Ian Nepomniachtchi: “The strategy was not to lose”
The winner of the FIDE Candidates Tournament answered Eteri Kublashvili’s questions in great detail. We publish this interview, courtesy of the official website of the Chess Federation of Russia, with some minor edits. The video version is available here. – Ian, you won one of the most important events in every chess player’s career and qualified for the World Championship Match. It’s a great achievement, congratulations! So, how do you feel now? – Thank you. I feel really exhausted because it was an incredible tournament in many, many senses of the word. First of all, I guess it took 400 days from start to finish, it is kind of outstanding. Well, when you read about chess history, players were travelling by sea, from America to Europe and so on… In our times, you know, it’s not romantic at all because of the global pandemic thing. I think the most difficult part was not playing chess, but these 13 months between the first and second legs, during which one somehow needed to keep one’s focus, needed to prepare constantly thinking about other guys: what were they doing, how did they prepare, what were they going to play, because basically, it’s one year between the tournaments and only seven games to prepare for. So, you should be ready that you’re going to face completely different players in a completely different situation. I believe, for instance, Ding played really poorly in the first leg, scoring –2, and now, in the second leg, he scored +2. He also beat me on the last day. It’s just one of the examples. – Yes, it was a very long and nervous period of expectation and negotiations, but still, in one of his interviews, Anatoly Karpov said that this one-year break would do you good because probably you would save more energy for the second part. Do you agree with this? – Well, especially now when I know the result – yes. Indeed, I’m not the person who should whine about this long break, since in the end, I won the whole thing. However, I’d say that this also would help other guys, because, you know, the Candidates Tournament is a very difficult competition, the stakes are very high, and there’s only one place, so it doesn’t matter if you finish on +1, or +2, or earn some rating: you should score the maximum amount of points, you should take the first place. Basically, you can earn some rating, you can play some good games, but all this will never make you happy unless you win the Candidates. If you remember the last year, everyone was afraid of the COVID-19. As for me, on my last training session before the tournament, I got a slight cold, but somehow it was going worse and worse and worse, and by the end of the tournament, I was feeling really bad. As far as I remember, in the last game of the first leg against Maxime, I actually skipped most of my preparation because I was feeling so bad that I just wanted to save as much energy as I could, but it produced the opposite effect. I just mixed up moves in the line that happened and quickly got a worse, almost lost position. After that game, the situation wasn’t that clear anymore. I was on a +3 score, in a commanding position, but then I ended up sharing first place on +2 with Vachier-Lagrave, and it was very bad news for me. Anyway, I was determined to show that this was just a random slump, and I was preparing hard for my next game against Anish… I was very shocked and disappointed when I learned that the tournament was stopped to be resumed “sometime in the future”. Then some time passed, and I understood that I was very far from my best conditions, so I guess this [stopping and resumption] made me a really big favourite. – What was your strategy before the second part? – The strategy was quite simple: not to lose (laughs). Because, well, it may sound funny, but in general, I had an opportunity to commentate on two last editions of the FIDE Candidates Tournament. In Moscow 2016, we commentated with Miroshnichenko, and it was only for one half of the tournament. I think I was also helping Svidler a little bit during the event but wasn’t really involved in it. In 2018, I covered the tournament fully on my Twitch channel. And I noticed that people were just going completely crazy for some reason. Perhaps the stakes are so high that they can’t help it… The smaller problem is they can’t play their best chess. They are affected by the strength of their opponents, their good preparation, and the pressure. But it goes without saying that the bigger problem is that sometimes you’re just going completely crazy, you play some moves or make some decisions you’d never make in any other circumstances. It was a big lesson for me, especially commentating on Kramnik’s games. I guess he’d played six or seven decisive games: win-loss, win-loss, win-loss… Well, OK, win and loss are the same as two draws, but they don’t bring you closer to the first place. At some point, I realized that as far as I scored +2, I was kind of lucky because the games against Wang Hao and Ding Liren at the start of the tournament went really well for me, I got something I prepared for, and I managed to convert, of course, not as smoothly as I wanted, but still. And I thought, all right, I have four White games in the second part of the tournament, while Maxime has four Blakc games. I feel that MVL is more a “white” player, he does want to push with White, it’s one of his strengths. On the other hand, his repertoire with Black is a little bit risky for such a tournament. I mean, people had one year to prepare… Last year, it
Rafael Araque wins first hybrid tournament in the Americas
The chess federations of Panama, Puerto Rico, and Colombia joined efforts to run the Hybrid Invitational Chess Tournament of Puerto Rico (April 30 – May 02), the first competition in the Americas held in the hybrid format. This new format, presented and approved by FIDE at the beginning of the year, implies that the games are played online, but the participants are physically present in a public place like a club, federation headquarters, hotel, etc. It is expected to be a good alternative to keep chess players active and alleviate the negative impact caused by the global epidemic. The 5-round Swiss tournament with classical time control brought together 30 players (10 per federation). The rating favourite Rafael Araque (Colombia) rose to the occasion and came out on top netting 4 out of 5 points. A large group of players scored 3½ points and tied for second place with Diego Zilleruelo (Puerto Rico) finishing second thanks to a greater number of victories. Carlos Neira (Panama) is third on account of better Buchholz over his competitors. Final standings: 1. Araque, Rafael (COL) – 42. Zilleruelo, Irizarry Diego (PUR) – 3½3. Neira, Carlos (PAN) – 3½4. Mendez, Andre (PAN) – 3½5. Ramos, Efren Andres (PAN) – 3½6. Fellman, Mike (PUR) – 3½7. Diaz Montes, Edwin (PUR) – 3½8. Otalora Pacheco, Carlos Eduardo (COL) – 3½9. Rojas Castillo, Leibnitz Edison (COL) – 310. Oquendo, Abel (PAN) – 3 Photo: Courtesy of the Puerto Rico Chess Federation