Candidates Tournament 2022: Duda scores first win, helps Nepo extend his lead

New Delhi: Ian Nepomniachtchi extended his lead in round 10 of the Candidates tournament by drawing the game with Teimour Radjabov. Nepomniachtchi is now 1.5 points ahead of Fabiano, Ding and Nakamura who are sharing the second place.

Nepomniachtchi is close to doing what GM Vasily Smyslov did in the 1950s, winning two consecutive Candidates tournaments. His lead got extended as Duda defeated Fabiano Caruana with the white pieces. However, the race for second place is quite important in case the world champion Magnus Carlsen is not interested in defending his title. in that case, there will be a match between the first and the second place holders of the Candidates tournament.

Ian Nepomniachtchi Vs Teimour Radjabov (1/2-1/2)

Nepomniachtchi chose the Catalan opening, which he has not played many times. Nepo found a novelty on move 16 by attacking Radjabov’s queen with the move Be3. With move 18, he started to pile up on Radjabov’s c4 pawn and here is when Nepo got into a comfortable position.

But, they exchanged their pieces to draw on move 37. In the post-match interview, Nepomniachtchi said, “I’m most satisfied that it’s only four rounds to go!”

Hikaru Nakamura Vs Alireza Firouzja (1-0)

While the rest of the players spent their rest day preparing and taking rest, Nakamura decided to play the Titled Tuesday for his fans. However, in round 10 Firouzja chose the Najdorf. the game was soon out of the known theoretical territory. On move 10, Alireza chose to capture the knight on f6 with the g-pawn rather than with his queen and landed in a worse position.

Nakamura gave a chance to Firouzja to equalise, but he missed it and soon landed in a mating attack. It was a short game (by the number of moves) as Firouzja resigned on move 32.

Richard Rapport Vs Ding Liren (0-1)

Like the last time, this year too Ding’s second half of the tournament is proving to be better than the first half. The game between Rapport and Ding was one of the wildest games of this tournament. Rapport once again took a lot of time in the opening as he thought for around one and a half minutes before playing 3.Bb4. What followed was a chaotic and bold middle game. Throughout the middle game, Ding was getting some advantage and Rapport was playing well to equalise.

On move 33, Rapport chose an amazing knight sacrifice which Ding did not see coming. Rapport tried to play attacking chess but Ding played like a 2800+ player. After a few exchanges, they landed in an opposite coloured bishop endgame where Ding had a strong b-file passer. Rapport went wrong with the endgame and was forced to resign from the game.

Ding, who is considered to be a potential candidate for being the World Championship Challenger, is catching up with Nepomniactchi on the leaderboard. Anish Giri also tweeted a meme after the game.

Came up with a creative meme here. pic.twitter.com/BVtD8rcBKX

— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) June 29, 2022

 Jan-Krzysztof Duda Vs Fabiano Caruana (1-0)

This time the Candidates tournament is filled with players showing determination and fighting spirit. Duda, who lost two games in a row, made a comeback with white pieces. Caruana played an attacking game in the Italian opening but soon landed in a slightly worse position as his knight on a5 remained misplaced. Caruana still tried to play bold chess but the position was in Duda’s favour.

On move 41, Fabiano even gave up a piece, and soon resigned on move 57.

Standings