FIDE Candidates 2024 Round 4

Nepo is as Nepo does.

Hikaru Nakamura - Praggnanandhaa R

Pragg, having played some rather combative Spanish games in the past few rounds, may have convinced Nakamura to play a little less ambitiously for fear of getting smacked with another theoretical oddity. We got an Anderssen Variation in the Ruy Lopez.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.d3

By playing the early 5.d3, White avoids the majority of Black’s sidelines in the main line Spanish after 5.O-O (for instance, 5…Nxe4, which Pragg used in game one against Firouzja); the disadvantage for White is that this move allows Black to comfortably place their bishop on a more active square (e.g. Bc5) and not commit to such a cramped position right away a move like Be7. Because the position is basically equal, White has to rely more on strategy to create something than on concrete variations; something that tends to be Naka’s wheelhouse anyway, and something that may put a damper on Pragg’s sacrifice-heavy style during this tournament. Naka decided not to go for anything in this game, and the game petered out to a draw by repetition on move 24.

Ian Nepomniachtchi - Vidit Gujrathi

Vidit responded to Ian’s Spanish with the Berlin, and we got a real-life Berlin Endgame:

It’s fascinating how cyclical chess opening theory can be: This is a very old, well-known endgame that players in the late 1800s and early 1900s concluded was worse for Black and it was lost to the annals of refuted chess openings, virtually until Vladmir Kramnik and his team took another look at it and defeated then-reigning world champion Garry Kasparov by drawing every game when he had the black pieces and picking up a couple wins with White. For a long time afterwards there was renewed interest and players were playing this one a lot, but nowadays, I think it’s more common to see the 4.d3 “Anti-Berlin” variation where White slow-plays the position and tries to keep more pieces on the board to try to slowly build the position and win. This style resembles the Giuoco Pianissimo more than the mainline Spanish.

Personally I find this endgame fascinating so I was really excited to see it occur in this game. The subtleties of it are way beyond my ability to explain: I tend to watch these games in wonder. The story line of the meta-game was typical: Ian had a time advantage, and Vidit erred under time pressure:

On move 37: White has a very comfortable edge here and is threatening to win the knight via Rxd5 after his last move Ke4. Vidit responded by create a seemingly equal threat to take the hanging knight on h5: 37…Be8?? After 38.Rxd5 Bxh5, the Black King is unable to assist in the prevention of the promotion of white’s pawn on e7, because the white Rook cuts it off, and the bishop is no help since the White king will attack it and force it to move. Ian won shortly thereafter, leaving him as the sole leader with 3/4 after round 4. It’s starting to look familiar. The whole game is worth a GIF:

Fabiano Caruana - Gukesh D

We got a nice Giuoco Pianissimo in the game between Fabi and Gukesh, with a typical slow maneuvering middlegame. Both players’ treatment of the positions was clinical, so it ended in a draw, but only after 74 moves and relentless checks of the White king by Black’s Queen. Fabi was up a pawn, but down king safety, allowing Gukesh to easily draw the game. Neither player should complain, they both played nearly perfectly:

Nijat Abasov - Alireza Firouzja

Alireza played a hyper-accurate Nimzo-Indian Defense that ended with an inverted situation like the Fabi-Gukesh game: Black was up a pawn but down on king safety, and Abasov held the draw with relentless checks. The most interesting part of the game was listening to Peter Leko’s commentary on the opening. He was excited to explain how the position ended up with a Queen’s Gambit Accepted character despite starting out as a Nimzo Indian Defense.

See Leko’s commentary on the resulting middlegame at 52:26:

Nurgyul Salimova - Humpy Koneru

In the women’s section, it was nice to see Nurgyul Salimova pick up a win against Humpy Koneru. It was a nice Catalan where Humpy went for some very creative complications in the opening. Salimova’s conversion of the endgame was excellent:

And with that, I can officially and confidently say that it is actually break day for the Candidates and that we’ll be seeing what they’ve been cooking come tomorrow!

Nick