champion at life or anything else by not taking risk.

Thinking Sideways is a book with good (and familiar, head-nod evoking) advice, but with some unique anecdotes thanks to the crossways of chess and poker and the people Jennifer has met on the way thus far. Chess and/or poker players will almost all immediately understand the similarities between the games and the life advice, and may be reminded to take some of that wisdom to the table or away from it; non-chess players will learn a thing or two about the meta-game of chess and how to take the skills they’ve learned in other domains and apply it to their own lives. It’s also quite approachable, and can be read in a couple of days, so if you’ve not read something like this before, or you’re at all curious, consider picking it up. I think you’ll find thought-provoking advice inside that’ll make you wonder how you can switch your own thinking patterns for the win.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6

The Philidor Defense. Morphy often chose 2…d6 once he reached England. It’s interesting to see how the theory of the day wasn’t quite sure if 2…Nc6 was a better choice here; and in fact it wasn’t established in America that the Ruy Lopez was any better than the Italian game.

3.d4 f5!?

The “Philidor countergambit”. The original idea by Philidor, who always advocated the advancement of the f-pawn and development of pieces behind the pawns in general. Nowadays this idea is known to be bad in this particular position, but in Morphy’s day, it hadn’t been refuted yet.

4.dxe5 fxe4 5.Ng5 d5 6.e6 Bc5 7.Nf7?! Qf6 8.Be3 d4? 9.Bg5!

Black’s transformed the f-pawn into a huge central pawn on e4, but the position is clearly better for White, thanks to healthy structure, safer king position, and no weaknesses.

9…Qf5 10.Nxh8?

Barnes’s greed gets the better of him with this impatient move that loses control of the g5 square. 10.Bc4 solidifies the position and prepares eventual castling, and Black isn’t able to get out of trouble. For instance, 10…h6 11.g4! Qh7 12.Bh4, and White has a severe bind that Black can’t escape.

10…Qxg5 11.Bc4 Nc6 12.Nf7?

Castling was much stronger.

12…Qxg2! 13.Rf1 Nf6

Black’s continual development around White’s army is striking and sound.

14.f3??

Fatally opening the second rank for Morphy’s pieces to continue coordination.

14…Nb4!

Nxc2+ is threatened, winning the queen.

15.Na3

15…Bxe6!!

A doubly-poisonous sacrifice. Firstly, Bxf7 is threatened. Secondly…

16.Bxe6 Nd3+!!

The second sacrifice, clearing the b4-square for the bishop, which spells doom for White’s king.

17.Qxd3

17.cxd3? Bb4+ 18.Qd2 Qxd2#

17…exd3 18.O-O Bxa3 19.Bb3 d2+ 20.Kb1 Bc5 21.Ne5 Kf8 22.Nd3

22…Re8!!

Morphy’s third piece sacrifice.

23.Nxc5

23…Qxf1!!

Morphy’s fourth sacrifice, and White’s back rank is exhausted of all defense. White cannot take the queen due to Re1+ with mate the next move.

24.Ne6+ Rxe6

0-1 Barnes resigns.

Everyone knows Paul Morphy; Johann Wilhelm Schulten was a contemporary master who Morphy met and bested in many off-hand games in New York around the time of the 1857 chess congress in New York.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4

Morphy’s chosen his favorite opening: The Evans Gambit. In exchange for this b-pawn, White gets a lead in development, open lines, big center, and chances to develop a kingside initiative.

4…Bxb4 5.c3 Bc5 6.O-O d6 7.d4 exd4 8.cxd4 Bb6

A position that is exemplary of the Evan’s Gambit when Black follows a solid plan. White has some center initiative in the future plan of playing e4-e5; the queenside pieces can quickly come to life, with moves like Nc3, Be3, Bg5, Bb2, Re1, etc. A satisfactory outcome for both sides of the board.

9.Nc3

Morphy’s move, favoring development over space; 9.d5 is the main alternative but doesn’t have much bite. Nowadays, the move 9.h3 is played in master play; despite having no real special point to it, it scores very well for White according to the Lichess Master’s database.

9…Bg4 10.Bb5!

Morphy now threatens d4-d5 under better circumstances.

10…Bxf3?!

Schulten eschews 10…Bd7, not wanting to reverse any of his development at all. However, this was a much more solid idea.

11.gxf3!

Morphy maintains his threat!

11…Kf8

More or less forced in light of the threat d4-d5. White has won the battle of the opening. Black has lost castling rights, his kingside rook has some problems, and despite the airiness of White’s king position, Black has no way to capitalize on it.

12.Be3 Nce7 13.Kh1 c6 14.Ba4 d5

Black’s development problems notwithstanding, Schulten is doing a good job trying to get his position under control.

15.Rb1

I find this move just a bit curious. Perhaps it is prophylaxis by Morphy? Otherwise it is simple development. I think that at first glance I would prefer the move 15.e5, with more pressure on the kingside. However, Black does get a little counterplay afterward with 15…Nf5, slightly more active.

15…Rb8 16.Qd3 Bc7 17.Rg1 Ng6 18.e5!

Morphy’s position continues to pick up steam as his takes over more control of Black’s territory. Now that the move Nf5 isn’t a threat, this move comes unimpeachable.

18…Qh4?

“Before we can attack, we must first develop. Schulten does not this rule; Morphy, in contrast, applies the rule to him.” - Geza Maroczy. The flashing red lights hover over Black’s undeveloped kingside.

19.Bg5!

Improving a piece with tempo. Nowadays a classical idea, but Morphy was perhaps the greatest exponent of this positional principle in the romantic era of the late 1850s.

19…Qh3 20.Ne2

Improving another piece that had become poorly placed over the course of the game.

20…f6

Schulten continues to fight back.

21.Nf4 Nxf4 22.Bxf4 g5??

Black is entirely lost here after this pointless pawn push; 22…Ne7 had to be played.

23.Qa3+! Ke8 24.Rxb7!!

Winning a piece.

24…Rxb7 25.Bxc6+ Kf7 26.Bxd5

Morphy delays gratification and wins some more tempi and material at the same time.

26…Kg6 27.Qf8!

A high-class and constricting attacking move.

27…Qd7 28.Bxb7 Bd8

Black throws a jab at the bishop on b7; it’s the last threat Schulten gets to make.

29.exf6 Bxf6 (29…Qxb7? 30.Rxg5)

30.Be4+ Kh5 31.Be3 h6 32.Rg3! Bg7

33.Qf7!!+ Qxf7 34.Rh3# 1-0

Chef’s kiss of a checkmate position.

Antipositional - “a move or plan that is not in accordance with the principles of positional play.” - Wikipedia

This post is kind of off the cuff, but I played a tournament game tonight and wanted to talk about amoments in the game where I had to think really deeply and came up with a counter-intuitive idea.

Here’s the position:

The time control is 60+15, and we are well into the middlegame on move 20. White has just played an intermezzo with the move 19.Nc5, prompting Black’s 19…Qc7. Now, Black is seeking simplifications in order to free their cramped position (a typical plan to when one has a space disadvantage). In this position I had to think of how to continue the game. The following moves were what I considered here:

• 20.h4. After 20…Bxg5 21.hxg5, White still stands better, and this pawn maintains control over the f6 square, making Black’s kingside position even more uncomfortable. However, I didn’t like the idea of leaving my backwards d4-pawn under the care of a rook if at all possible.

• 20.f4. The idea is similar to the h4 move, but the added downside of a weaker kingside and possibility of the d4-pawn being taken with check by the enemy queen.

• 20.Bf4. A move that I didn’t like because in some lines, I wanted to play f4, which well can’t be played when a bishop occupies the square.

• 20.Bd2. This felt a little ambiguous to me because it doesn’t do anything, and Black is soon to kick the knight off the c5 square, at which point d7 becomes available to the black queen to apply pressure; and it didn’t seem right to me to plant the bishop on c3 instead.

• 20.Be3. This is the move I spent the most time calculating, because Black has the obvious follow-up 20.Nd5, simply threatening to capture the bishop, making me either move it again or give up the bishop pair. I had to think for a long time, because the structure on e3 didn’t seem to have any play in it at all, and in fact Black could get a really annoying configuration with a bishop on e4, simply raking my king’s lofty position. I hadn’t really considered Qxe3, because in my mind I wanted the queen on e2 to threaten h4-h5 at all times.

I spent about 11 minutes on this position and ended up going with 20.Be3(!?), because I found an alternative idea that didn’t involve getting rid of my f-pawn. In fact, I don’t think it’s any better than any of the other moves, but I wonder if it caught my opponent off-guard as much as it did me, because of how anti-positional it was.

As calculated, my opponent played 20…Nd5. I quickly replied with the slowly-calculated 21.Bxd5!?, trading off the bishop pair… but on my own terms.

This second anti-positional move had a strange impression on me when I first considered the idea, but I decided to go for it because:

1. Black cannot capture with the c-pawn: 21…cxd5 22.Nxe6! wins a pawn and an exchange at the very least, and

2. The capture with the e-pawn removes Black’s control of the f5 square, meaning f2-f4-f5 becomes a very serious threat.

Yes, technically I have just made a bunch of effort to not trade my opponent’s “good bishop” for my “bad bishop”; and instead I have given up an extremely important defender of my king’s position while my opponent’s bishop of the same color is “unopposed” and can therefore dream of controlling all the light-square holes on White’s kingside. But I felt that this was a good plan to try for — the enemy bishop is pointed the wrong way and stands in the way of its own pawns. It cost me 11 minutes and most of my clock advantage at this point in the game, but I ended up winning later down the road.

This ended up being the halfway point of the game, and while the result went well for me, this probably has more to do with my opponent not finding the right plan to defend than the strength of my plan. My opponent missed an idea that would have stopped my attacking plan in its tracks; but it was a difficult position and the necessary move itself would have been quite anti-positional, and therefore hard to notice:

White has meandered with some knight maneuvers and undutifully slowed the attack, and now Black has a way to shut it down permanently. My opponent played 25…Bh4? continuing to seek piece trades after having missed this opportunity a few times. I responded with the move 26.f5! and from here Black’s position deteriorated; White’s pressure on the kingside is overwhelming.

Instead of allowing White to play f5, Black could have played it themselves with 25…f5!

Such a position might leave a slightly strange impression at first, but White would have a lot of difficulty here, because the f-pawn maneuver allows Black to reposition the bishop to a better diagonal via the sequence Bg6-f7-e6:

Now Black has managed gain control over the f5 square again, and White’s attack has been turned against them. This would be a difficult position for White to defend.

As it was, I got away with a nice win by avoiding trading off my bad bishop and instead trading off my good bishop, which I thought was kind of neat, it also feels like another sign of maturing as a player for me, because I have always considered myself to have Janowski Syndrome when it comes to giving up the bishop pair (which is to say, I don’t really like doing it, and especially not when it’s my kingside fianchetto bishop).

But, sometimes an anti-positional move (or two) can be good for your position.

Thank you to Jared @ Tall Pawn Productions for the review copies.

Chessagram, Vol. 1, brings a novel approach to the chess puzzle book formula: Give the student the moves, but out of order. Their task is to find the correct sequence of moves.

Move order sequences in tactical situations are one of the most common things even grandmasters get wrong, and so it makes sense to look at each candidate move in turn, turn the sequences in your head until you find the best continuation, and then execute on it. This is a skill that players grow in time, but it’s one aspect of tactics that I think must be deliberately practiced in order to really improve.

Vol. 1 sources its puzzles from Lichess; I suspect the ratings also come from Lichess. I can safely say this is a book squarely for beginners. If you can solve 800-1200 level puzzles on Lichess on the fly, you’re likely too strong for this book and should look for future volumes instead. If you’re a teacher, this might be a decent pick-up for your beginner-level students.

What I like about the book is its simplicity: 1 puzzle per page, sorted from 800 to 1200 rating. The top half of each page is the puzzle; the bottom half has the moves and then five bubbles where the player can write them down in the correct order. White always moves first. Solutions are in the back. It’s a nicely-sized workbook, and with only 125 puzzles in it, should not overstay its welcome regardless.

While it seems strange to give someone the answers to a position right away, I’m not convinced it’s such a bad idea. This book may serve as a good introduction to the beginner on how to figure out the move order. My suggestion for readers:

1. Use an index card to cover the moves, and try to solve the puzzle on your own. Once you’ve figured out your moves, you can look at the moves and probably see that you got the order correctly.

2. If you’re having a hard time with the puzzle, look at the moves in the answer. Which moves did you miss? Which moves did you want to play, but you got them out of order?

I think this is the best way to get the most help out of the book; having the moves to fall back on is a nice touch. But ultimately study the book the way you find the most enjoyable.

One critique I have, though this may not even be applicable given the skill range of player this book is targeted toward, is that for many of the puzzles, after one finds the first and or second move for White, Black’s moves are virtually superfluous and don’t matter anymore — the win is obvious for White. In an online tactics trainer (such as on Lichess) this is not a problem because the trainer will make the opponent’s moves for you. But if you’re trying to solve positions without looking at the moves first, you’ll probably find that even on White’s second move, Black is completely lost; so some of these five-ply puzzles are essentially three-ply; Black’s follow-up is usually the best of a bunch of bad options. Because of this, I feel like these puzzles may have been chosen at somewhat random rather than for their instructive value; the method is more interesting than the puzzles.

Secondly, though it can be a frustrating experience for new players, I think that being able to solve a position in which Black is to move and win, and to do so from the perspective of White, is actually very good visualization practice. If this book had some positions where Black was to play and win, I think it would be strictly better in the long run. However, it suits the nature of a first volume to be beginner oriented, so I understand if this was not the priority for this. For future volumes, I think this would be an important next step.

Chessagram Vol. 1 is trying to do something a little different. The execution is a little uneven, and I think that the puzzles could use the deft hand of a chess coach’s curation, but it at least shows some promise. In my opinion, one’s mileage with the Chessagram Method will vary, but it’s worth a try if you’re looking for a more guided puzzling experience that may also teach you the important tactical skill of switching up move orders.

3.5/5

I much prefer Capablanca and Morphy. Alekhine had a rather heavy style, Capablanca was much more brilliant and talented, he had a real light touch. - Bobby Fischer

Jose Raul Capablanca was the third official World Champion of chess, reigning from 1921 to 1927, after defeating Lasker in a title match (though Lasker oddly conceded the title to Capablanca and insisted he was the challenger to the Cuban). While he was only the king for 6 years, while alive Capa managed to remain in the top class of chess players from his international tournament debut in 1911 until shortly before his untimely death in 1942. Unlike Lasker his predecessor, Capablanca is not only renowned for his skill, but is universally in the conversation by most players for one of the greatest of all time — he remains very popular as a player to study today. Why?

Capablanca’s Style

• “Classical”: Scare quotes intended. Capablanca (and possibly his successor Alekhine) represent the peak of the so-called Classical School of chess. This idealized view of chess history presents the “Classical” or “Modern” era as the one in which players took Steinitz’s principles and took them to their most logical and strongest conclusions. In reality, like most players, Capablanca was trying to play the best moves he could find; but his chosen openings and play usually tended towards the tried-and-true methods of central control and rapid piece development, and like Alekhine, Capablanca was both a skeptic and an eclectic when it came to the “hypermoderns” who criticized and praised Steinitz and his followers.

• Positional: A player like Capablanca could not become World Champion without having an extremely sharp tactical acumen; however Capablanca’s games show a predilection toward intuitive positional plans. Where this is most evident is in the very, very many strategic endgames (and/or queenless middle games) Capa would enter and then outplay his opponents. Where Capablanca felt a little lackluster in opening theory, he more than made up for with his middlegame and endgame play. Capablanca’s play has an intuitive, buttery-smooth feel; it’s like he knows exactly where every piece needs to go, every single time.

• une petite combinaison: Capablanca’s positional games often feature short tactical sequences that he referred to as “petite combinaison”. These 2-3 move sequences weren’t crazy combinations, but rather little tactical threats that he could use to get further positional superiority in middlegames or to transpose to a favorable endgame. This was one of his bread-and-butter resources which you can find many examples of.

  

• Strategic Endgame Master: For his time, Capablanca was unrivaled in his ability to play strategic endgames. Capablanca would trade off a few pieces, usually including the queens, and then, from a technically equal position, proceed to generate plans like clockwork, find a winning plan, and like the sports company slogan goes, just do it. It’s shockingly uncanny how often Capa could win by sheer will in these kinds of positions. Today, Capablanca is considered one of the greatest endgame players of all time; perhaps Magnus Carlsen is a bit better, but Capablanca did it first, and in such a legendary way as to make him an all-time-great who will always be in the Endgame GOAT conversation. Besides this, Capablanca’s games are the more instructive for most players, because his ideas were so elegant and clear:

  

  In this example, Capa’s plan is extremely deep: 10…Bd7!? 11.Be2 11…e6!

  

  This is a strange sequence if you understand the classical principles of piece development — why spend so much time bringing your bishop back inside the pawn chain? But Capablanca pays very close attention to the intricacies of the position and begins to take the b5-square under his control. When Capa finally plays this move 6 moves later, he is able to secure the bishop pair and play for a win, having fixed his structure and pressing an advantage on the queenside:

  

  Capa’s endgames are loaded with clever ideas like this. Most of his competition couldn’t keep up, which makes Capa’s endgames some of the most instructive of all time.

• Defense: Partly due to his lackluster opening prep, Capablanca had to be an incredible defender to get out of his self-made problems. Despite being quite an intuitive player who could uncork sharp attacks, Capa did his best calculation on his back foot. This is something better shown than told:

Capablanca’s Opening Repertoire

As White: Ruy Lopez, Queen’s Gambit

Like Lasker before him, Capa’s skills lay in different parts of the game than the opening. Nevertheless he does have many opening variations named after him, because he so often found solutions to problems over the board.

• Capablanca usually went with 1.d4. In fact, his World Championship match against Alekhine is infamous for being almost entirely composed of Queen’s Gambit games. The position they most often essayed against one another (with both siders!) was this, after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Nf3 Nbd7 6.e3 O-O:

Capa got all sorts of variations named after him, despite his reputation as a player who avoided studying openings deeply. For instance:

• Capablanca would also employ the Ruy Lopez on a fairly regular basis. As Capablanca was not an opening innovator, he would continue with the mainline after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3

One particularly variation was debuted against Capablanca in the Ruy Lopez: The Marshall Attack, after 7…O-O 8.c3 d5!

Capablanca’s refutation of Marshall’s variation stood for a long time and the change in assessment of this position from a win for White to a sharp draw would not come until many decades later.

As Black: Modern Steinitz Defense, French Defense, Caro-Kann, Queen’s Gambit Declined, Nimzo/Queen’s Indian Defenses.

• Capablanca enjoyed the Modern version of the Steinitz Defense, with the typical plans of Bd7, g6, and Bg7;

• Sometimes he would try the so-called Siesta variation after 5.c3 f5

• Capablanca also occasionally essayed the French Defense. He most often used the McCutcheon Defense which is 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4

• Capa also sometimes used the Caro-Kann Defense, sticking with the “main line” in cases of 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4.

  

  His most famous victory in it was probably against Nimzowitsch, who was trying to play the Advance variation. This game possibly led to the Caro Advance having a poor reputation for White for a while; Capablanca’s dismantlement of Nimzowitsch’s ideas prove to be quite impressive:

• Capablanca played many defenses in the Queen’s Gambit Declined. One such was called the “Capablanca System”, though it didn’t score particularly well for him (On the ChessTempo database, Capablanca scored 1/2-1/2 7 times in this line, and 50% with Black isn’t good for Capa!)

• Capa, especially later in his career, would begin to employ the more sound defensive hypermodern openings, such as the Nimzo-Indian Defense after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4

• Capa also used, and scored well with, the Queen’s Indian Defense, the Nimzo-Indian’s theoretical cousin after 3.Nf3 b6

Capablanca’s Weaknesses

• Lazy genius (mediocre opening prep): Capablanca is known for being a natural-born genius whose incredible talent compensated for his poor opening preparation. Capablanca got caught off guard all the time in openings, and yet in most cases was able to extricate himself from dire straits and convert those games into wins. In other words, don’t go to Capa for the opening; go to Capa for what he does after the opening!

• Too “classical” (e.g. sometimes boring to watch): Although in later years, Capablanca began to accept some tenets of the hypermodern school, he was too dismissive of them: “The fact is that the Hypermodern Theory is merely the application, during the opening stages generally, of the same old principles through the medium of somewhat new tactics”, he quips in his book Chess Fundamentals. To my eyes, Capablanca’s games are often elegant and occasionally strikingly… boring, because of how “correct” his play style is, because he was not an experimentalist.

Conversations: What are YOUR thoughts about Capablanca?

Capablanca Resources

There is no shortage of good resources on Capablanca, including this video by GM Ben Finegold. Besides this video, I heartily recommend the below books if you’re looking for more Capablanca; but besides that there are thousands of probably-good resources out there on the web.

Recommended Reading & Book Reviews

Fabi steamrolled his opponent Andrey Esipenko in the final round with an extremely smooth Najdorf, complete with a rook sacrifice on c3.

Ain’t it buttery smooth?

Bluebaum - Giri

Much like Fabi, Giri got a nice win with the black pieces, thanks to Bluebaum castling into a very dangerous attack on the queenside. To me this choice was inexplicable, but Giri’s handling of the position was very nice.

Vaishali - Lagno

We got to see a Sicilian Dragon as Lagno tried to play with a win for Black. If Lagno were to win, she could potentially spoil Vaishali’s chances to win, and possibly be part of a five-way draw for first to force tiebreaks. Something happened which I think many players on either side of a Dragon have experienced before.

White has just played Bc4. The bishop is obviously verboten due to dxc4?? Qxd8! Rxd8 Rxd8+ and Black down the exchange with back rank problems. On move 11, Kateryna spent about 30 minutes thinking of what to do, because White is threatening to chop on d5 and win a pawn. I think there is really only one option to prevent this: 11…e6; the other idea would be to go very active with Rb8, sacrificing a pawn in the process. The problem with e6 is psychological — Black would usually want their bishop to have access to e6 and not block it in with this pawn; it takes more time to get this bishop via the move a5 and Ba6, or Black could play Bb7, which would give it a strange impression. In any case, neither of these options were to Lagno’s liking, and she finally chose her next move:

11...Be6?!

Losing a pawn in the process, with no real compensation for it. Vaishali went on to win and run away with victory, making her the sole leader in the tournament; which means Vaishali is the next challenger for the women’s world champion title and will face five-time champion Ju Wenjun later this year.

Divya - Assaubayeva

Bibisara was the Vaishali’s co-leader, but she got lucky and escaped from an impending loss against Divya.

25…Nxf2??

A faulty combination, based on the threat of Rxd1 followed by a threat on the queen. Divya found the critical intermezzo:

26.Rd7!

The rook moves to a protected square and threatens Black’s queen and the b7-bishop at the same time.

26…Qf6 27.Rxb7?

Low in time, Divya misses the critical continuation, and it’s just back to equality. Instead, 27.Nd6! was necessary — but it’s hard to find this in the middle of a game that isn’t close to ending. 27…Bxg2 28.Ndf7! Kg8 (28…Rxf7 29.Rxf7 Qxe5 30.Rf8+! Bxf8 31.Qxe5+) 29.Nh6+ Kh8 30.Nef7+ Rxf7+ 31.Nxf7+ Kg8 32.Kxg2; the dust is settling and White is up a piece and completely winning. There are other winning continuations but this is the most straightforward one to me.

Back to the game; after 27.Rxb7??

Bibisara is now able to survive, thanks to a perpetual that saves a half point from a desperate position: 27…Qxe5 28.Qxe5 Bxe5 29.Nc7 Ng4 30.Nxe6 Rf6 31.Ng5

White’s king is subjected to a torrent of checks to end the game by threefold repetition:

31…Bd4+ 32.Kh1 Nf2+ 33.Kh2 Ng4+ 34.Kh1 Nf2+ 35.Kh2 Ng4 36.Kh1 Nf2+ 1/2-1/2

That’s it — the end of the tournaments.

Sindarov won with 10 and never lost a game. It was a disappointing few weeks for the Fabi fans, myself included; but I’ve really enjoyed looking at all the games and am sure that the upcoming World Championship match against Gukesh will be amazing to watch.

Vaishali won with 8.5, barely edging out Bibisara by just a half-point. Vaishali felt like a bit of an underdog with a slow start to the tournament as well as being the tournament’s lowest rated player, but her grit and tactical prowess was extremely impressive, and her errors were compensated for with play that transcended that of her opponents; all-in-all a worthy challenger to Ju Wenjun’s throne.

If you made it through all 14 posts (or even if you read just this one), thank you for reading. And I’ll see you guys at the World and Women’s World Championships. (metaphorically, of course).

Giri - Sindarov

First, off; Sindarov played a virtually perfect game as Black to draw Giri for the final half-point he needed to secure the Candidate’s Tournament with a round to spare. From this point on, everybody is playing for second place.

Wei - Esipenko

This game featured a really interesting tactic that could have kept the balance, but the fact that it was delayed by one move meant completely changed the evaluation.

Black is in good shape: castled position, safer king, nice outpost for the knight on e4. Well, it was a nice outpost, but it was just threatened with the move f3.

18…Rac8!?

An interesting piece sacrifice with a tactical point. 19.fxe4? fxe4! wins back a piece with a power attack. Because of this, Esipenko uses this time to put a rook on a good square.

19.h4!

Wei spots the tactic and creates luft for his king.

19…Ndc5?

A second sacrifice, but one that Esipenko should have played one move earlier.

Let’s look at that real quick:

Here Black is fine in all lines, but following a line analogous to game continuation with the move h4 shows us the importance of the move orders:

19.h4 Nxd3 20.Qxd3 and now Black can trade on d2 and is fine in every line.

Back to the game:

Because White was given time to play h4, the following faulty combination by Black leaves Wei up a piece:

20.dxc5 Qxc5 21.Kh2 Qf2 22.Kh3 Qd4 23.Bxe4 fxe4 24.Bg3

It’s incredible what a single tempo (giving White the chance to play h4!) does, and how it can make or break a tactical combination. While Black is still the one attacking, the piece sacrifice is close to running out of steam, and the compensation is lacking. Wei would go on to win a slightly touch-and-go game.

Caruana - Praggnanandhaa

This endgame ended up being a near-miss. Fabi enjoyed an advantage all game, and was able to achieve this position. The material imbalance creates a very sticky strategical situation for both sides. It’s not an easy win — even though Fabi is up an extra point of material, Black has significant counterplay thanks to his centralized passed pawn duo. Additionally, the g3-pawn is a major problem for white, as soon also will be the g2-pawn. Both players burned most of their time to get to this position, so there isn’t a lot of time to think. There is one more move before they reach the time control.

40.Qxe6

In exchange for thirty extra minutes, Fabi has lost the tempo needed to play for a win. After 40.a4! White is threatening Qb5, followed by Qxb6. While the likely outcome would probably still be a draw, White would have cleared the way for his a-pawn to become a pain in Black’s queenside, and this pawn would roll much more quickly than Black’s central passers.

As it was, Pragg played 40…Rcxg3, and after 41.Rf5+ Kc6 42.Rf2 Kc7 43.Rf7+, the players agreed to a draw, as there was nothing left to play for.

Lagno - Divya

An interesting mutual blunder occurred on the 15.5th and 16th move of the game.

Here Divya played the move 15…Be5, making a threat on the b-pawn. Lagno decided to defend it with 16.Qb3, but she had a much better idea available:

16.f4!

But doesn’t this just encourage the bishop to take on b2, which was the idea in the first place? Sure; but White wins a piece after 16…Bxb2 17.Ra2!

and after 16…Bd6, White has 17.c5!, also winning a piece

The spiteful counter threat Bf5 amounts to nothing in either case, because White can simply slide the queen to d2 or b3 while maintaining the unstoppable piece-winning threat.

In any case, Lagno eventually won this game by keeping up the tactical pressure.

Zhu - Goryachkina

This game featured a fascinating blunder by Zhu, but the follow-up by Goryachkina was a nice prophylaxis:

Black’s pawn-minus is counterbalanced by the very advanced a-pawn and the very weak White King position. Black has created a really powerful threat of Qh2+, and White has a few ways to respond. For instance 51.Kg2 bluntly prevents this check directly. Also, the move 51.Ne5 cannot be impeached. Alas, Zhu blocked the queen with a different piece:

51.Re5??

When you thought about this position, what did you think Black should play? Goryachkina very quickly chose a brilliant “waiting” move.

51…Kh8!!

The whole point is to prevent the move c4-c5 from coming with check. Despite the Black king being so far displaced from the attack in question, its sally to h8 is the inaugural battlecry of Black’s position.

52.Ke3?

52.Kg2 was still preferable

52…Bd7 53.Re4

Making room for a defending move; this move underscores why the earlier move to e5 was such a terrible blunder.

53…Bxc6!

More brutal prophylaxis. Black prevents the move Ne5, which would defend the f-pawn.

54.bxc6 Qg3 55.Qf2 Qxg6 56.d5 Qf6 57.Qe2 a2 0-1

White’s queen is overloaded and must give up her rook to stop the pawn (58.Qxa2 Qc3+! 59.Ke2 Qxf3+ 60.Kd2 Qxe4) , so she resigned.

Sindarov becomes the new world champion challenger with a round to spare; but it’s still up in the air for the Women. Bibisara and Vaishali lead with 7.5 each, but Zhu is behind by only a half-point. Muzychuk, Goryachkina, and Lagno could also possibly tie for first. There could be a five-way tie for first place tomorrow. Stranger things have happened, you know.

This was a bummer for Giri. He had a slight edge in the opening and middlegame, at at some point was completely winning in the endgame, but, low on time, could not find the winning continuation. Credit to Wei for defending so well in a worse position (one standout feature of his games this tournament).

Muzychuk - Goryachkina

Rook endgames are cruel — even when you’re the only one with the rook.

Here Black is completely lost. White can win both of the pawns, because her rook is positioned to attack the pawns from behind or check the king from the side. After Kg4, Black can resign. However, Muzychuk chose 65.Ra2??, and Goryachkina’s 65…Kh3! underscored the importance of keeping that square under control.

Now, White can’t ever get the king separated from the pawns in a way that she can capture both; Black has time and sufficient cover by pawns to keep the game drawn. White also can’t keep the rook on the second rank because of stalemate. The game continued 66.Ra3 Kh2 67.Kg4 g2 68.Rh3+ Kg1 69.Kxh4 Kf2 70.Rh2 Kf3

White has only one move that stops this pawn from promoting. 71.Rxg2 Kxg2 1/2-1/2

Vaishali - Zhu

I think this game’s story is about Black’s d-pawn.

We’ve got a more-or-less typical Caro-Kann where White chose to recapture a bishop on d3 with a pawn rather than queen. On move 12, Black has played Qc8, seeking play on the queenside (perhaps Qa6 threatening Qxd3; or otherwise supporting the c-pawn). Vaishali chose to change the structure with 13.dxc5!?; after 13…bxc5 14.Qa4 Qb7 15.O-O O-O:

I think the position looks comfortable for Black, because of the queenside pawn presence, the semi-open b-file, and a more solid position. However, White has some annoying plans on the kingside because of the expanded pawn on h5; and in general, her attack would come first if black ever castled, because her pieces are closer to the black kingside. Accordingly, Zhu forewent castling this game, and a few moves later it was black to move here:

White has some development issues, but this isn’t exclusive; Black’s king in the center, while safe, also stands in the way of the b8-rook, which would certainly like to find a place on the g-file and barrel its cannons towards the enemy white king. But Zhu has some initiative on the queenside and decides to go for it

22…c4!?

This move makes some sense, because in some cases it can lead to a passed pawn for Black; however, it requires White’s compliance. White could play Qh2, giving a threat to the h6 pawn which is short a defender; Nh4 also makes some sense, to induce a trade of Black’s good bishop or move the rook away from the defense of the h-pawn.

Vaishali took with 23.bxc4. After 23…dxc4 Black now has a significant queenside initiative, and this pawn is well-placed to cause problems, as it dominates the c1-knight and requires blockaders to stop its impending advance. White isn’t lost, but Blake has the more comfortable game for sure.

Later down the road, we see this old d-turned-c-pawn make its way to the b-file too:

Black has made progress on both sides of the board; the situation in terms of center is mostly closed up, and White has tried to cause a problem on the kingside where Black’s King was a little exposed; but now she’s forcing the issue on the queenside with this kick against the rook. Zhu replied:

34…Rb3 35.Rxb3 cxb3

This pawn is becoming more dangerous by the second. Vaishali attacks it directly:

36.Nc1??

However, there’s a tactical problem with this move:

36..h3!

Now White’s kingside is under serious attack.

37.Nxb3

The d-to-c-to-b-pawn has served its purpose and is sacrificed for the greater good. It’s fascinating how Zhu’s pressure on the queenside leads to victory on the kingside.

If White now tries to take this pawn, Black moves in for the kill with 37.Qxh3? Nf4!, and the g2-pawn is falling. Next, Black can maneuver the queen via the newly vacated e4-square, and due to White’s loosely positioned pieces, devastating material losses and/or checkmate will eventually come.

37…hxg2+ 38.Kh2 g1=Q+ 39.Nxg1 Nc3 0-1

Black wins. Qg2# is threatened, and so is Nxb1. Vaishali resigned, and this brings Zhu back into shared first-place with her with 7 points.

Divya - Tan

After an interesting opening phase, the middlegame entered a protracted maneuvering phase in a closed position where White had a weak e-pawn that would eventually tell. Tan’s handling of this phase of the game was elegant and her attack would eventually crash through.

Assaubayeva - Lagno

Bibisara escaped from a dangerous situation against Kateryna, and was able to turn around a lost game into a win in a very sharp way.

Already here, White had lost her advantage, and Black was within range of a draw, but it required the calculation of the move 40…g6, which is a difficult move to make when an enemy queen is ready to take control of the two ranks your king is going to be at and you’ve only got a couple minutes on the dial. Kateryna chose 40…Kg8 instead, and eventually faced heavy material loss and an impending mate.

There was a nice tactical sequence by the Women’s Candidates tournament leader who extended her lead by another win over the field today.

Black is more comfortable in this position, thanks to her better pawn structure; but otherwise the material balance and mutual potential passed pawns (White’s a-pawn, Black’s c-pawn) means that this position should be holdable for White, provided she finds the right plan. Her first priority should be freeing her rook.

30.Bc4??

A typical idea that has some strategic merit; trade off the bishop that could control the a8-promotion square for the potential passed pawn. It also aims to get rid of Black’s potential passed pawn on c5. But there’s a tactical problem with it, and Vaishali spots it very quickly.

30…Bc6!

31.Rxc5 b6

And now it’s clear why Bc4 was so bad: it blocks the rook’s path to safety. Goryachkina was forced to sacrifice the exchange with 32.Rxc6, and Vaishali won the ensuing endgame.

He can’t keep getting away with it…

What a fascinating position. Sindarov has a massive three-passed pawn majority on the kingside, but the structure isn’t particularly helpful as of right now. Pragg has a bishop for his two missing pawns, and it is unopposed, though not yet developed. One can imagine its sphere of influence gaining if the move Bc8-c6 were possible, but alas it is not, and must be made in a two move maneuver.

22…Bd7?? Pragg played in twenty seconds.

Sindarov spent about 9 minutes longer, and played 23.Rf7! in response, having spotted a successive series of double attacks that wins the game. Pragg had little choice: 23…Qxf7 24.Rxf7 Kxf7 25.Qf4!

The first deadly double attack. Black must defend the rook.

25…Kg7 26.Qg5+

Another double-attack. The rook is hanging so the king sticks close by.

26…Kh7 27.Qe7+!

The final double attack. White will pick up the bishop, and use the superior mobility of the queen and the exposed position of Black’s king and rooks to guide all of the passed pawns forward to victory. This was only the half-way point of the game; Pragg did not resign until move 53.

Divya - Goryachkina

In a minor piece endgame that was being held strong by both sides, Divya finally faltered on the 56th move of the game.

The position has a couple imbalances worth pointing out: The knight vs bishop, the pawns aret 2-on-1 on the queenside and 2-on-3 on the kingside. One pawn is passed, but Black has stopped its advance, making the knight on c4 feel a bit frozen in place. All in all everything is held in equilibrium. I think Black has a slightly more comfortable game, because bishops are usually better than knights when there are pawns on both sides of the board; but this position is a draw; it’s hard to imagine either side making more progress without the position breaking down with captures.

56.g3?

By making contact with Black’s position first, White is allowing Black to create a passed pawn in a more advantageous circumstance. Instead, 56.h4! kept the game going, as after 56…gxh4 Black has no hope of creating a passed pawn.

56…fxg3+ 57.Kxg3

57…Bb3?

Missing an opportunity to threaten the creation of the passed pawn with 57…h5! However, Divya was painfully low on time.

58.Nb2??

Missing Ne5+ followed by h4, successfully breaking up Black’s last resource in her connected pawns.

After Goryachkina played 58…h5, White’s position was finally doomed and Aleksandra was able to pick up a point five moves later after Divya resigned on her own

Assaubayeva - Zhu

Zhu had a comfortable position for most of the middlegame, having saddled White with an IQP that could never advance. But in a series of strange events and very slight inaccuracies, Bibisara was able to create a passed pawn on the queenside, and then another, as Black’s position became more tangled. As soon as the passers were on the board, the game became extremely sharp, and Bibisara eventually picked up a full point thanks to an extra queen. GIF:

Giri got the better of Caruana in a rather heartbreaking ending for the American.

Black has just played 37…c5, potentially freeing up White’s position for some counterplay. After 38.dxc6, White is able to put pressure on the d6 pawn. However, Caruana chose 38.Kg3, and it’s not really clear to me why this move was chosen, though I suspect he was trying to support the e4-pawn. In any case, Giri’s dismantling of the position thereafter is extremely instructive.

38…Qa7! hit the knight on a1 with tempo, so White now has to further discoordinate his army.

39.Qb1 h5! Giri continues to flush the king out away from all protections

40.Kf3 h4 41.Kg4 Qe7

Fabi’s attempt to attack the h4-pawn is failing.

42.Qd3??

42…f5+! 43.exf5 Kh6!

White resigns due to the following:

• 44.e4 Bh5#

• 44..fxg6 e4 loses the queen due to Qe5+ and/or Qg5#

• 44.Kf3 (evading Qg5+ and Bh5) e4+ 45.Qxe4 Bh5+ loses the queen and White will be mated regardless.

Great win for Giri, who has now arisen as the most likely person to stop Sindarov’s rampage. This really hurts as a Fabi fan, though.

Praggnanandhaa - Wei

Wei put on an absolutely monstrous defense effort from a positionally poor position where it looked like Pragg was definitely going to win. Both sides found great tactics, but Wei’s dogged unwillingness to lose the game was the star. The gif of the game shows how frenetic and frantic things got.

Bluebaum - Sindarov

Here’s another game where a player got away with a near-miss.

Sindarov’s attack was rolling quite powerfully, but a miscalculation ended up costing him half a point in a position where he otherwise probably would have won the way he normally has this entire tournament.

24…Bxa4?

A very unfortunate choice, considering that Sindarov had 55 minutes in this comfortable position and spent a mere 11 seconds allowing this queen trade to allow White to escape the worst with 25.Qxb6!, at which point the endgame was quite drawn.

Tan - Muzychuk

In this game Muzychuk spent most of her time with a nice advantage over Tan, whose main form of counterplay was her clock plus. The timestamp here is 26:11 Tan, 1:50 Muzychuk. And while this is a technical advantage for Black on the board, the choices are not equal nor easy to figure out without time on the buzzer.

38…Kxg5

This is the obvious move, and it feels so unfair that it’s also the one that led to a draw after a subsequent rook trade, as the opposite color-bishop endgame held no potential for Black. Being under time pressure, it makes sense to make the game as least complicated as possible, and so eliminating a potential future problem like this is the more immediate idea. Anna had a chance to create a protected passed pawn with the urgent 38…f5! and avoiding any rook trades, to try to nurse this pawn plus into a full point; but to do this on demand with two minutes on the clock is a task I don’t think any human could figure out.

Zhu - Lagno

Zhu won a very nice endgame against Lagno, being able to go up a pawn and consolidate very handily with some rook maneuvers.

White is playing according to the normal principle of moving the king toward the center. Kateryna goes for a trade.

23…Rxd1? A far better and more natural choice was the simple 23…Rd4. White is still pressing, but Black’s plan to get rid of her only active piece in the game was dubious. Perhaps she feared losing the pawn on c5, but the rook on d1 is hanging with check if such a thing were to occur.

24.Rxd1 a5 25.Rd5

Now it’s clear White is going up a pawn.

25…a4 26.Rxe5 axb3 27.axb3 Rb8

Now Black is threatening to win this pawn.

28.Rg5+! Kh8 29.Rg3

Perfect coordination. Zhu went on to win with a clinical treatment until her opponent’s resignation.

Vaishali - Divya

Vaishali found a nice series of moves to crush Divya in a very oppressive middlegame.

Divya’s knight has found some juicy targets: the c1-rook and b2-bishop. The DSB would be great trade, because then White has no pressure on the g7 square. And of course, an exchange of knight for rook isn’t bad either. However, this idea is tactically flawed, and the shakiness in her position is about to be completely exposed.

23.Rxd3!

Vaishali gives up an exchange on her terms, which includes opening up the long diagonal for her light square bishop further; it also means the destruction of Black’s most active piece in the game, leaving White in the driver’s seat with no hope of rest for Divya.

23…exd3 24.c5!

Already, Black is compelled to give back the rook.

24…Rxc6 25.dxc6

Thanks to the open diagonal, White’s bishop reigns absolutely supreme and the passed pawn on c6 is already cutting Black’s position in half.

25…Bc7 26.Qd7! Qb8

Black can’t accept the queen trade: 26…Qxd7? 27.cxd7 Bd8 28.c6!

The threat is c7, and there’s not much Black can do about it. Even after 28…d2, White can still play 29.c7! Bxc7 30.Rxc7!

White can even allow Black their queen first. 30…d1=Q 31.Bd4! This interference tactic seals the win. Black has no meaningful threats, the d-pawn is going to queen, and escape attempts by Black run into problems on the h-file, the f8-square, and the 7th and 8th ranks.

Back to the game:

27.Be5 Bxe5

28.Rb1!!

Offering a whole rook. Divya cannot accept the gift due to 28…Qxb1?? 29.Qe8#

28…Qf8 29.fxe5 h5 30.Qd6 Qf7 31.Rb7 1-0

Here was an instructive opening moment in this Vienna. It took me a few minutes to think of how I would play here. White has just recaptured on c3 after Black took a knight to mess up the pawn structure. Bluebaum chose 8…Bg4 here. But how would you respond if instead he decided to take the pawn with 8…Nxc3? Leave a comment below with your move(s) and/or idea(s).

Giri - Praggnanandhaa

I find the game of chess unique in that even relatively mundane ideas can still be so aesthetically pleasing.

This is the kind of position you might see in a positional chess handbook because of how Giri plays it. Pragg’s 18…h6 is threatening to take the knight, but Giri finds a nice zwischenzug before retreating: 19.dxc5! Qxc5 20.Nf3

White’s plan is very simple: having just given Black a passed pawn, he’s now going to blockade it permanently and show that it is only a weakling. 20…Nc6 21.Ncd4! Nxd4 22.Nxd4

While this is a rather straightforward idea, the fact that it occurs at the top level tells us that if it’s good enough for a master, it should be good enough for a club player — pay attention. White is obviously for choice: Giri has isolated Black’s central pawn and permanently blocked it, making Pragg’s bishop on b7 a disastrously-placed piece. Additionally, Giri has traded off a redundant piece in his army for one that would otherwise be an important counter-blockader of the e5 pawn. The knight is beautifully placed on d4 as it radiates control of the e6 square, for which the e-pawn is eventually destined. In fact, in this configuration, White controls c6, e6, d6, and f6 — massive control for two short-range pieces especially considering one is a pawn. Fast forward another 13 moves:

Progress has been made, but we see that the knight has held itself on d4, safe from Black’s only bishop, who has struggled to find a target the entire game. To boot, the core of the position (Nd4, Re1, e5) has not changed, but Giri’s position is finally ready to explode in Pragg’s face. The promise of move 22 finally unfolds: 36.e6! Qg6 37.Rf2 Rc4 38.Rf4 h5

White’s pawn, owing to its status as a weakling, pushes around the enemy queen and becomes as strong as a rook on the sixth rank. Giri’s plan is to push it all the way to e7, attack f8, and make Black give up a rook for it. Pragg’s last move shows the desperation of Black’s position, as it does nothing to improve his chances, but there is hardly any way to stop Giri’s plan.

39.Qf2 Bc2 40.e7

White’s position reaches critical mass.

40.Be4 41.Rf8+ Kh7 42.Rxe8 Qxe8 43.Rxe4! dxe4 44.Qf5+ 1-0

Prag has no good moves:

• 44…Kg8 45.Qd5+ Qf7 (or 45…Kh7 46.Qxc5) 46.e8=Q+!;

• 44…Kh6 45.Qe6+;

• 44…Kh8 45.Qf8+;

• 44…Qg6 45.Qxg6+ Kxg6 46.e8=Q+

Nakamura - Caruana

“It’s not so easy to resign. It’s not easy to resign in such a situation. It’s not only a game. It’s a crucial game. And they are rivals... It’s a very painful moment at this part of the tournament.” - Judit Polgar, chess24 live stream

After a toughly-fought middlegame, the Americans found themselves in a double-rook endgame. The saying goes that “all rook endgames are drawn”, but you still have to find the right move.

28…h5??

The only real mistake of the game for Fabi, and it happens to lose. Nakamura played 29.Rd1, securing control of the seventh rank, and Fabi’s position died a slow but sure death.

Black had to play 28…Rab2!, sacrificing the passed pawn on a5 in order to defend the seventh rank: 29.Rxa5 Rb7!

Now White can’t get the “pigs on the seventh”, and the endgame draw is a matter of technique. Alas.

Thus did Giri and Nakamura avenge themselves.

Muzychuk - Divya

Up until now, Muzychuk’s chess has been unimpeachable; but something happened in her game as White against Divya and a severe trend-change exhibited itself in multiple stages in the endgame phase. First, Muzychuk was winning. Then she was drawing. Then she was losing. Divya played with incredible grit and came back to win in a wild queen endgame, which is probably the worst possible endgame to have if you’re low on time, as Muzychuk experienced herself. GIF time:

Lagno - Goryachkina

Kateryna won rather smoothly in a hyper-sharp Scotch where one bad pawn move by Black created critical light-square weaknesses led to the trade of her consequently extremely important light-square bishop. From here White’s bishop pair became increasingly powerful as pieces were traded off until White was left with three passers on both sides of the board and a long-range bishop vs Black’s blockaded passer and short-range knight.

Tan - Zhu

While I myself enjoy the bishop pair immensely, it isn’t always best. In an equal-ish endgame position I found Zhu’s central presence to be quite pleasing to the eye and well-coordinated:

White has a tough trial ahead, because of the connected and passed e6-pawn. Her light square bishop doesn’t seem to do much for the position, and the advanced g- and h-pawns are also looking a bit weak. Her only consolation at the moment is that her rook x-rays Black’s which as of yet has no defender, thus pinning the knight on d5. The game was in within drawing bounds from here, but the weakness of the kingside pawns painted big target signposts on them and Zhu found a way to destroy the g-pawn and make her f-pawn passed as well. Later in this endgame, Zhu danced her knights around White’s position with the coordination of the passed e- and f-pawns to get here:

A knight has traded off for a bishop, and at this point, there is no reason for White not to resign here. Zhu could allow some drama with the move 68…e3 69.hxg7; but instead she goes for the simplest and straightforward idea, because her two passed pawns are better than a piece. 68…gxh6!? 69.Rxf6+ Kc5!? 70.Kf1 Rxb2 71.Bf7 Kd4 72.Rf5 Ke3

Black’s king is shielded from checks, and threatens mate with Rb1.

73.Kg1 Rg2+ 74.Kh1 Rg5 75.Rf6 Kf2 76.Rxh6 e3

77.Rh2+ Rg2! 0-1

Esipenko - Wei

Wei outplayed Esipenko handily in a rather messy Petrov Defense where White never got to castle to safety.

Black is obviously for choice here. The open c-file serves his purposes, and despite the nearly symmetrical pawn configuration, the fact that White’s King is on the wrong side of the queen’s rook spells long-term doom for Esipenko. Wei found a really nice multi-purpose move here that I found really pleasing to the eye.

22…Rc4!

Pointing out the problem with White’s d-pawn, further pushing him into inactivity to defend it. This exchange sacrifice cannot be accepted, because after 23.Bxc4 23…dxc4, White has to play the very weakening 24.a3 to prevent cracking the position open further with b5-b4 and c4-c3. Black could then follow up with any number of moves and continue to enjoy a torturous advantage over White due to his extreme lack of activity.

But Black also has good play after 23…bxc4, when the open b-file and semi-open c-file would facilitate a rook sally. Rc8 threatens c4-c3, clearing the file, so that Black’s knight can move out of the way for a check on the b1-h7 diagonal via Bf5, and Rb8 would also threaten c4-c3 and/or a sacrifice on b2 where Black’s bishops and queen could coordinate to finish the job.

After 23.Ne2, Wei continued his attack in a combinatorial style and picked up his first win in the tournament. The final position leaves a very pitiful impression for White’s King:

Sindarov - Giri

Giri did what only Bluebuam was also able to do, which was draw Sindarov in the first half of the tournament and stop the rest of the field’s bleeding. This game was played down to the metal of king vs king as Giri fiercely and accurately defended a bishop vs rook endgame against the Uzbek phenom.

Divya - Lagno

Here’s a position and engine evaluation that goes over my head. A few notes: White is up a pawn, but Black’s position is much more active, so this is dynamically equal. Fair enough, I can accept Stockfish’s 0.0 evaluation here. But after 21…Qh6? Black is now in a losing position (nearly +2.0 in White’s favor), and I still don’t understand why after looking at it. My best guess is that after 22.Bxe4 Rxe4 23.h3 Bxf4 24.hxg4 Bd6 25.Qd5:

White’s position maybe has superior activity after Black retakes the pawn on g4. For what it’s worth, Kateryna played 25…Rce8 instead — another move I don’t quite understand. For what it’s worth, this game later petered out into a draw, so I don’t feel so bad about not feeling confident in my own evaluation of the position. Sometimes computer chess is just too much to actually understand!

Vaishali - Tan

This game had a very interesting opening and ending. While the debate about “hypermodern” opening theory has for the most part subsided, the actual practice thereof can be quite instructive, especially when one side succeeds in provoking the other into over-aggressive play. Thus is the case in this position:

Tan has played the Pirc Defense with d6 and Nf6 against e4 and d4, and as far as I can tell this is a completely unique position on move 8. A strange impression: Black has strong pointed the e-pawn with d6 and Nbd7; she also put both of her bishops on strong diagonals, where they shoot through the center like snipers. This has all come at the cost of a cramped position. Black’s rooks have no open lines whatsoever, and Black’s queen has only the e7 square to move to — it’s not so clear this is the best place for it, but it’s the only potential place right now.

Meanwhile, Vaishali’s position is very clearly geared for an attack. The king’s knight is on e2, ready to support an aggressive pawn push to the f4 square. Her bishop on c2 is waiting for when the g6 pawn loses a bit more defense, or when the h7 square becomes a target. Most long-range pieces in Vaishali’s position are anticipating a kingside castling position by Black.

9.f4?!

Tan’s provocative play reaps a positional reward.

9…O-O (9…exf4 10.Nxf4 would be giving her opponent what she wants) 10.Ng3 Ba6?! (driving Vaishali’s rook to a better square) 11.Rf3 exd4 12.cxd4 c5!

Black is showing White that her center has been over-extended, and the dark squares around her king are weakening move-by-move. All-in-all, this is a very successful foray for Tan.

Tan enjoyed a lot of pressure against Vaishali’s position for a long time, and things were looking to be going her way for most of the game. However, she dropped the ball in her attack (because chess is hard and some positions are very difficult to keep the advantage in), and in a pawn-up endgame, fortunes finally completely reversed.

In this position, Tan played 37.Ra1??, allowing an elementary tactic that Vaishali used to win the game. Were you able to find the right move?

Answer: 38.Rxf6!

Black has fallen victim to a double-attack that will leave White up a bishop with an easily won endgame.

38…Rf1+ 39.Ke2 Kxf6 40.Kxf1.

11 moves later Tan resigned. Had she not been winning for most of the game, I think she would have resigned on Rxf6; but it’s hard to let go of a game you should have won earlier. The especially unfortunate thing about the proceeding move is that Tan had a lot of time on her clock when making this error. Sometimes it happens to the best of us.

Giri - Bluebuam

Giri’s knights danced so much this game it’s almost comical. I have to share. I don’t know if he was being cheeky, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Wei - Sindarov

Long think, wrong think.

Sindarov’s narrative this entire tournament is like clockwork: Plays the position, gets something with dynamic chances that isn’t risky for himself, watches the opponent drain their clock. Rinse, repeat, win.

Here Wei spent 35 minutes before choosing the dynamic 13.b4, insodoing burning all of his 25-minute time advantage; the position remains equal. The players kept up with one another, and the position was perhaps just slightly more comfortable for White.

But trouble began for Wei on move 18.

Almost any rook move makes sense. Rad1 or Ra2 are good options. But Wei, after 47 minutes, chose 18.Bxf6?. After 18...Qd7 (played in under a minute) 19.Rad1 Qe6 20.h3 Qxc4, the position is equal, but the clock situation (17 minutes for Wei, 67 minutes for Sindarov) tells a different story. The inevitable time-induced blunder arrived on move 30:

The position is nice for Black, who is up two pawns and has strong control over the e-file and a more active position; but it’s not quite desperate for White yet. White should capture the pawn on c5, followed by piling up on the f4-pawn with Rf3 and Rf1, and opportunely open the f-file and attack the f7-pawn, which gives probably sufficient counterplay to stay in the game. But the central passer d6 looks dangerous too, so Wei took with 30.Rxd6??, missing that after 30…Rxd6 31.Rxd6 Black has the elegant 31…Qe3!, a queen trade that is fatal to accept due to 32.Qxe3?? fxe3, when the passed pawn is too strong.

Therefore Wei played 32.Qf3 c4! 33.Qg4+ Kf8 34.Rd1 c3 35.Qg5? f3! 36.Qxe3 Rxe3 0-1

Zhu - Muzychuk

This game was headed toward a draw, but an inconsistent pawn move in front of White’s king followed by a decentralizing knight maneuver began to spell disaster for Zhu Jiner as Muzychuk took the invitation to crack open White’s position. Watch how idle play can lead to catastrophe. While Muzychuk was a little too compliant with the move 32…c6 (preventing Ne5), this wasn’t enough for Zhu to push back against the pressure.

Tan - Goryachkina

In a very sharp Two Knights Defense line, Goryachkina had found her way into a winning position — even going up a queen against a bishop and rook; but this kind of endgame is hard to win, and Tan’s steely nerves kept up to successfully defend in what must have been a really frustrating missed opportunity for her opponent. Show vs tell is easy to do when I don’t understand the nuances of all these endgames!

Lagno - Vaishali

Time pressure got the best of Kateryna this time, and Vaishali was able to pick off a win by making White’s queen the only defense against checkmate, and everyone knows that a queen is the worst defender.

Both players low on time, White, currently up a piece for a pawn, went for a natural plan to trade off the queens and stop the attack, but Vaishali’s instincts were sound: 38…Rxg3+ 39.fxg3 Qxg3+ 40.Qg2 Qe3+ 41.Kh2 Rg5

The rook threatens the queen and severely restricts the king to the h-file. Mate should come soon. 42.Qh3 Qf4+ 43.Kh1 Rg3 44.Qe6 Kg7 45.Qe7+ Kh6 46.Be4

We are back to the position I gave at the top of the post.

Solution: 46.Rg5! A nice interference tactic to set up Qh4, threatening mate. 47.Bg2 Qh4 0-1. Kateryna resigned in light of 48.Kg1 Rxg2+! 49.Kxg2 Qxe7 with an easy victory to follow.

Assaubayeva - Divya

Bibisara pressed too hard for a win with White and Divya was able to counter and win.

The position is more comfortable for Black, but not in a way that, at least to me, is obviously winning. Qf3 seems like a solid choice, hitting the rook on c6 and defending the pawn on f5. But Bibisara went for it with 40.f6? and suddenly Black has great chances now that White is about to lose all counterplay after this back rank ruse.

I don’t know if Divya smelled blood or danger first, but her follow-up move 40…Rc8! is extremely instructive. Bibisara continued with 41.Rd1, announcing her intention to sacrifice her queen on d8, but Divya followed up again with the very strong 41…Kh8!, completely putting to bed any conceit of a back rank mate by Black. (Alas, the prosaic 41…Rf8 also works, but isn’t nearly as cool).

Now that Black’s position has solidified, the g-file is ready be exploited by Black’s major pieces and the extra h-pawn. 42.Kg2 h5! 43.Qd2 (a slow-paced resignation, as the endgame would be doomed for White) Qg4! 44.Re1 h4 45.Re3 Rg8 46.Qd7 Qf4 0-1

“What’s the matter Yasha? It’s just a game.”

“I hate chess.” Yasha said.

“You don’t hate chess,” Semyon said. “You hate losing.”

Spy’s Mate by Brad Buchanan is an enjoyable and briskly-paced spy novel set in the USSR. It follows the story of Armenian chess prodigy Yasha Basmanjian, as he seeks to become the best chess player in the world. Along the way, he is caught up in the politics of a fractured Soviet Union, and many players, over the board and elsewhere, seek to use him for their own motivations. I don’t want to give away the story, but I found it both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Rather, I want to highlight a couple features about it that I think makes it a unique book. To start, this novel has actual chess diagrams in it. Any well-equipped student of chess history will recognize certain positions given in the book. In many cases these are classics (Rotlewi-Rubinsten’s incredible queen sacrifice; Nimzowitsch’s immortal zugzwang with Black against Samisch). And if you’re a serious player, you might even take a chance or two to solve the position yourself before continuing to read, as if it were tactical puzzle.

But besides the chess games, there are also certain aspects of historical figures, and here is where I think people may be surprised to find that one character’s nonchalance about playing a correspondence game with the ghost of deceased masters is actually inspired by a real-life, legendarily foul-tempered grandmaster (we are, of course, speaking of Viktor Korchnoi). Korchnoi also receives a later nod (as far as I can tell) in reference to a fictional player wearing tinted glasses. Short history lesson: In Korchnoi’s case he was trying to ward off the effects of a suspected hypnotist who was hired to stare at him unceasingly during his match for the championship against Karpoov in 1978.

All of which is to say, chess here is the center stage of the novel. The story is fictional, but the inspirations are real: The political intrigue of Soviet Chess was real. The government oversight, punishment and espionage by and against chess players was real. The use of chess as a diplomatic tool, and an ideological weapon against the West — all real. The idea of developing electronic chess computers to analyze and eventually dominate the game of chess; the premature bemoaning of chess experiencing a draw death:

There were also some alarmists who theorized that chess, as practiced by its two most able exponents, was moving toward a sterile equilibrium in which draws were the result of correct play by both sides, and outright victory would be impossible unless someone committed an outrageous blunder.

If nothing else, this novel tells a page-turning story that is shockingly plausible based on its setting, and that excites me because it can be an entertaining introduction to one of the most fascinating era of chess: The Soviet era.

The author is himself a chess player and enthusiast, and his enjoyment of the game and its history oozes in each story beat as he effectively draws from it to create a new narrative. Every win, every loss, every obsessive thought about the game we find in the protagonist Yasha, I think many chess players will feel “seen” because of it. And anybody who enjoys a quick-paced spy novel should check it out too, especially if they have even a passing interest in the game.

Question: It’s an extremely sharp position in the Marshall Gambit. White has sacrificed two pawns for an irrational position, the bishop pair, and attacking chances. What move would you play? We’ll see what Nakamura chose at the end of the article.

Caruana - Bluebaum

We got a rare mate on the board in Fabi’s round 5 game against Bluebuam.

In a position not very stereotypical of the Petrov Defense, Bluebaum allowed his opponent to crown his mating attack with a cheeky pawn mate: 27.Qe8+ Kg7 28.h6#

Zhu - Vaishali

This game would take a long time to explain, so I’d rather show than try to tell. Long story short, I really enjoy the way that Zhu Jiner simply suffocated the life out of Vaishali’s position — it’s one of those squeezes where one side is able to absolutely prevent counterplay by the other side, and then take their sweet time maneuvering applying torturous pressure until the other side finally falls. Note how White attacks the backward g6-pawn in the major piece endgame to sufficiently distract Black from the c-file, at which point positional dominance wins the game for her. Great play by Zhu.

Nakamura - Sindarov

Answer: Instead of Nakamura’s 13.h4?, 13.Ne4! was the only move, and for a rather complicated reason, which is probably why Nakamura spent nearly 70(!) minutes on this position. The game continuation was 13…Qa5+ 14.b4 Nxb4 15.O-O Re8 16.Qd2 c5 17.Rad1 Nf5

With the h-pawn hanging, White is virtually forced to open the position up for Black’s bishop and e8-rook with 18.Nxf5 exf5. While there are other considerations, what Hikaru chose here was more-or-less the correct line (16.Qd2 made things a bit worse, but not desperately so); so what happens if White plays Ne4 and play continues the same way instead of h4?

13…Qa5 14.b4 Nxb4 15.O-O Re8 16.Qd2 c5 17.Rad1 Nf5

Compared to the game position after h4, here the h-pawn is not hanging, and White can smoothly reply with Kh1 or Qg5 without helping Black activate their position more; things are dynamically balanced: White’s position is hyper-active to compensate for the three missing pawns. Of course, the game could have branched out many more times, but I think what Hikaru either did not see or under-estimated probably had to do with the impact of Nf5 and the threat of losing the h-pawn.

Alas, after 13.h4? Hikaru suffered as Sindarov’s position easily unfurled into a win in an opposite color bishop endgame, extending Sindarov’s absolutely epic Candidates run by another win, for an unprecedented 4.5/5 start.

In this English position, White is feeling a lot of discomfort. A missing pawn, a fianchetto knight and some poor piece coordination, and Black is threatening to play …a4. However, Black has just gifted her an opportunity to wrest back some dynamic equality. White to play and find a way out. Answer at the bottom of the article.

Esipenko - Giri

Giri got his first win in the Najdorf. I guess he knows a thing or two about that opening, so it makes sense. To be honest, this game’s course is very hard to follow, and probably ranks among the more bewildering in this tournament thus far, but shows the theoretical danger of the Sicilian for White.

Apparently Giri worked out that this position is OK for Black. To me it is slightly frightening to think of placing my king on the d7-square in a position like this, and on first glance I would rather attack with White than defend with Black; but then again Giri is a GM and I am not. By move 19, with a little help from Esipenko, Giri was able to transform the above position into this:

Open files for both rooks, the bishop pair, an extra pawn, and an unassailable center. One could not ask for more from a Sicilian Defense. Giri enjoyed a nice positional advantage for the rest of the game, and the conversion to a win was shockingly smooth from here due to some further inaccuracies by his opponent. The GIF tells the story nicely:

Wei Yi - Hikaru Nakamura

Naka also played an interesting Sicilian in the form of a Dragondorf; Wei was up to the challenge, and after a slight opening inaccuracy by White, both players kept up with one another until Wei blundered heavily in a drawn 2-rook endgame:

Almost any normal move holds here; the h4-pawn is dropping but White shouldn’t panic. Low on time, Wei played 40.Kh2?? which allows 40…Rxh4+ with a crucial tempo that allows Black to get on the back rank after 41.Kg1 Rb1+ 42.Kf2 Rhh1

Black is able to push the h-pawn and dream of advancing the others patiently, and White’s king is a liability being flushed out of its cover on the back rank. Unfortunately, a few moves later Naka missed a winning continuation and the game petered out to a draw. This feels unfortunate for Nakamura — one of his best chances by far to gain a point in this tournament. It was a nice save for Wei though.

Sindarov - Caruana

In a QGA, Caruana played highly provocatively, got a pretty active position, but with a loose king stuck in the center and a busted pawn structure. 16 moves in, he had burned more than half his time against Sindarov’s preparation (Sindarov used barely 7 minutes up to this moment)

After a long thought, Sindarov went for the most fighting move 17.g3! Other options here included Be4 (virtually a draw offer) and f3, blunting Black’s bishop. Fabi’s reply after a 15-minute tank was 17…f5?! From here it went downhill, due to a combination of (you guessed it) time trouble and a difficult position to play as Sindarov did what he’s done all tournament and played a devastating attack. Another GIF is due:

Muzychuk - Lagno

Hard blunder

Anna Muzychuk has played ice-cold perfect chess this entire tournament and finally got a win with it against Kateryna Lagno. Kateryna’s troubles started on move 28:

Black just blundered with 28…exd4. After 29.Qxd4, White threatens c5 with a fork against the minors and it turns out Black just has no good way to respond to this move. If 29…Nd7, White wins a piece or mates; if the bishop moves, White either gains the move 30.Ne7+ with c5 to follow; or mates on the back rank. After 29…Kb7 Lagno simply gave up the piece, and shortly thereafter the rest of the game: 30.c5 Ra8 31.cxd6 Qxd6 32.Rxa8! 1-0

Divya - Zhu

Divya missed an interesting tactic here:

Solution: Instead of Divya’s 22.a4? simply allowing Black a passed pawn after 22…Bxd4 (Zhu later won with a crushing attack), she had the exchange sacrifice 22.Rxe6!

After 22…a4, White has the desperado 23.Rxh6+! gxh6 and 24.Qd3 would keep the game going. While I think that Black’s position is still slightly more comfortable overall, White no longer has light square problems, and Black’s breezy king position means that White has dynamic counterplay to balance the game.

How does Black crown her attack against the White King? Solution given at the end of the article.

Caruana - Wei

Wei Yi uncorked a theoretical novelty on move 8 in a symmetrical English. At 8.Ng5, Fabi had about 90 minutes on his clock; Wei had 116; Wei was drawing his opponent into his preparation.

The only move Lichess lists that masters play here is 8…e6, simply defending the knight. But Wei had a more ambitious idea in mind with 8…Nb6!?, a sacrificial sequence involving the giving up of two pawns for a lead in development and control over White’s light squares. Fabi accepted: 9.Bxc6+ bxc6 10.Qxc6+ Bd7 11.Qxc5 h6 12.Nf3 Rc8 13.Qa5 Bh3.

Finally the position has a reached a bit of quiescence, and here Fabi had to sit and think about how to proceed. To my eyes, this is an extremely uncomfortable position for White: castling is entirely off the table due to Bh3; any attempt to develop the queenside leads to further weakening, and even if White could castle, Rc8 and Bg7 are applying immense pressure to the c3 knight. In other words, White is trapped in the center. Black has very active piece play on the queenside, and is about to castle and try to exploit the centralized White king. Over 15 minutes of thought later, Fabi replied with 14.Qb5+ Nd7 15.Rg1!

Probably Fabi foresaw that he would have to play this way, with his king in the center, and was checking how he could use a tempo on the enemy king to reposition the queen somewhere better. The position is dynamically equal; Black’s light-square domination is offset by the missing pawns on the queenside.

Wei continued with 15…O-O and Fabi replied with 16.g4.

This move comes with some obvious poison: Black’s bishop is trapped and White is threatening Rg3. This was also a move that Wei evidently hadn’t expected; he spent 30 minutes on his next move and ended up playing 16…Rc5?! (16…Nf6 preparing …Bxg4 keeps things equal). After 17.Qb3, the trend shift continued with the 20-minute blunder 17…Ne5 (still Nf6 was best); After 18.Nxe5! Rxe5 19.Nd1 Yi resigned.

Pragg - Sindarov

Wei Yi sacrificed a couple pawns in his game against Caruana; Sindarov gave up a piece against Pragg:

Some opening complications in the Queen’s Gambit Declined led to this position where White has some threats, most obviously to remove Black’s bishop pair with Nxc5; however, Javokhir played 12…Qf5 to prevent this (up to now, in the Lichess masters database Black would play Qg6 with a similar idea to pin the knight against the queen). Prag struck out with the move 13.b4!?

I think the idea is to remove pressure from the e3 pawn. For instance, White could have played 13.Bd3, but then Black responds with 13…dxe3, and in any case White’s kingside would feel weak against Black’s kingside majority: 14.O-O exf2+ 15.Kh1! (15.Nxf2? Qh5 and Black is simply up a clean pawn). Evidently displeased with this future, Pragg tried to kick the bishop instead.

After 15 minutes of thought, Sindarov decided it was time to sacrifice a piece for some pawns with 13.Nxb4!? 14.axb4 Bxb4+ 15.Kd1 dxe3:

Full compensation for the piece is found in Black’s preponderance of pawns and White’s missing cover around his king. And people say the QGD is boring! Sindarov would go on to win the game with a nice attack, helped by time pressure as Pragg tried to wade through the complications. The final position is quite the picture of success for Black, where Sindarov was able to win back the piece and an additional pawn with a guaranteed endgame win:

Goryachkina - Divya

This was an equal game where Black defended well up until the time control, when Divya made a game-losing blunder by taking a knight on d2 due to a miscalculated tactic. Aleksandra recaptured 42.Qxd2 e4 43.Qa5, where it became clear that White had a winning rook endgame. Things continued in her favor for a long time as she pressed her advantage and was ready to take the full point. However, a strange sequence of events occurred, to which we may once again attribute time trouble:

With less than a minute on her clock, Goryachkina played 64.Ra6, jeopardizing the win. Divya played 64…Kh7, missing 64…Rxf3 65.Rxg6 Kh7! when Black holds. But Goryachkina returned the favor again with 65.Kf7??, missing the winning 65.Ra7+!. The idea is to trap Black’s king with the move f4 and march the a-pawn up the board while threatening Kf7 followed by Ra8+. After Rxf3, the aforementioned mating attack is gone, and Black has sufficient counter to hold the draw; the game ended on move 81.

Zhu - Assaubayeva

A Rossolimo with a lot of fireworks:

Zhu played a theoretical pawn sacrifice on move 9.b4 cxb4 10.a3 b3 and deviated with 11.Nbd2!? (11.c4 is the normal move in the Lichess master’s database).

As an amateur, I don’t really know what’s going on in this position, but White has a huge development advantage, and that Black’s king being stuck in the center is a long-term liability. Because of this, White’s best plan is to active all her pieces. Rb1 is coming soon; the Knight can move from d2-c4-e3. And if Black wants to keep her pawn plus permanently, she does so at the cost of time, and helping White develop further. Play continued: 11…g5 12.d4 g4 13.hxg3 Bxg4 14.Bb2 d5

Black is clearly trying to pressure White’s center, but now White can return the favor. Zhu played 15.c4!

The e4 pawn will die, but White maintains massive control over d5. After 15…dxe4 16.Nxe4 Nxe4 17.Rxe4 Bf5 18.Re3 Bc2

Black is holding on to her trump in the passed pawn on b3 but White is for choice due to the strong hanging pawns on c4 and d4 and far more active position. Zhu made her first inaccuracy after 19.Qc1?! (Qd2 evading the pin) Rc8 20.d5?! (Qd2 stepping out of the pin). From here the trend continued to change, as Bibisara did everything to keep this pawn alive on the queenside, and was able to force a lot of piece trades.

With a seven minute think, Zhu played 29.Bh2?? I think her idea was to prevent f6 coming with tempo followed by the move e5 at which point the d6 pawn is lost, but this allows Black to begin a devastating attack. 29…Qg5! suddenly comes with a lot of venom, because Rc4 also coordinates against c1; …Be4 would threaten Qxg2# and White can’t take it via Rxe4 due to Rc1+, and Black could always threaten a mate via d1 with the move Qd5. After 30.Be5 Be4 31.f4 Rc1+!, Bibisara traded off all the major pieces due to a cacophony of mate threats, and solidified her position with two passed pawns on both wings to end the game.

Tan - Lagno

A crazy back-and-forth in the Italian:

Things are in a slightly atypical Italian where White lost castling rights, but has active pieces posted almost everywhere. Seeking to relieve her development issues, Kateryna went for a trade with 15…Ba6? but after 16.Bxa6 Nxa6, Black’s knight is further removed from the game and needs time to be brought back in allowing White a freer hand in the center and kingside. Tan set up a strong position against the kingside by pressing her g-pawn forward with the help of Rg1, but then made a critical miscalculation by allowing some tempi which would activate Black’s queen and give it time to coordinate against the weak White king position.

20.Rg4?? Qd7! 21.h3 Qf5! 22.Qd3 Ne3+! 23.fxe3 Qxf3+ 24.Bf2 Qxh3+ 25.Rg2 hxg5

Black’s fortunes have reversed; Kateryna is in the driver’s seat. The most impressive element of this combination is that Lagno’s clock held at 6 minutes thanks to the increment; Tan’s dropped by 20 minutes due to the pressure of defending.

The continuation after this point got really messy though, due to time pressure, though it was clear that Black had the advantage and the easier game regardless. Nevertheless, fortune’s favor turned around again on move 35, when White had done an excellent job of defending and consolidating the position to protect the king.

Low on time, Lagno missed with 35…Qe4??, allowing the combination 36.Rxc7! Rxc7 37.Qb8+ Kh7 38.Qxc7 with a decisive material advantage.

The game wasn’t over. After 38…Rb6 39.b3 Qb1+ 40.Kh2 f5!? (opening the third rank so Black has access to the move Rh6) 41.Qf7? Rf6! Tan made the final blunder with 42.Qxd5??

Kateryna found an extremely pretty sequence: 42…Nf4!! 43.exf4 Rh6+ 44.Kg3 Qd3+ 45.Qf3

Solution: 45…g4!! wins the queen. (Qxd3 is impossible due to Rh3#).

Tan finally gave up her resistance on move 54. 0-1

At the end of Round 3, the standings for the candidates are as follows:

Candidates:

1-2: Caruana, Sindarov with 2.5

3-4 Pragg, Bluebaum with 1.5

5-8, Giri, Wei, Esipenko, Nakamura with 1

Women’s Candidates:

1-2: Assaubayeva, Lagno with 2.

3-6: Goryachkina, Vaishali, Divya, Muzychuk with 1.5

7-8: Zhu, Tan with 1.

Personally, I’m rooting for Caruana, but Sindarov seems like the most dangerous opponent and is performing just as well. On the Women’s candidates, I have been very impressed with Assaubayeva, Divya, and Zhu’s games, despite some disappointing results, the games have been rather enjoyable to watch. I didn’t have a favorite going in, but I felt that the Chinese players would be the ones to beat. We’re only three rounds in; time will tell, but it’s already been a very exciting series. Tomorrow is the last round before a rest day; I’m curious if we’ll see another set of draws or more fireworks over the board (or perhaps even both).