Fabi has a slight advantage here. But the board is very messy and unclear.
Hikaru damaged Teimur's kingside, but Teimur has a strong passed a-pawn. The engine is saying Hikaru's best option is to force the exchange of some pieces, to simplify. But given the tournament standings, I don't think he wants to simplify ...
Over an hour later, and it has become clear that Hikaru should've simplified and accepted a drawish game, instead of sac'ing the pawn and pressing on. It's a decision that will haunt him.
And Nepo secured another draw, inching closer to the WC stage ...
Rest day tomorrow.
TOURNAMENT STANDINGS
FIDE Candidates Tournament
|
Hmm, so Duda is the lone cellar dweller now.
Everybody else still has a chance to win. Although the 4 and the 4.5 pointers have to work near miracles, they still have a chance to reach 8.5 to 9 points. That's the most likely winning score.
#131
Nepo needs 5 draws to reach 9/14 and win.
I think 9 will be enough to win.
Firo with a terrible position. Looks like Naka and Caruana will be tied going into round 11... maybe Ding too (potentially all 3 at 5.5)
Really unimpressed with Firo's performance. In this game vs Naka he misplaces his pieces and is just worse for no reason. I guess he was young and it's his first Candidates and people had a lot of expectations, so maybe it's unfair of me to say so...
Nakamura was saying (of Firouzja's Candidates repertoire) that playing the Najdorf so often is too risky, at this level.
His implication was that 1...e5 is much easier to handle, and would've been the more prudent choice.
Ding Rapport may be a draw, but is probably my favorite game this round.
Nakamura was saying (of Firouzja's Candidates repertoire) that playing the Najdorf so often is too risky, at this level.
His implication was that 1...e5 is much easier to handle, and would've been the more prudent choice.
Well he's really proving his point over the board today!
Very much so.
Now if only Ian would lose some games, just to make the event more chaotic!
Can we say Ian has it in the bag now? It appears Fabi will loses and Ian will be 1.5 points ahead of the field which seems like it’ll be hard for the others to overtake...
Can we say Ian has it in the bag now? It appears Fabi will loses and Ian will be 1.5 points ahead of the field which seems like it’ll be hard for the others to overtake...
If Ian draws the rest of his games, then either Caruana or Naka will need to win 3 out of the last 4 games to catch him... which should be almost impossible... so more likely is not only will they need to win some games, but Nepo will have to start losing too.
So yeah, Ian will probably win the tournament. He had some rough positions (against Caruana and Naka) but other than those early games he's seemed very in control, never being in danger, drawing when he wants to draw easily.
I think what this tournament has shown is that while he no doubt will be a force to reckon with when he is older. But this tournament has shown Firouzja that it will take a lot more than just being aggressive. He needs to learn when to play certain ways and when not to.
imo firouzja was never something that interested me as much cause seeing hikaru prove to haters that he still is a top 10 even top 5 classical player just felt so satisfying. like i don't even understand why people didnt expect him to do well? sure he retired and sure he mostly played online but the guy has shown from time to time that there really are only a few that can match him in certain formats like blitz/rapid and even in classical many are struggling
i am confident enough to say that nakamura has proven himself to be worthy of a match with magnus given his skill and incredible performances despite several hate and i know many wouldn't like a match between the two but then again no one will win versus carlsen, we know that so why not see a match from someone has never been there but adds interesting flair?
Seems like Naka has fixed his biggest weakness, which I guess was some kind of low self esteem problems. Now with a lot of fans online he can recover from losses and fight the next day... he basically said so himself in the post game interview today (not the low self esteem part, but how the past version of himself would have been too devastated to play well after losing).
So yeah... I wouldn't mind a Carlsen - Naka match... it will be really tough to catch Nepo though.
like i don't even understand why people didnt expect him to do well?
Because he wasn't even a top 10 player.
Also his whole life he had a sh!t personality and was a jerk to everyone, so he was easy to cheer against.
Of course now he seems like a normal adult, so I don't mind if he does well in this tournament 
i am confident enough to say that nakamura has proven himself to be worthy of a match with magnus given his skill and incredible performances despite several hate and i know many wouldn't like a match between the two but then again no one will win versus carlsen, we know that so why not see a match from someone has never been there but adds interesting flair?
I would say that he has proven he's still a top-10 player, for sure.
Magnus, though, is on his own level, like you said. It's both impressive and unfortunate, since any matchup with him seems unfair.
At this point, it's like:
Grandmasters -> World Top-10 -> Magnus Carlsen -> Stockfish
Okay so Fabi is in a bit of a must win today, it appears he did catch Ian in prep though which is good