Ian Nepomniachtchi took candidate’s pace

After the starting segment candidate tournament, which takes place in Toronto, Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi seems to have thrown out the image of a dark horse, regaining his rank as an undisputed favorite. After four rounds, he became the sole leader competition with the status of a contender for the world title at stake, having won two very different in style, but very convincing victories: first over the Frenchman Alireza Firouzja, then over the Indian Vidit Gujrati.

Four rounds for a competition in which there are a total of fourteen rounds is, of course, a short distance. But the temptation to draw some conclusions based on its results still arises – at least in relation to the most controversial figure of the tournament, which will determine the opponent of the current world champion, Chinese Ding Liren, in the next match for the title.

The controversial figure is, of course, about Ian Nepomniachtchi. The frontman of Russian chess arrived in Toronto in such a status that you can’t even come up with any clear, unambiguous definition for him.

On the one hand, a brilliant background in the form of successes in the two previous candidate tournaments, in Yekaterinburg and Madrid, and after them participation in championship matches, albeit lost, but valuable in terms of experience – against Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren in 2021 and 2023. On the other hand, there are indistinct performances over the past few months, hinting at a loss of form and the fact that the third successive takeoff is unlikely to work out.

But so far everything is just working out. Purely mathematically, Ian Nepomniachtchi by the first day of rest during the competition in Toronto was a little ahead of his Yekaterinburg schedule. Then, after four rounds, he had 2.5 points, and he shared first place with the Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and the Chinese Wang Hao. In Madrid in 2022, the pace was exactly the same as now – three points and sole leadership. In Spain, Nepomniachtchi, by the way, retained it and excelled extremely convincingly, with a reserve.

But something else is more important. Ian Nepomniachtchi’s performance literally screams of great preparation and excellent tone.

This is again that Nepomniachtchi, who at the beginning of the decade appeared as an exemplary hunter of the championship title – erudite, decisive, perfectly at home in both extremely complicated and “quiet”, boring positions.

In this sense, his two victories are indicative. Their Ian Nepomniachtchi, who won with black against the Azerbaijani Nijat Abasov and the Indian Gukesh Dommaraju, won in the second and fourth rounds over the Frenchman Alireza Firouzja, who until recently was considered the most talented representative of the young generation of chess players, and a grandmaster from India who has improved greatly in the past two or three years Sees Gujrati. In both cases, the opponents played the Spanish game – an opening at the elite level that is extremely popular, but still fraught with all sorts of surprises, despite the fact that it has been studied and used up and down.

So, against Firuzja, Nepomniachtchi settled on a tricky option, with many tactical and strategic complications. And he showed daring and courage in him, sacrificing pawns left and right and ultimately forcing his opponent, who seemed terribly sorry for getting into these wilds, to twitch and make mistakes. Against Vidit Gujrati, the Russian played the famous Berlin variation with an early exchange of queens, known for its blandness. But he played it extremely accurately, trapping his opponent’s rook, who apparently at some point thought that he would somehow get a draw. It didn’t work out.

The candidate tournament will resume on Tuesday after a day of rest. In the fifth round, Ian Nepomniachtchi will meet with the young Indian Rameshbabu Pragnanandha, and then there will be two, perhaps, the most important confrontations with American chess players Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, to whom the favorite marks were very easily attached before the candidate tournament. Caruana, meanwhile, is half a point behind Nepomniachtchi along with Gukesh Dommaraju, and Nakamura, who started quite modestly, is as much as one and a half points.

Alexey Dospehov