Congratulations to Fabiano Caruana, who defeated Alexander Grischuk in the last round of the Candidates tournament! He won the event by a full point, as his closest rivals, Sergey Karjakin and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, drew their last games (against Ding Liren and Vladimir Kramnik, respectively), and now moves on to fight Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship title in London this coming November.
Remarkably, Caruana played the Petroff, trusting either that he'd somehow have a chance to fight for a win, in case Karjakin looked likely to win against Ding Liren (Karjakin would win the event on tiebreaks in case of a two-way tie for first with Caruana), or he trusted that Ding would hold with Black. Or perhaps he felt that playing something sharper would increase his losing chances to an unacceptable degree. Whatever the case, he played the Petroff for the fourth time in the tournament, and for the third time found himself with an advantage early on. As the game went on he maintained control and increased his advantage, and in the meantime Karjakin and then Mamedyarov drew their games. Caruana could have offered a draw at any moment to guarantee tournament victory, but there was no need to - his advantage was decisive by then, and more importantly there was no risk in playing on. (Besides, Grischuk's position was so bad that if Caruana had offered a draw, Grischuk might have separated his shoulder by reaching for Caruana's hand too quickly.)
Karjakin's game with Ding was very instructive. He seemed to have a position where he could play for a win forever without any risk, and indeed there was a Motylev-Eljanov game that very clearly demonstrated White's strategic concept. But Ding found a remarkable concept with 17...e5 and 18...b4, and showed, amazingly, that it was White who had to be careful. Karjakin did his "Ministry of Defense" thing and held, barely.
Mamedyarov took some serious chances in the game, starting with the opening, and was in serious trouble more than once against Kramnik. There were also some moments when he had a small advantage too, but unlike the Kramnik we saw earlier in the tournament, this time he mostly maintained his sanity and steered the ending to a draw.
The fourth game was a pro forma affair between Levon Aronian and Wesley So, the tournament tailenders. (Especially Aronian.) They initiated a known repetition on move 13, calling it quits after 17 moves and clearing the stage for the games that mattered.
I'll have the games later; for now, here are the final standings.
Do come back later, for the annotated games, and I will also spend some time blogging today and over the next few days to catch up on some other events and topics.
P.S. Congratulations too to the very clever people who predicted a Caruana win - all two of us. (I didn't write "send him home!" for all those years to forsake him now.) And while we're at it, I'll save time by offering my prediction now: Caruana will beat Carlsen in November. (And if he doesn't this time, he'll beat him next time, a la Smyslov vs. Botvinnik and Spassky vs. Petrosian. This does seem to be Caruana's pattern: the first time he comes close, and the second time he crashes through. He barely missed the 2014 Candidates, then made it in 2016. In that event he came very close to winning, and this time he did it. So if Carlsen defeats Caruana by some sort of Kramnikian "miracle" this time around, it will be the reverse in 2020.)
**UPDATE** The games, with my analysis, are here.