Candidates 2024 – Facing Top Opening Preparation

During the next days and until April 22nd, the 2024 Candidates Tournament is being played in Toronto, Canada. 8 of the world’s best players are fighting to win this tournament to earn the right to challenge current world champion Ding Liren.

"The Great Hall" is the playing venue

After 10 rounds (and with 4 more to go), we have 2 leaders with 6 points: Dommaraju Gukesh and Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Standings after 10 rounds

Gukesh is a teenager (he’s just 17), yet he’s playing the best chess in my view. On the second round he had a huge challenge: facing a very deep opening preparation. His opponent Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (also called "Pragg") started sacrificing pawn after pawn playing his very quickly.

Facing a confident and prepared opponent can be quite unpleasant. However, Gukesh managed to keep his cool and even outplay Pragg.

How did he do it? After analyzing this game very deeply, I learned something very important from his play. For instance, let's take a look at this critical position on the 15th move after White played e6.

Although players have 120 minutes to make the first 40 moves, Pragg had only spent 9 minutes so far, which (at this level) indicates that he had prepared this line in advance. Gukesh had already spent 53 minutes by this point.

The move 15.e6 is offering a third pawn. How would you continue here?

If you’re thinking about taking with 15…fxe6, the lesson that I learned from Gukesh is NOT to make forcing moves in such positions, unless you have a clear advantage after that (something unlikely if you’re playing against a top GM preparation).

15…fxe6 is definitely one of the top moves that comes to mind. However, White has many different ways to start attacking e6 and creating strong threats with moves like 16.Nd4, Bh3 or 16.Bf4 (clearing the way for the queen to take on e6). This is definitely something that would be in Pragg’s preparation. Instead, Gukesh played the interesting 15…f5!?, avoiding forcing lines and leading the game to a complex struggle. After a few moves Pragg was out of preparation, and Gukesh won the game convincingly.

If you want to see the full game analyzed deeply, check out my video about it: https://youtu.be/Rsuh6pb6dOo