Caruana misses a Tal-like combination, but still wins in Round 8 of FIDE Grand Swiss
The leader Vidit Gujrathi drew his game against HikaruNakamura and allowed Bogdan-Daniel Deac, Fabiano Caruana and Andrey Esipenko to join him in the lead. The chasing pack consists of 11 players sitting half a point behind the leaders. In the women’s section, all three leaders, Antoaneta Stefanova, Anna Muzychuk and Rameshbabu Vaishali, drew, maintaining the lead ahead of Sophie Milliet, Leya Garifullina, Tan Zhongyi and Batkhuyag Munguntuul. On board one, the leader Vidit Santosh Gujrathi met Hikaru Nakamura’s Sicilian with the latter’s preference – the Alapin Variation. The Alapin is considered a very safe choice for White, especially in the lines where White doesn’t allow the creation of an isolated queen’s pawn (IQP) on d4. Usually, a typical situation arises where White has three pawns versus two on the queenside while Black has four pawns versus three on the kingside. These positions are slightly easier to play for White because his queenside majority is easier to move forward. Nakamura deviated from his choice against Raunak Sadhwani from the second round, where he went for the more fighting option of the fianchetto of the dark-squared bishop. Today, he went for the more conservative development with …e6 and slightly deviated from a previous game of his (where he took 6…cxd4) in favour of the move 6…Qd8, recently also played by Magnus Carlsen. This deviation set Vidit thinking for 35 minutes (!). As he said after the game, this was an attempt to figure out the possible move-order transpositions and the best way to continue. Eventually, he went for 7.Nc4, the most commonly played move in the position. The critical position arose on move 10. Here, White had a promising plan of 10.Qe2 followed by Nce5, h4, Ng5, possibly 0-0-0, Rh3-g3, etc., with a dangerous initiative. In the post-mortem, the players couldn’t find a satisfactory set-up for Black. When asked, Vidit said he was sorry he didn’t go for this, and the reason was that he “misevaluated the position.” He went for 10.a4, and then a short castle, but a move repetition after …Nh5, Be3 Nhf6, Bf4 Nh5 ended the game in a draw. On board two Fabiano Caruana used a relatively forgotten line against Etienne Bacrot’s Taimanov Sicilian. After choosing the line with 6.Be3 a6 Caruana played the move 7.a3, which for some time in the 1960s was a favourite of Mikhail Tal. The idea of the move is to prevent the typical Taimanov pin with …Bb4, thus allowing for a more aggressive set-up with f4, Qf3, etc. This is how Tal used to play when Black replied with 7…Nf6. Bacrot chose the more direct 7…b5, intending …Bb7 with quick queenside development while at the same time having in reserve the …b4 push. White exchanged on c6 and continued with the development of the kingside with Be2 and 0-0. As is his habit, Bacrot started spending a lot of time, and by move 13, he had 35 minutes less than his opponent while the engine wasn’t thrilled with his position. White continued forcefully, and after exchanging, the dark-squared bishops started to pile up pressure on the backward d7-pawn. In order to get rid of this pressure, Black pushed …d5, but this led to the creation of an IQP on d5. In addition to another isolated pawn on a6, White had a solid advantage. What made things worse for Black was that the position was very one-sided, and he had no counterplay. Caruana increased his advantage, but in spite of the position being safely in his favour, it wasn’t easy to find a breakthrough. He missed a deeply concealed one on move 31. Caruana played 32.Qb2 and after 32…Rc8, the worst was behind Black. The winning move was 32.Qa1!! with the deep idea of c4 and Nh5. It is very difficult to see an attack both on the queenside (the bishop on b5) and the kingside (the mating threat on g7 after the rook leaves the d4-square). It takes a lot of imagination to discover a move like Qa1, something the Great Wizard of Riga had in abundance. Unfortunately, playing Tal’s variation in the opening wasn’t enough for Caruana to complete the full circle and play like Tal the whole game. The lines are not easy to calculate but had Caruana spotted the idea, he would undoubtedly have seen the lines, too. After missing this chance, Caruana couldn’t do much against Bacrot’s precise defence, and the game was heading to a draw. However, Bacrot’s time trouble cost him the most important half a point. Black’s position is exposed, but he can still draw after 55…Rb3. In the game he played 55…Nc6? which after 56.Nxc6 Rxc6 57.Ra5! forced a winning rook endgame for White. After the exchange on a5, White placed a rook behind the passed a-pawn, and Bacrot resigned. On board three Andrey Esipenko had some “compensation” for being caught in the opening yesterday, as today he did the same with Vincent Keymer in some sharp preparation in the Reti Opening, at least judging by the time both players spent on their first 19 moves. Keymer opted for the early advance of the d-pawn, a line that became popular after Magnus Carlsen used this type of development in his match against Ian Nepomniachtchi in game nine of their match in Dubai in 2021, a game that Carlsen won. In this position, the automatic recapture on d4 with the pawn would lead to calmer play, but Keymer went for the engine’s preferred line of 7…e4, which was met by the engine’s second choice of 8.d5. White sacrificed material to obtain strong central pawns on d5 and e5. Keymer started spending a lot of time on his moves (for example, his 11th move took him almost 20 minutes) while Esipenko continued to play a-tempo. The curious thing was that both players followed the engine’s best line, a clear indication that they had analysed this before, with the difference that Esipenko had revised his notes before the game while Keymer was trying to remember his. Here the engine suggests chipping away at White’s centre by 18…c6 (or 18…Kd7 and then …c6), but after 13 minutes of