Nakamura nally hitting the jackpot with his opening choices
He looks the favourite because he won three games in a row and is truly coming into his own; Gukesh continues to impress; Gujrathi playing weak in the last few rounds despite getting a lot of chances
Hikaru Nakamura was undoubtedly the hero of the last two rounds of the Candidates chess tournament at Toronto. He is very exible and can play a lot of unusual opening schemes, most of which he tests online.
It came in handy against R. Praggnanandhaa as he chose a relatively unknown side line. Pragg did well in the beginning but then lost his way. Nakamura pounced on the opportunity and scored a very important victory.
He then followed it up with intelligent opening preparation in the 12th round against Alireza Firouzja, once again getting a position and playing to his strengths.
Nakamura’s earlier attempts against Ian Nepomniachtchi and others missed the target, but it seems he is nally hitting the jackpot with his opening choices.
He is now in the joint
Nakamura has the momentum and the joint lead.
lead with the biggest momentum. Gukesh continues playing impressively. He got into a good position against Fabiano Caruana and then employed an unusual fourth move in the 12th round against Nijat Abasov’s favourite system, Nimzo-Indian. He came up with many creative ideas and slowly outplayed his opponent.
Nepomniachtchi won a topsy-turvy game against Vidit Gujrathi. It must be said that Gujrathi made the
early runs and missed a couple of wins, after which Nepomniachtchi took over.
A strange collapse for Gujrathi, who has been playing weak in the last few rounds despite getting a lot of chances.
Nepomniachtchi then tried copying Nakamura’s opening approach against Praggnanandhaa but was not as successful. He shares the lead with Gukesh and Nakamura.
It is hard to say who the favourite is, but I would pick Nakamura because of the fact he won three games in a row and is truly coming into his own. He has di¡cult pairings — he has to face both his coleaders — but can obviously decide the tournament in either of these games.
Exceptional
Gukesh is playing exceptionally well and hasn’t been in trouble at all.
Nepomniachtchi has been getting into trouble but his ability to get out of it is impressive.
Finally, Fabiano Caruana is back. He defeated Gujrathi and is half-a-point behind the three leaders. Praggnanandhaa no longer has chances to win the tournament.
In the women’s section, Tan Zhongyi is the sole leader with eight points from 12 rounds and Lei Tingjie trails her by half-apoint. They are the only ones with mathematical possibilities of winning this tournament. The others have fallen just far too behind.
Lei can count herself slightly lucky, having escaped against Anna Muzychuk and her draw with Kateryna Lagno keeps her in the chase. Tan was very impressive in during her win over Lagno and constructed a very pretty checkmating net, which helped her take the lead. The half-point lead denitely makes her the clear favourite.
Koneru Humpy recovered slightly by defeating Nurgyul Salimova and drawing with Aleksandra Goryachkina. Vaishali has substantially rescued her tournament after four consecutive defeats. She has now won her last three games.