Ian Nepomniachtchi leads the Candidates’ Tournament along with Gukesh Dommaraju

Before the final part of the Candidate Tournament in Toronto, which determines the contender for the world champion title, Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi retains good chances for a third consecutive victory in such a competition. Four rounds before the end of the tournament, he is in the lead, however, paired with the young Indian Gukesh Domraju and feeling the breath of four more opponents behind his back.

Tuesday at the Candidates’ Tournament in Toronto, which determines the opponent of the Chinese world champion Ding Liren in the future championship match, was the penultimate day of rest, prepared for the recovery and reboot of the participants before the final stretch of the competition. And for the Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi he was clearly useful.

Nepomniachtchi had a brilliant first round. He spent so much that the memories of how mediocre he played chess in the past few months after losing the championship match to Ding Liren a year ago became irrelevant. But it was acquired by memories of the Russian’s successes at previous Candidate tournaments – in Yekaterinburg and Madrid. The schedule was wonderful – zero defeats, wins against the Frenchman Alireza Firouzji and the Indian Vidit Gujrati, confident draws with the American favorites Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura.

But in the second round everything is not so good. Ian Nepomniachtchi did not allow misfires, but three consecutive games with a division of points – with the Azerbaijani Nijat Abasov, Firouzja and the Indian Gukesh Dommaraju – did not look like an achievement, given their character.

Abasov, the weakest chess player in the candidate eight, who until recently could not be imagined in an elite company, Nepomniachtchi did not strain him so much with white, against Firouzja he exclusively defended with black and the defense was difficult, and finally, against Gukesh Dommaraju in the tenth round he played extremely insipidly, so as if he didn’t think about anything other than a draw, being white. These performances by Ian Nepomniachtchi suggested, among other things, banal fatigue, which often prevents even outstanding grandmasters from getting into the real wheelhouse and deciding on complex and risky options.

At the same time, Ian Nepomniachtchi still retained such a position that allows us to consider his chances of a new triumph in the Candidate Tournament to be very good. However, now you can’t even call them beautiful and tall. In this sense, the situation is slightly different from the one in which Nepomniachtchi found himself on the eve of the finish in Yekaterinburg and Madrid: there he managed to create a margin of safety.

Now he is in the lead, but, in fact, there is no reserve. At the top of the table along with the Russian is Gukesh Dommaraju, who has the same number of points – six. And this, of course, is already a sensation, because the Indian is only 17 years old, and at such a young age even the main chess prodigies like Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov (included in the register of foreign agents) or Magnus Carlsen have not yet come close to the contender rank.

And Nepomniachtchi’s competitor is already, one might say, somewhere next to him. If the Candidates’ Tournament were suddenly interrupted right now, the Russian would have to fight Gukesh Dommaraju in a tiebreaker.

Moreover, the Indian’s finishing schedule is perhaps simpler. In it, unlike Nepomniachtchi, he has games with two outsiders who have lost motivation – Abasov and Firouzja.

But the beauty of the situation is that the prospects of winning the tournament are real, not purely mathematical, not only for Ian Nepomniachtchi and Gukesh Dommaraju, but also for four other chess players. Three of them – Caruana, Nakamura, as well as another Indian youngster Rameshbabu Pragnanandha – are only half a point behind the leading tandem. At the point behind – Sees Gujrati. In terms of reliability, perhaps, none of them in Toronto can compare with Nepomniachtchi, but their pursuers are okay with the desire to get involved in a fight. And sometimes it turns out to be decisive in such twists.

Alexey Dospehov