The three actions marked 'OK' in red are done, leaving one action for another post. While I was updating the FIDE links, I discovered a few links concerning the forthcoming title match. I'll add that page ASAP to my index for the World Chess Championship.
Magnus Carlsen, the 5-time World Chess Champion, today ended months of speculation by announcing via his sponsor Unibet that he will not defend his title.
Unibet? Yes, Unibet: Breaking news: Magnus Carlsen will not play in the 2023 World Chess Championship (unibet.co.uk). So who *will* play the title match? Magnus Carlsen Will Not Defend World Championship Title (chess.com; Peter Doggers):-
GM Magnus Carlsen will not defend his world championship title against GM Ian Nepomniachtchi next year. Carlsen announced his decision on a podcast on Tuesday. According to current regulations, FIDE Candidates tournament winner Nepomniachtchi will now play the world championship against Candidates runner-up GM Ding Liren.
Ding Liren's participation is about as accidental as things get in the real world. First, GM Karjakin lost his place in the Madrid Candidates; for details see The Karjakin Affair (March 2022). Then Ding Liren scrambled to grab that place by rating; for those details see The Ding Liren Affair (May 2022). At the half-way point in Madrid, the Chinese star had a negative score, but finished strongly to overtake his rivals for second place.
World Champion Carlsen had already announced the possibility of relinquishing his title during last year's 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi title match (m-w.com). The players in Madrid knew that second place was worth a fight.
The table I developed for Madrid Candidates - Kickoff (June 2022) once again comes in handy. According to Chessgames.com,
Classical games: Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Ding Liren 3 to 2, with 9 draws. • Including rapid/exhibition games: Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Ding Liren 13 to 9, with 17 draws. • Only rapid/exhibition games: Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Ding Liren 10 to 7, with 8 draws.
Those results include a +1-0=1 score by Nepo against Ding Liren in Madrid, where the Russian won with the Black pieces. Advantage Nepomniachtchi?
The downside of Carlsen's move is that many fans will continue to think of him as the *real* World Champion. The winner of the forthcoming title match -- venue still unknown -- will forever have an asterisk after his name. We know from the PCA fiasco that 'two world champions are [not!] better than one'; for those details see FIDE/PCA Chronology (m-w.com; 1993-1996 and after).
One thing I can't do is explain the event's logo, shown on the left.
It's a reverse (black on white) copy of the official logo (white on black) seen on many FIDE pages.
The logo shows eight right-pointing arrows aimed at a Rook. To the left of the Rook is a small text that says 'a8'. What does it all mean?
There are still a few more actions concerning the event to be accomplished:-
The crosstable can also be improved:-
Can I accomplish all of that for a single new post? Somehow I doubt it; maybe two posts.
With five rounds left to play it seems even more unlikely that anyone except Nepomniachtchi or Caruana will win the event.
The Russian finished +1-0=4 in the last five games, while the American collapsed with +0-3=2, giving him four losses in the second half of the tournament. The final tally in the following image tells the complete story.
Ding Beats Nakamura To Finish 2nd Behind Nepomniachtchi; Radjabov Claims 3rd Place
(chess.com)
The battle for second place was less straightforward, especially since World Champion Carlsen had teased that he might hang up his crown before the next title match is held. That last round game 'Ding [Liren] Beats Nakamura' left the Chinese player a half point ahead of his main rival for runner-up status and a possible title match.
And thus the 2022 Candidates Tournament, Madrid (m-w.com) goes into the official record. The next move is GM Carlsen's. He convincingly beat the same challenger +4-0=7 in last year's title match, 2021 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi, Dubai (m-w.com). Anyone expecting a carbon copy of that match is advised not to place large bets.
Nepomniachtchi clinched first place during the next-to-last round. Here is the winner's interview with Dina Belenkaya.
Nepo's Instant Reaction To Winning Candidates (5:25) • '[Published on] Jul 4, 2022'
The applause and Nepo's reaction to it are worthy of a champion. Players who won candidates tournaments always became superstars. Players who won two -- Smyslov, Spassky, Karpov, Anand -- always became World Champions.
***
Later: Re 'Players who won two [Candidate cycles] always became World Champions', wrong! A few weeks after this post, a Chessbase article, Nepo joins the elite Two Plus Club (chessbase.com; Albert Silver), pointed out that Korchnoi won two cycles, but lost the title match both times to Karpov.
Next week's 'Second Week' post should have the results through the ninth round. If Nepomniachtchi and Caruana continue to do well, one of them could become World Champion Carlsen's challenger for the second time.
Both of them continued to do well, but the event is still far from over. The following chart shows the standings after the seventh round, mid-point of the tournament. The next two rounds saw two key games featuring two of these top players against a key rival.
Nepomniachtchi, Caruana Win Again To Extend Lead On Field
(chess.com; after rd.7)
In the eighth round, Nepomniachtchi drew while Nakamura beat his compatriot Caruana. That gave the Russian a full point lead over the higher placed of the two Americans, who were in second and third.
In the ninth round, Nepomniachtchi drew with Black against Caruana, while Nakamura lost to GM Radjabov. That let the Russian retain his one point lead over Caruana, who was a point ahead of Nakamura and GM Ding Liren, both with an even score. The Chinese player won his first game of the tournament, beating GM Duda. Nepomniachtchi has White against Nakamura in round 12.
With five rounds left to play it seems even more unlikely that anyone except Nepomniachtchi or Caruana will win the event. Since both players won a previous Candidates tournament, we can conclude that experience counts in this toughest of tournaments.
For both posts, I used the following chart showing the round-by-round progress of the participants in the 2013, 2014, and 2016 candidates tournaments.
The red ovals identify the leaders after the 3rd, 7th (midway), and 14th (final) rounds. In all cases, the ultimate winner was among the leaders after the other, intermediate rounds. The only real exception to this pattern was GM Kramnik in 2013, who was trailing after the 3rd and 7th rounds, then had a super spurt during the second half to finish in a tie with GM Carlsen.
I created a new chart for the 2018 and 2020 tournaments, shown below. It highlights the leaders after the 4th round, because that's where the 2022 tournament is now. The red line on the 2020 tournament is a reminder that the event was effectively split in two pieces because of the covid-19 pandemic.
In the 2022 tournament, GM Nepomniachtchi is leading with 3.0 points after four rounds, followed by GM Caruana with 2.5 points. The other six players are all bunched within a half point of each other.
Next week's 'Second Week' post should have the results through the ninth round. If Nepomniachtchi and Caruana continue to do well, one of them could become World Champion Carlsen's challenger for the second time.
The 2022 Candidates Tournament starts in a few days. Following the pattern I established for the previous event -- see Yekaterinburg Candidates - Kickoff (March 2020) -- here are a few relevant links:-
The centerpiece of this current post is a crosstable showing the historical record of all previous games between the eight players, according to Chessgames.com. Their records against World Champion Carlsen are also included. The links under the players' last names lead to their FIDE rating pages.
| Car | Din | Dud | Fir | Nak | Nep | Rad | Rap | : | Car | |
| Caruana | xx | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | : | * |
| Ding Liren | xx | * | * | * | * | * | * | : | * | |
| Duda | xx | * | * | * | * | * | : | * | ||
| Firouzja | xx | * | * | * | * | : | * | |||
| Nakamura | xx | * | * | * | : | * | ||||
| Nepomniachtchi | xx | * | * | : | * | |||||
| Radjabov | xx | * | : | * | ||||||
| Rapport | xx | : | * | |||||||
| Carlsen | : | xx |
In next week's post, I'll summarize the highlights of the first week. I'm sensing more interest in this event than in any previous candidates tournament.
