At the halfway mark, Gukesh and Pragg emerge as true Candidates
Seven rounds have been played at the Candidates tournament. Seven more to go. In a tournament where only finishing first matters, players are now expected to shift gears, adjust strategies and go all-in for the final push. Before play resumes after a rest day, let’s catch our breath and look at what it has been like at the halfway mark:
The achievers
Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa. Teens, debutants, greenhorns. The Indians’ play has been at odds with their labels. They’re no flustered 17 and 18-year-olds, overwhelmed by the occasion. Gukesh stayed undefeated and in the shared lead until Round 7 while Praggnanandhaa lit up the tournament with his insane opening preparation and enterprising play.
Both are now in joint second place (4/7) alongside world No.2 Fabiano Caruana, half a point behind sole leader Ian Nepomniachtchi. Huge props. In the last six Candidates, the player who was leading at the halfway mark went on to win the tournament
Underperformers
Hikaru Nakamura and Alireza Firouzja. World No.3 & crown prince-in-waiting haven’t exactly been mopping up points at a tournament they went into as favourites. Both have one win each from
seven rounds. Hikaru (3.5/7) has been playing the diligent streamer, posting YouTube recaps after every game and wondering aloud why fellow top players don’t do the same. There are still seven more rounds and perhaps many upheavals to go. It’ll be interesting to see where the American finishes.
Firouzja (2.5/7) has been having a pretty dismal tournament — with three losses in seven games. On the morning of his Round 7 game against Gukesh, he played 10 online blitz games against an Iranian FM. He won four and lost six of those. “I wanted to win some games but lost those too,” he laughed at the post-game press conference.
Move that shook
4…f5. Praggnanandhaa dropped*
Won
RD6
Lost
RD7
Draw
SCORE 4.5
4
4
4
3.5 3.5 2.5
2
this banger of a move, a Delayed Shliemann in the Ruy Lopez against fellow Indian Vidit Gujrathi in Round 3. The hyper-aggressive line with a somewhat dubious reputation is one of the many surprises the 18-year-old unleashed over seven rounds of play.
“I’m kind of trying to play normal chess every day but somehow things are getting interesting,” said the ever-jovial Indian teen.
Time trouble
If there’s a poster being made for the carnage caused by the time control at the Candidates — 120 minutes (no increment) for the first 40 moves, Gukesh would probably be on it. In Round 7, he lost in a mad time scramble to Alireza Firouzja and sat with his face buried in his hands in pure pain and disbelief. “It’s funny that this is a time control that you don’t play in any other tournament,” Vidit told Chessbase India ahead of the Candidates, “I don’t think it makes sense at all… it’s a bit ridiculous.” Often, the middlegame can be reduced to blitzing out moves and the time control has allowed a few players to escape danger, while some others have suffered its brunt.
‘What’s in your thermos?’
Post-game press conferences in chess can offer players a moment of levity. And often throw up the oddest questions. “What’s in your thermos… where did you get it?”, Nepomniachtchi was probed in earnest by a journalist, after his Round 5 draw with Praggnanandhaa. The Russian took a beat to probably tell himself that it wasn’t an act of espionage. He went to provide full disclosure of his thermos’ contents — well, tea. He revealed that he’d purchased it from a gift shop in Canada and went to talk about the motifs on it for a good minute. At the other end of the table, Pragg chuckled.