FIDE Grand Prix Series: Nakamura and Rapport qualify for Candidates 2022
Hikaru Nakamura and Richard Rapport are officially in the Candidates 2022. Richard Rapport scored 20 Grand Prix points (7 points in the first leg for reaching semis + 13 points in the second for winning the event), while Hikaru has secured at least the same number (13 points in the first leg for winning the event + at least 7 points in the third leg for advancing into semis). No other player has even a theoretical chance to catch up with them in the FIDE Grand Prix standings. In the last and decisive round of the pool stage of the FIDE Grand Prix organized by World Chess, Hikaru Nakamura defeated Andrey Esipenko and became the winner of Pool A. He proceeds directly to the semi-final of the Berlin Grand Prix and will wait for his opponent from Pool B. Levon Aronian was the only player who could join Hikaru on tie-breaks, but he lost the game against Grigoriy Oparin. Only after the encounter between Leinier Dominguez and Vincent Keymer ended, it became clear that Hikaru and Rapport had secured their spots in the Candidates. By eliminating Dominguez, Keymer killed all theoretical chances to catch Hikaru and Richard in the Grand Prix. The local hero proceeds to the tie-break in Pool B and will be playing against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who quickly drew with Daniil Dubov. Both players have the same number of points. Sam Shankland and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave ended their deep theoretical discussion in a draw by perpetual check quite quickly, while Wesley So and Alexandr Predke signed a peace a few minutes later. These results set Wesley So up for a play-off for first place in pool C against Sam Shankland. Pool A Grigoriy Oparin came well-prepared today and managed to get a complicated position out of the opening against Levon Aronian. He chose a relatively rare line with 11.Bf4 and was feeling it was easier to play this position for White. The American GM was unhappy with the way he played today and noted it was a one-move blunder in the game. He completely missed White’s 20.Ba5, which was a hard blow for Black as his position just fell apart a few moves after. Andrey Esipenko chose to play the Bishop opening and found an interesting way to complicate the position. He created some threats on the kingside, and his position looked quite promising. Esipenko was sure he had some winning chances, but it was unclear where he could have improved his play. It turned out Hikaru didn’t feel the danger at first. “I didn’t feel it was getting dangerous until there were f4, g4 and Nf5 on the board. The great thing about the position is that no matter whether I’m lost, or I’m completely fine, I had only 1 or 2 choices on every move, and I just had to find a good move,” said Hikaru after the game. He thought that 27…f5, and 29…Nh5 were critical moves and he felt after that point the position should be a bit worse for Black. Esipenko was still hoping to win the game at the moment when it was his last chance to make a draw. On the move 35, he could have traded the rooks and transferred the game into the drawish ending. Instead, he chose a more ambitious plan that backfired immediately, as Hikaru consolidated his forces and scored a victory. Pool B Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Daniil Dubov drew in 13 moves after a three-fold repetition. Shakhriyar was not happy with his position out of the opening and decided to sign a peace and await the result of the Keymer-Dominguez game to learn whether he gets to play tiebreaks tomorrow. The local hero Vincent Keymer pleased his fans with one more victory in the tournament. He got a comfortable position with White out of the opening against Leiner Dominguez and managed to regroup his forces, creating unpleasant pressure on the kingside. After a couple of inaccurate moves by Leinier his position became dangerous, and the American decided to go for a forced line which resulted in the lost ending. Vincent was very happy after his victory and that he managed to squeeze into the tiebreak tomorrow. Pool C Maxime Vachier-Lagrave knew the entire line from the game until the end and spent just a few minutes, while his opponent Sam Shankland was struggling to find the best moves and not to lose “the most embarrassing game of his life”, as he put it in a post-game interview. He got clearly caught in the Grunfeld Defence, which is the main weapon of MVL and thought he would lose this game with Maxim not making even one move on his own. “Ï was just lucky that the most obvious moves of White were the good ones; otherwise, I thought I could lose immediately,” explained Sam in a post-game interview. After the game Maxime Vachier-Lagrave spoke about his participation in the FIDE Grand Prix series organized by World Chess: “The result is bad and of course, it is more painful because I’ve been putting all my focus on this Grand Prix for the past few months. Some things were working out, but some were definitely not clicking in terms of my play.” After the game, Maxim and Sam were discussing the possible scenarios for the second game from Pool C So – Predke. Had Alexandr won the game, Sam could have qualified for the semifinals immediately. “If Predke can be my hero, that would be great. If he wins today, I will buy him dinner, drinks, whatever he wants!” said Sam with a smile. However, So and Alexandr Predke finished their game in a draw. Alexandr Predke played creatively in the opening and sacrificed one more pawn in the tournament by playing 14…Nbd7. Wesley So was happy with his position as he had a bishop pair and a good knight on d5. The American was putting constant pressure on his opponent, but Alexandr defended precisely and managed to hold his position. “I underestimated his idea of Qa2 and Qa3, which was strong. My opponent just played very well today”, said Wesley
FIDE World Cup & Women’s World Cup 2023 – Call for bids
1.1 The International Chess Federation (FIDE) will hold the World Cup & Women’s World Cup in the second half of 2023 (see the Tournaments Regulations: World Cup 2023, Women’s World Cup 2023). 1.2 FIDE is opening a bidding procedure to invite any federation member of FIDE or any organiser approved by the national federation to host the event. The federation’s letter of support may be provided later when the bid’s evaluation procedure is launched. 1.3 The prize fund of the World Cup shall be a minimum of one million eight hundred thirty-four thousand (1,834,000) USD net of any applicable local taxes. The prize fund of the Women’s World Cup shall be a minimum of six hundred seventy-six thousand two hundred fifty (676,250) USD net of any applicable local taxes. Contribution to the FIDE Development Fund from each event shall be a minimum 20% of the respective prize fund.The bid may contain special proposals on financial and commercial conditions. The FIDE Council shall decide whether these conditions are admissible. 1.4 The Bidding Form shall be filled in by an Applicant. A signed copy shall be submitted as e-mail messages to the FIDE Secretariat to office@fide.com by 20 October 2022, 23:59 Lausanne time (FIDE has a right to extend this deadline). All the documents shall be submitted in English. Additional documents may be requested by the FIDE General Strategy Commission (GSC) for further evaluation. 1.5 Bid Evaluation Report shall be presented by GSC for an approval of FIDE Council. 1.6 Once the Organiser is granted the right to organise the event, a relevant announcement shall be made on the FIDE website. FIDE Technical Delegate (FIDE TD) may be appointed at the same time to supervise the event on behalf of FIDE in consultation with GSC.
FIDE Grand Prix Berlin – Round 5 Recap
Half of the games ended with decisive results in Round 5 of the final stage of the FIDE Grand Prix Series organized by World Chess. It was a very good day for the American players as three of them, namely Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So, defeated their opponents. All three are leading in their groups before the final round of the group stage. Hikaru Nakamura’s persistence was rewarded, as he won a difficult ending against Grigoriy Oparin and caught his main rival Levon Aronian, who outplayed Andrey Espenko. Both are in the lead in Pool A. Vincent Keymer earned a draw in his game against Daniil Dubov with precise defense. Leinier Dominguez and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov drew their game and stayed in the shared lead of pool B. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave sees his Candidates hopes evaporate after losing a hectic game to Wesley So, who now shares the lead in pool C with his compatriot Sam Shankland. Nikita Vitiugov and Anish Giri played out an uneventful draw, while Amin Tabatabaei saved a lost endgame against Yu Yangyi. All four players of pool D enter the last round in a tie, postponing the big fight for pool D victory for tomorrow. Pool A Andrey Esipenko was expecting to play against Hikaru Nakamura today and was shocked to learn he had to play against Levon Aronian 5 minutes before the start of the clock. He didn’t check the pairings carefully and gave a big advantage to Levon by playing with Black without any preparation. According to Levon, he had analysed this line in Nimzo-Indian Defense some time ago, knew the idea with h4-h5 and remembered that Black is losing after inaccurate 12…c5. Andrey explained that his move c5 was an attempt to create counterplay in the center. However, it failed as White’s attack was way too strong. After the best defensive move for Black 12…Bg7 White would have continued with 13.h5 Nh5 14.Nh7! with a powerful attack. After 13…h6? Aronian didn’t give his opponent any chance, got to Black’s king and forced his resignation on 23rd move. Hikaru Nakamura and Grigoriy Oparin played a very interesting game in the Nimzo-Indian. “At some point, I got very optimistic in the middle game. I thought I should be much better. It was so complex and after 25.g3 Qh1 I was not even sure if White was better,” commented Hikaru after the game. It seemed for the American player that Rf6 was an innacuracy that helped White to trade the rooks and win a pawn. Hikaru demonstrated an excellent technique in the ending, even though Grigoriy could put more stubborn resistance. The players analysed a computer line 47…Bc8 followed by Kh5, which could have given Black certain drawish chances but came to the conclusion this line was simply impossible to find for humans. Pool B Leinier Dominguez was trying to improve his time management today in his game with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and played faster compared to the previous rounds. However, it seemed to the American it would have helped to think a bit longer in critical moments as he missed the clear advantage, which he got out of the opening. After 19…Bg5 White decided to go for the force line but underestimated Black’s counterplay with 21…Raf8 from far. Leinier wisely changed his original plans to capture the pawns of the queenside due to an unpleasant blow Rxf2! After 22.Qc5 played in the game, most of the pieces were traded, and the players ended up in a drawish rook ending. Daniil Dubov got a promising position in the Moeller Variation in the Ruy Lopez. After 15 moves, he had also 1 hour more on the clock and decided to sacrifice a piece in order to complicate the game, hoping to make it more difficult for Vincent Keymer to solve all problems. “It was a bit of a contradiction. I could force a draw, and I’m pretty sure I was not better, and I didn’t want to play at all. And again, while you are at home you don’t want to play, but then you come here, and your opponent is down to 3 minutes. And then I thought, ok we would play three moves he would probably blunder, and then we played two moves and I couldn’t repeat the moves any more and again I had to play, and it was a very tricky game somehow,” said Daniil, who seemed clearly disappointed with the outcome. The local hero Vincent Keymer showed great defensive skills and stopped White’s attempts to create a dangerous attack. He could have hoped for more had he found 25…Qf6 with a chance to gradually convert his extra material. Later on in the ending, Vincent blundered a pawn, giving winning chances to his opponent again but was lucky to hold onto a draw in the end. Pool C Wesley So was surprised with the opening choice of Maxim Vachier-Lagrave and could not recall if Maxime had ever played Nimzo-Indian with f3 earlier. Taking into account the tournament situation and the fact that it was the last game with White for MVL, the French Grandmaster decided to go for a sharp variation with g4 and was ready to take some risks. Maxime decided to break through with f4 in a complex position, the move that was later criticized by both players. Wesley found a very strong continuation 20…Qa4, with an idea c4 and since that moment, Black were clearly better in all variations. “Of course, with my opening choice today, I knew it involved a very big risk component, so I feel there were things I could have done better, but overall it was a very strong game by Wesley,” said Maxime after the game. Alexandr Predke didn’t get much out of the opening and decided to complicate the position by sacrificing a pawn. Sam Shankland grabbed the pawn, and it turned out White didn’t get sufficient compensation. Alexandr’s desperate attempts to fish in troubled waters of complications only precipitated his defeat. Pool D Anish Giri was fully prepared for Semi-Slav, which appeared on the board after some opening transformations and quite comfortably reached equality. His