2018 Candidates, Round 13: Caruana Regains the Clear Lead
Perhaps the rest day helped, or maybe it was good preparation. Or, maybe it's that Fabiano Caruana's opponent, Levon Aronian, is so out of form at the moment that it was enough for Caruana to play a decent game to obtain good winning chances. Whatever story we invent in all of its ex post facto glory, the facts are that Caruana rebounded from his painful loss to Sergey Karjakin on Saturday with an almost entirely clean and convincing victory over Aronian today. Since Karjakin was only able to draw his game against Wesley So, Caruana is in clear first, half a point ahead of both So and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who was given a massive present by Alexander Grischuk. Ding Liren is a full point behind after a lucky draw against Vladimir Kramnik. Amazingly, he's not yet mathematically eliminated from the race for first. But more about this below.
First then, Caruana's win over Aronian. Caruana repeated the Anti-Marshall line 8.d3 d6 9.Bd2 played by Grischuk (also against Aronian) in the previous round. Aronian varied first, but it looked like either Caruana's preparation or just his feel for the position was better than his opponent's, and soon he was outplaying the great Armenian. On the verge of getting rolled up, Aronian made a good practical decision to sacrifice a piece. It shouldn't have worked, but Caruana's 29.N1e3?? needlessly endangered the win. (I recognize that the double question mark is pretty harsh; I defend that evaluation in the game file.) The problem wasn't easy to spot, however, and once Aronian missed his chance Caruana finished most convincingly.
As for Karjakin, he never had a chance. When So has White and is determined to be solid, it's almost impossible to get a position where one can play for a win. Magnus Carlsen has managed to do it against him, but that's about it. Besides, Karjakin's classical style doesn't help much either when it comes to must-win situations with Black. He did try to get a sharp line against So's 4.Qc2 anti-Nimzo-Indian line, but So kept it safe and the draw was never in doubt.
Meanwhile, Mamedyarov joined Karjakin in second. His game with Grischuk also looked like an inevitable draw, and had looked that way for a long time. Mamedyarov did just enough to keep the game from becoming a dead draw, and finally at move 34 Grischuk had to find the right move. He thought he had found a way to achieve an instant draw, but White's reply proved otherwise. Grischuk was tied with Mamedyarov entering the round, so if he had won he'd have had a shot. Not any longer.
Finally, Kramnik showed how to play for a win with Black, and up until his 30th move had played a great game. Ding would have been lost after 30...Rxe7, and even after 32..Kg7 (or 32...Kh7) Kramnik probably would have won thanks to White's weak king. Instead, Kramnik allowed White to trade queens, and then his king wasn't an issue. The resulting ending was only a little better for Black, and Ding held the draw without much trouble.
Caruana has 8 out of 13, Mamedyarov and Grischuk have 7.5, and Ding has 7. This site (HT: Chuckles) offers the odds of tournament success for each of the four, and (sacrificing a few decimal places) they are:
- Caruana: 56.4%
- Mamedyarov: 20.9%
- Karjakin: 20.7%
- Ding: 2%
The site's author has more information and an explanation of his method, so you're encouraged to check out the full details there.
Rapping things up over here...the games (with my notes) are here; and the final pairings, to determine the identity of Carlsen's challenger this coming November, are:
- Grischuk (6.5) - Caruana (8)
- Aronian (4) - So (5.5)
- Karjakin (7.5) - Ding (7)
- Kramnik (6) - Mamedyarov (7.5)
Reader Comments (5)
Rap away!
>The site's author has more information and an explanation of his method,
>>Neither percentage takes into account which players are playing: their ratings,
>>their histories against the given opponent, their record so far in the tournament,
>>their current momentum, etc.
That is, the method assumes that all candidates for the 2018 World Chess Championship
in future rounds stop playing chess and start playing Yahtzee instead. For some reason, I don't find
the results extremely interesting.
So if I'm figuring this correctly, any tie involving the three leaders is broken in the order 1. Mamedyarov, 2. Karjakin, 3. Caruana. The only tie that Caruana wins is with Ding (that is, Caruana loses, Ding wins, and Mamedyarov loses), and Ding's only way to win is a three-way tie (Caruana loses, Ding wins, Mamedyarov draws).
Regarding move 29 of Caruana-Aronian, my best guess is that Caruana was leery of 29.N5e3 Nh3 30.Nd5 Ng1 when 31.Qd3 looks momentarily uncomfortable. Optically it is hard to believe 31...Nxb4 really works two pieces down; the upshot 32.cxb4 Rd4 33.Kh3 Qg5 34.f6+ Kh8 35.Bd1 Rg8 36.Ng2 Rf4! 37. Rxe5 Rxf2 38.Bxg5 Bd4 is pretty psychedelic. Black can also play 29...Nxb4.
Following Kenneth Regan's comment, Caruana indeed mentioned in the press conference 29.N5e3 Nh3 30.Nd5 Ng1 31.Qd3 as the reason why he avoided 29.N5e3 - said that he found the resulting position hard to evaluate and felt the knight on d5 is unstable (one line that was mentioned following a suggestion by Aronian was 31...Ne7 32. Nfe3 Qh3+ 33. Kxg1 Qg3+ with perpetual). Since it's easy to feel that the white king is more exposed here than in the game, and since the position that arose in the game by force after 31.Qxf2 should be completely winning for White if not for the rather incredible 31...Nxb4 shot, I think Caruana's decision to choose 29.N1e3 over N5e3 was very understandable,