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FIDE Candidates 2026: Hikaru Looks To Fightback vs. Pragg As Zhu Faces Muzychuk! Rd 6
04-04-2026 · 5h 36m
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One dynasty ends, then a new one begins.
Every chess player has one goal in mind when it comes to classical chess, to feed a world
championship.
But before you can take a shot of the king, worthiness must be proven.
Eight for the open section, and eight for the women, are in Cyprus to do just that.
First chances for some, last chances for others.
Whether or not he gets another shot at the world title, his career will be defined by
resilience.
But all with just one goal in mind.
Give it a bit of youngest world champion.
World champions Gukash and Shuren Jun await their challenges and we wait with them.
It's time to let the games begin.
Five rounds in and the candidates has a player to catch.
Yavikir Sindarov returns on four and a half out of five after beating Hikaru Nakamura,
while Fabiano Karawana stays within a point by taking down Bluebound.
And in the women's candidates the pressure is everywhere because Lano and Dutinna joined
Anna Muzichuk in the lead and only a single point separates first from last.
So this is where the knives start to sharpen.
In the open the leader now has to prove he can hold the pace and in the women's candidates
one strong result can transform the entire table.
The margins are smaller, the consequences are heavier and by the end of today the
road to the world championship could look just a little bit different. Welcome to the
2026 FIDE candidates everybody. I'm Jon Sargent. Joining me is the most unlikely Pokemon evolution
ever to hit your streams. It is Tanya Satchdev and David Howell. Welcome back to the stream.
Tanya, how's it going?
It's going well, Jon. You know, honestly, the only thing one can do right now is watch
and follow the candidates because everything is happening in Cyprus with Cinderog,
like a storm, the women's tournament heating up,
what a time to be alive, what a time to be a chess fan.
And David, sorry to spoil it, but I evolve into you
and Tanya is definitely the highest tier evolution.
Just so we clear that up right then and there.
The women's candidates in particular, David,
the table looks super tight.
We'll talk about Zindarov in a second,
but honestly a point separating first from last,
this really is anybody's tournament.
It's good to watch.
Yeah, it's a lot of fun, very unpredictable chess,
let alone the results.
And reason for optimism for all of them,
we've seen some very close games often decided just by moves
just before the time control.
And I'm expecting more the same.
It's very hard to see any runaway winner at this point.
Although if I had to predict maybe Zuzina,
just on the last two rounds alone,
she looks like the one with a bit of momentum on her side.
I mean, it's going to be a lot of fun
because a single result, like you say,
dinner as able to find a way to get a fantastic result head today. It's still not entirely clear.
There's so much work left for her to do. Let's go ahead and before we take a look at the standings,
check in with our man on the ground because a fun master Mike is here to bring us some of the action ahead of today's games.
Let's see what he has to say today.
Welcome in moments before round six live from the media center.
And you know, in the NBA, there's a sixth man award for a person who contributes in unexpected ways.
Here in the media room, I guess we'd have a 17th man award.
That, of course, would be our favorite, a coffee machine.
And because we're in Cyprus, a lot of Greek culture here,
we have the only thing we need to keep us going for three weeks,
which is the Fredo Espresso button.
We click start. We've already got the ice in the cup.
And that is how we give you coverage of the candidates.
What are we going to see here in round six?
Well, step right up, waye.
You might be Javakir Sindharov's next victim.
Sindharov has black against waye,
and we'll see if he can keep the good times going.
He's now past Tigger and Petrosion start
from the 1959 candidates.
I'm sure you remember that well, four and a half out of five.
Nobody's ever done that before.
Fabio under Karawana is going to try to keep pace
as close as he can.
He starts around one point behind.
He has white against a struggling Esa Panko.
And of course, the Karakamora tied for last.
we're gonna see if he can write the shit.
Over in the ladies section, it's a little bit more simple.
We've got three ladies all on plus one
with three points out of five.
That would be Jiu Jitsu, Anna Muzichuk, and Katarina Lano.
Now Anna is the only one of the three
who has not lost a game yet.
She's played the most solid chess.
She will actually get black against Jiu Jitsu today.
In fact, I look back at all of Anna's previous games.
I can't even find a position
where she was worse than minus point one.
So she has completely erased
all of those bad memories from Toronto.
she's having a very solid great candidates.
And I think my Fredo Espresso was ready,
so I'm just gonna enjoy this while we kick off round six.
That is what we call a slow news day in the chess world.
I think I have a job for chat today.
What would the Fredo Espresso gambit be?
I need the opening moves to the Fredo Espresso gambit,
and you're not allowed to say it's the absence
of castles in your preparation files.
Let's go ahead and check out the standings
women's candidates to begin
with David. You're talking
about to dinner just now. She
is one of three players on a
score of three. But of course,
this is absolutely wide open.
Definitely wide open today will
be fascinating. I think we'll
learn a lot as we approach the
halfway mark now. Big pairings
though, especially Zuzina against
Anna Muzichick, two of the
leaders colliding and with the
if she's able to get a good start to the opening.
Anamosy trick though, one of only two undefeated players left in the field.
And Tanya, when it comes to the open section,
okay look, we've avoided talking about the runaway train that is Cinder off for a while.
We do have to talk about him now.
A full point clear and only one person a point behind as well.
He's on top of the world right now.
He's on top of the world and the bottom of the world is three points away.
I mean, that's a completely different leaderboard that we're seeing compared to the women right now.
Fabiana though keeping him true to the chase with his win against Mafia's blue bomb yesterday
but Sindorov four and a half out of five never been done before in the candidates.
I don't know if he'll ever be done again in the candidates.
What a run I think few could have predicted at this one incredible stuff by him and the
pairings that we have really really crucial today because Jawakir is playing a guy who
is winless so far but way so solid it can turn around any moment for him.
he is hungry for that win. Will he be the one who will eventually put a stop to the
cinder off streak and Fabiano Caruana will be rooting for that John. One
follow-up question for you Tanya. Caruana has white against Yesipenko who
hasn't had the best tournament so far. He is a joint bottom of the leaderboard
right now but Caruana is obviously a point behind Cinder off. How must win
is this for him? I think he definitely wants his big chances in this one you
know we saw his amazing prep with the white pieces so this is Fabi's
double white. Yesterday he played brilliantly against Matias finding those ideas in the Petrov and
executed it to perfection. And coming in today as well playing a player who has been suffering
at the candidates and that this is a storyline we see across these events right. Previous in
Toronto we had Alireza and Abbaso with the cross on their back. Right now it is Asipenko the
players are looking to score and for Fabiano I think he looks at this as a golden opportunity
and I look at it the same way.
I think he pushes today and he pushes hard, John.
Well, just now we saw the man to beat Javikir Sindorov
or as we might know him at the moment,
at least for now, Javikir Windorov,
absolutely incredible run in the candidates so far.
And as you can see from this screen,
he has taken a maximum four and a half out
of four and a half points
in the first five candidates round.
The maximum is four and a half, of course,
because of the great bluebound sweep.
It's not actually possible to beat bluebound.
and therefore four and a half is the maximum score you can get. But look at those names. I mean,
Yesapenko in round one, then Prague, Karawana and Nakamura on the trot. David, that's a statement
and a half. Exactly. And he's done it so powerfully, so convincingly. Two wins with white, two wins
with black. He's playing on the front foot. He's taking risks. It's hard to imagine him
being stopped if he can keep up any semblance of this form. But of course, the nerves at
at some point surely will kick in.
He is young, full of confidence, but he is only human.
So we'll see whether he can keep it up.
If he gets another win today though,
we might, especially if Fabiano doesn't manage to keep pace,
we might start talking about that runaway train
even further.
Wei Yi is a hard man to beat though,
as we see the ceremonial first move being played.
Exactly, D4 on the board,
but it might get taken back in just a moment.
We'll see what Wei Yi has up his sleeve.
Tanya, David, I think the games are about to start.
I'm gonna throw it over to you slightly early
so we can get some predictions on openings.
Opening predictions, my favorite part, David,
and we're about to have go time
as Wei Yi is the one who answers the question first.
It is a Kings Point opening.
I will say one thing here, David,
before you give me your thoughts on this,
I think Sindra today wants to keep it solid.
I was gonna say I'll be surprised
if it'll be a Sicilian or a crazy opening,
but I think E4, E5 to me makes the most sense
given his tournament situation.
Exactly. I think it makes both sense for both players here. For Wei Yi, he's
mostly been an e4 player his entire career. Ooh, he actually brings his knight out to
c3. I was going to predict a Spanish Rolopez. So we could be seeing the Vienna,
the Vienna gambit, the Vienna game if White is able to push his pawn forward now.
f4 would be a delayed King's gambit, if anything, but more likely we'll see
white bishop come out, bishop to c4, pawn on b3. I was going to say a slower game, just judging on how
cindorov's been so strong in those dynamic battles, in the kind of hand-to-hand combat
he looks fantastic. So I think Wei Yi just wants a manoeuvring position and yeah, results-wise a draw
would be fine, Tanya. I think for cindorov, even if at this point we're expecting him to
go all out as he seems to be doing with white and black. But here we go, bishop c4 and
Interesting, the way he's going to dodge all the main lines.
Maybe scared of the preparation Cinderov showed in the last few days.
Cinderov did mention in his interview that he's happy to try to play for two results with the white pieces
and keep things solid and with black try to go for the draw.
You know, this is the traditional way to handle such a tournament like this.
But whenever he's got those opportunities, like you're pointing out, he's really taken them,
he hasn't shut down play and it's really been his range and versatility as a player that's impressed me the most.
whether it's the practical decisions that he's taken to create chances,
whether it's been his opening preparation,
the games that he's won, leading up with brilliant prep,
or it's been the tactical fights.
He's kind of done it all and shown that he's at the top of his game.
And by the way, this is getting very interesting and very fun early on.
We see a night jump, I think.
First imbalance about to happen soon.
There's no way for White to actually keep that light squad Bishop alive.
So Bishop, our advantage to Javakir.
Exactly. And this is very well known stuff, but already both sides setting out their stalls and
showing what they want. The bishop will be snapped off now after this last move.
Blue arrow appears rare to see at this early. Only on move five, but the whole point of the knight
jumping to the side of the board was to take the bishop. Now it threatens finally to run away.
So knight takes on c4. We'll get this pawn structure, Tanya, where white has accepted
double pawns, accepted the lack of bishop pair, but gets a great grip on the center.
After Dxc4, it's going to be very hard for black to organize any pawn breaks in the near future.
And it might get really fun after that because if you do see that formation happen,
we might see the bishop come out, the queen move forward, and a long side castle by white.
So it might even have a pawn storm on the king's side.
I will say that yes, king's pawn opening expected by Wei Yi, but the way the game has progressed,
I think he wants to create his chances with the white pieces,
even if it's against the one man who seems impossible to beat right now.
Yeah, exactly. Like he wouldn't be playing knight c3, bishop c4 if he just wanted to draw, if he just wanted, you know,
very symmetrical type of position. The pawn structure is going to change. I agree with you that
he's going to play it ambitiously and I think we can almost guarantee that
Sinderov is going to be on his own here. This is such a rare line, especially this pawn to a3 move.
I faced myself as black, the white queen coming out to f3. That's a very difficult idea.
Sometimes the bishop just drops back, whereas the a pawn could have captured towards the center
But a3, it's forcing the issue, I don't think syndrome is going to pause too long, but Nxc4 is kind of a guarantee,
but after that the plan is going to become less clear.
I did a quick check on everything that you just said and on point there.
So Nxe2 is the most played move, instead of taking that a3 pawn, the king's side knight developing it,
and allowing the formation with a better piece position, about a thousand games have been played with that.
Bishop b3, queen f3, all of that played numerous times and then I have to really scroll down David
and the sixth most played move in this position after all the obvious moves is a3 with only 41 games in our database.
So definitely the fact that Sunderov has slowed down, he's a player,
we've seen him sort of play really quickly, show that confidence that I am well prepared in this when he knows what he's doing.
He doesn't take those early pauses. This might be the first time in the candidates that the surprise has been surprised.
Yeah, A3 only the sixth most popular move.
Do you reckon, Cinderella's going to be telling his seconds off later for not having it in the files?
Pons A3.
Obviously it was going to be played, the most obvious move.
It was so obvious, how could you not have that in the files?
It's amazing right? All the drama that's been happening, what do you make of it, David?
Everything that we've been watching unfold yesterday, I have to say, I mean, yes,
Hikaru with a 67 minute think of between 94 and age four and then kind of lost a few moves in it was it was a bit of a shock
How do you unfold everything and the fact that he pretty much squarely just blamed his team for that loss?
Yeah, it was a bit surreal
I tried to watch some of Hikaru's breakdown afterwards, but I mean I'm still struggling to fully understand
I think it was just a very emotional moment. It's high tension. It's one of the, in his mind,
Hikaru, maybe the biggest tournament of his career. And yeah, to see the self-destruct happen in real
time was hard. It was still an equal position, even if he couldn't remember what had happened,
even if the seconds had mysteriously forgotten to mention the most natural move, the best move.
It was all just odd, but I don't approve of blaming the seconds. I don't think,
I don't think that's the right way to go, especially this early in a tournament, they've still got plenty that they could be helping Hikaru with the rest of the event.
And I mean, as a chess player, when you're looking through opening files, it shouldn't just be a matter of clicking, you know, right, left, right, left, going back forward and memorizing the moves.
It should be kind of critical thinking, asking yourself questions. Why is this the best move? Why is this move in the notes?
notes, what is actually the most natural?
Why is this evaluation correct?
There's so many questions, you need to be curious
as a chess player, but if Hikaru just followed
those opening notes without questioning them,
then I'm not sure it's the seconds to blame.
So we'll see, we'll see whether Hikaru can bounce back.
So far we've got this position still on the board, Tanya.
We'll see where you take back.
Do you wanna delve a bit deeper here,
or should we maybe check out some of the other games?
Kikaru also has a double wipes this round.
Let's do it. As we do see the capture happen in Sifo by both players,
I am predicting alongside Castle by Vee eventually wants to bishop
and the Queen comes out.
On that, let's pull up our bird's eye view
and see all the opening action we've really seen.
We witnessed it firsthand the importance of prep or the lack of it
and all the opening ideas of the players have been bringing on.
David, we've got our brown boards.
That's the open boards, the red hard boards.
These are the women boards in our bottom row right there.
Quite a fun mix there we see of openings.
I'm going to start with the open board
and then we'll do a tour around the world.
We do have the 1E4 by Veli
and I believe Fabiana Caruana.
I thought I had to take a guess.
Either stuck to his ready,
something he's employed in the first couple of games here,
starting with a night move first
and then eventually going with C4
and for Anish Giri and Blue Bomb.
While the Queens are already off the board,
this probably was the Queens spawn opening
and Hikaru Nakamura against Pragyananda.
Another very important fight, David, for our standings.
Also, Queensborough opening.
Exactly, a Nimzo Indian, Pragyananda,
not giving up the Bishop power,
which is quite rare to see in the Nimzo Indian.
Blacks normally happy to part with the Bishop.
We'll get into that game maybe now, actually,
before we jump into the women's boards.
There's a whole range of openings
in the open section yesterday, Tanya.
Curiosity, four games.
There were four different first moves. White played e4, d4, c4 and knight f3. Today there's
one e4, one knight f3, and a couple of d4s I believe. And just a quick action replay
of this d4 opening as you mentioned, Nimzo Indian, which starts here. I noticed Hikaru
doesn't like to go into the kind of anti-Nimzo lines with knight f3 as much these days.
He prefers main lines that he and his seconds can prep together.
Bishop to d4, e3, and okay, b6 is quite a rare guest these days.
It was the old main line I remember back in, well, I remember playing through the games
at least from back in the 70s and 80s when everyone was playing b6.
And the reason, I guess it's fallen out of popularity is the fact that d5, c5 are
in quite good shape.
Castles as well for black, lots of choice, but b6, fiancetum, the bishop, and this
which is the idea, actually C5A3 and the bishop goes back.
Interesting Tanya, this bishop,
it's slightly annoying that the pin is maintained.
White wanted to take with the knight,
get the bishop out and castle.
But yeah, what do you think?
Will Hikaru go into a 67 minute think here
or is he gonna play something a bit quicker?
I'd love a six, seven minute think
instead of a 67 minute think right now.
I think it is time to pace up.
I'll say one thing about this bishop though,
it does maintain the pin,
but you have to be careful about getting it trapped as well.
There are ideas like Rook to be one,
reinforcing the thread of B4,
which kind of forces a night developing move.
And David, we actually prepared this
in one of our Olympiad camps,
in one of the Team India Olympiad camps.
I think it was for the Chennai Olympiad,
this line with Bishop to A5.
It's not the most thematic,
it's not the most popular approach
for Black in this opening,
but it's a very interesting one game option.
And I think Prug, again,
showing a little bit of fight here.
is somebody who likes that he knows Hikaru is off form he's of course aware of you know everything
that has been happening and feels like this is probably his chance to at least try and get the
game and see what happens even if he's playing with the black pieces. Prug is always ready for
these kind of battles and I think Bishop A5 this whole structure of trapping your bishop here
for this dynamic Rook B1 the knight often comes out to A6 and things get quite wild in this
opening. Prug wants a game and you keep mentioning seconds for some reason. Do you have
Do you have any insights on who the seconds for these two players might be?
Anything at all, David Howell?
I might have spent way too much time in the last 24 hours trying to theorise about Hikaru's team,
Hikaru seconds. I actually know a couple of them. I know the identities of a few of them,
but none in the top 20. So there must be a secret second.
At least we can narrow that one down to 20, I guess. It's probably not Magnus.
It's I doubt it's Hans Nieman and it could be a few people but yeah, I won't name names right now Tanya
How about yourself? Do you have any insight?
Well, we of course know about Chris little John being there and I think a Hikaru very clearly also mentioned that yesterday the fiasco that happened
He's not gonna put it on Chris, but he's gonna put it on one of his other secret
seconds who are somewhere in the top 20 and I've got the list open for the April list
of top 20.
So I'm trying to deduce it and trying to make an educated guess here, David Howell.
Now I will say chat.
That is probably not someone in the top 10 because Ikaru would say it's somebody in
the top 10 that he very specifically said around top 20.
So that kind of narrows it down for me, let's say between 10 and 20 and I'd say
close it to between 15 and 20.
To me, honestly, the most educated guest that I can make,
and I think the one that makes maximum sense,
and I see his name, it has to be world number 20, Hans Nieman.
I feel like that is the only correct answer to this question.
Why else would Castle be missing from the file, David Howell?
It will be the greatest double bluff of all time,
like Hans Nieman's posts on social media,
just putting people on the wrong track there.
Maybe that was his reaction to being blamed for accidentally deleting that news.
I'm telling you, David, it's going to be a big reveal and someone needs to call Netflix
and tell them that the real untold is happening right here, right now.
Hans Neumann is the secret second here.
Quite possible, quite possible.
But I think if viewers at home did want to do a bit of investigation sleuthing, then
I would recommend seeing who's playing in Greenca and who isn't playing in Greenca
because more likely the seconds right now are full-time seconds
and they would be distracted playing their own tournaments.
So I think that might give away,
well, it might rule out certain names.
All right, well, we leave chat to playing detective right now
and maybe we'll find that in due course of time,
but let's find out more about this position
that we've got in front of us.
What do you think, how much of a must win game
is this for Hikaru?
You know, he mentioned if he loses another one
before what happened yesterday,
Cyprus will be a vacation.
Is he already on holiday mode, David?
Or does he believe there are still chances
and he can't turn the tournament around?
Good question.
I think he still believes for now,
maybe at the next rest day at the halfway point
after tomorrow he'll properly stop and reassess.
If he's still on a minus score, minus two,
then he'll probably feel he's out of it.
But he did in the last candidates
come very, very close to winning the whole thing
if he beat Gukesh in the last round.
And there he started on one and a half out of four.
Okay, it's one and a half out of five now,
but it shows there's still time, there's still hope.
I think a win here would be the way to kick start
that path back to the top.
But Tanya, I'm curious, you've got me thinking now,
you mentioned the Indian team preparing this
for the Chennai Olympiad, Pragnandha,
he's on the black side of this,
maybe some cross-pollination there,
some teamwork helping to come up with this line.
So I want to know how much you're allowed to reveal
about what Black should be doing in this position.
Well, I'll say one thing.
As far as I remember this opening,
it's quite interesting because very often
the Black Knight isn't taken out on C6
and if my memory serves me right,
it does come out on A6.
You need to time your trades well.
For example, you never want to take in the center,
pawn takes pawn,
unless there's something concrete happening
because then B4 becomes very strong.
You have to play and fight against the idea of B4
at all times.
So it's going to be interesting to see Ng6, Bb7,
the queen arriving to E7,
just making sure that white doesn't get
a successful B4 in.
Meanwhile, as black, you're looking to develop your pieces
and then eventually advance in the central pawns yourself,
either with D65 or even a D5 break at the right moment.
David, now I'm just wondering,
do you think this is the second time in this tournament
that a certain castle has been missed from Hikaru's notes
because Pram just made that move.
Hikaru's gone into a thing again.
Okay, I need to start.
Don't tempt fate, Tanja.
Imagine if he's thinks here for one hour.
I mean, this time I don't think he should be blaming
the seconds because castles is even more natural here
than it was in that other position.
Although, yeah, that other position,
it was still probably the most logical move,
but yeah, I mean, it develops.
And okay, we do see a decision.
Kauru after not too long I think after just three minutes plays the move pawn to d5 and
okay very logical I've actually seen something similar I haven't dealt as deeply as you probably
here Tanya but often white does want to take the space and since the development of his pieces
probably will only reveal itself in the next few moves anyway I think the white knight will
used f4 or g3 and often in some of these lines white has three moves to get
castled and therefore black has a small window to strike and when you mentioned
the advance of the pawns for white to gain space f3 e4 it also opens up the
pieces is an idea that we see often we see the trade happen and for black once
white does capture very often with the pawn I'm expecting him to go on to
spawn in this position. But he does pause. David maybe I'm just completely wrong about
this and maybe knight to spawn is a possibility here but I believe pawn to spawn is the main
move and very often for black then you start looking for ways of expansion on the queen
side eventually trying to get that a6 b5 in as well. At some point Prague will be
forced to give a very likely be forced to give his bishop for the knight and get
that imbalance but he needs to make sure he has enough count to play on the queen
inside before he does that.
Yeah, fully agree with all of those points.
I think here, I mean,
we're going to get a Benoni type pawn structure,
which is normally this one,
where white has a pawn on d5, very far advanced,
black has maybe a slightly less happy pawn on d6 blocking it,
which can be a weakness later,
but in the Benoni,
black always wants to make exchanges.
Black's position becomes freer, better
if minor pieces do disappear from the board.
So I think it would be a huge strategic mistake
And it will show a lack of tension
if Hikaru wanted to take these knights off the board.
I'm not sure which piece will be captured first,
but for example, something like this,
like, I don't think black has any problems at all here.
It's gonna be easy to find homes for the knight, the bishop,
as opposed to maybe this position
where black's a bit more cramped,
slightly less clear where these pieces are gonna go.
So I agree, Pontics Pawn,
I'm surprised Hikaru's even thinking.
Especially if you have to win.
Exactly.
Night Text 1 just feels like the kind of move you want to do
if you want to shut down the game instantly.
Allow the trades.
The point that we mentioned, right?
Why does playing for a space advantage?
You want as many of those miners on the board as possible.
So allowing two of them to get off on the next move,
the problem piece for Black, the Bishop on A5,
to escape so easily.
It would be a very strange decision,
but maybe a reflection of how the tournament has gone so far
for Hikaru.
Yeah.
I have noticed the trend that Hikaru does
want to simplify every occasion. He's made several kind of decisions where he's swapping
off on his opponent's terms, losing time just to clarify things. I'm also reminded of an
interview Magnus gave a while ago. Actually it was when Magnus and Hikaru played this
blindfold match in Barcelona. But Magnus said Hikaru does best when there's block
pawn structures, lots of tension. He can slowly outplay his opponent, slowly
unmaneuver them, use his great understanding. And getting pieces off the board, I don't
know it just it makes it harder to outplay the opponent here if anything. Just take with
the pawn then decide how to develop. Maybe he's just trying to dodge Praik's prep. That's
the only thing I can I can try to reason here that Hikaru is pausing on such a straightforward
decision.
Nighttakes Pawn would be an incredibly soft move here David and I just feel that if
you do capture with the pawn you have to be mentally ready for a fight. It's
kind of position where white will end up playing on the right flank and for Prague all focus will
be on the left side of the board. So you have to be ready that it's a game for all three results
really. It's going to have dynamic imbalances and that is really what Prague is aiming for here.
But I would be stunned if Hikari does go for night takes pawn. To me that would almost be
sort of resigning yourself to the reality of not winning the candidates. At this stage
with the white pieces, do not even try and get a game.
I agree, I agree.
I do see on the chess.com database
that this position has been reached 19 times.
And four takes four and played 12 times.
Knight takes only seven times,
but actually has a better score.
So maybe we shouldn't write it off yet,
but I mean, taking with the pawn just looks so logical.
And Tanya, maybe if we just delve a bit deeper,
just for a few moves, takes, let's say, black blocks.
Yeah, I'm assuming this knight has to move out the way to complete development.
I'm not sure which squares best one of these two makes sense.
Maybe G3.
Let's say black brings out the knight,
should be to something along these lines.
I mean, this just looks like a very rich position full of life for both sides.
Exactly.
It's a full body to fight this one, right?
And you have to start pushing E4 at the right time, F4,
but black is also ready for the counter play coming in with C4,
and I jumping on to C5 at the right moment
as a potential plan here, the rook lining up on EA.
It's all about Hikaru's mindset in this match.
I think this next decision,
if he wants to play for a win,
he will capture it with a pawn.
If he wants to play a more controlled game,
thinking that maybe I'll get my chances later,
we'll see if I do or not,
but I don't want to create massive imbalances already.
Knight takes pawn.
In my head, still a soft decision,
but he keeps thinking,
and I feel very likely we might head in that direction.
David, should we take a look at some of the other opening action while Hikaru makes his decision?
Let's do it. Let's zoom out to the bird's eye view.
But just a quick recap before we head to our first break.
It looks like a few moves between Wei Yi and Cinderoff still just deciding on a plan.
Reti between Karawana and Yosipenko, still very, very early days.
The end game between Gyri and Bluebound, that's very strategically rich.
We'll jump to that later.
And it does look on the women's board
that maybe the two spiciest games so far
are between Bibisara Asabaeva and Divya Deshmukh.
It looks like a Cambridge Springs variation
of the Queen's Gambit.
And Tanjong Yi against Goyachikina looks crazy,
but it is, I believe, still opening theory.
It is a two nights defense where black sacrifices are born.
So we delve a bit deeper.
And in the meantime, I want to bring John in
just to ask what he has his eye on at this early stage of the round.
I think you've called out, well, both of the games I'd potentially be interested in going to next,
but Tanzon Yi Goryachkina from the bird's eye view to me certainly looks like something I'd be keen on exploring all eight games,
still in their opening phase and plenty of preparation now being unveiled over the board.
We'll see what our players and their networks have up their sleeve for the rest of the opening phase.
In the meantime though, if you are looking for something to do during this break, you can build your own chess network with the Friends and Family Plan on Chess.com.
You can get 6 diamond memberships for up to 70% off the standard price and give your friends access to unlimited puzzles and game review.
Head over to go.chess.com forward slash family, or type exclamation mark family in the chat to get started.
Right, the opening moves are on the board.
We continue to travel through them
and discover some of the complexities facing our players
right after this break.
See you soon.
You're one of the most experienced candidates players.
And in Toronto, you had a lot of winning positions,
but we're not able to convert them.
Were there any specific lessons that you learned in Toronto
that you will bring with you here at this candidates?
Yeah, it's already my fourth time in the candidates
and I have played now all of them
since the system has been changed.
So I have experience.
I know like what to expect,
what this tournament looks like.
And I hope it will give me some advantage
towards some players who are here for the first time.
The most important thing will be to play well.
And as you have mentioned,
I had many chances in Toronto,
but it didn't work out so well.
So, I'll try to do better.
Well, as you mentioned, this is your fourth candidates.
And the other three were in various sized cities,
but here we're at the edge of the world.
What do you prefer being in a city
where you can get out and do things in between your games
or a nice resort where you're gonna see
all your competitors every day.
We are just on an island.
It's not the end of the world.
I like this place.
I won my Grand Prix last year in Nicosia.
It was a different place, but on the same island,
I hope this island will be successful for me.
It's already brought some good memories.
So you've won every tournament
you've ever played in Cyprus?
I think you're the only player that can say that.
I'm not sure, because they were also Bronquist earlier.
So, what was your backup plan if Chef didn't work out?
Well, I never really had the choice.
I was playing since I was a kid, and I was always improving and always competing.
So I just ended up... I never really had a moment where I could choose a reflex.
But I liked school, a lot of different subjects at school.
I was always very curious.
And now I like technology a lot.
I also had, for example, I really liked history very much.
I don't think I would have worked with that.
But I just liked the stories as a child.
I liked to read.
I also liked the stories.
So I was very at different interests.
And now, if I had to choose now,
I probably would want to do something with state of the
art technology, not just trying to push the frontier in
that aspect.
But yeah, the way it is, I'm just curious.
He said you like technology a lot.
Have you used AI in any way to prepare for this tournament?
Well, I guess you could say so.
But you probably mean, I mean, in a way, chess engines also
could be considered like an AI.
But if you mean like the language model,
for sure I've used it.
Obviously, for some small things, like basic things,
like I think it's very good for choosing a destination.
For multiple training camps, I've used it before.
like it's very good or also for holidays, I think it's pretty good.
Like you can sort of have a back and forth.
Otherwise you would just type in, yeah, like in Google,
the whole disney, just whatever,
but you could sort of have a discussion,
you could say, well, I want a little bit more disney,
a little bit more that, and yeah, it was an interesting guide,
few interesting conversations like that.
In terms of like chess specifics,
I've tried to work with it as well,
trying to really work on like the chess software part,
But since I'm doing the app, the Just Monitor,
I am working with a professional developer who
can do all these things much better than me.
So I don't really indulge into it much anymore.
But it is a lot of fun nowadays with AI
that you can have access.
And without any real skills, you
could build yourself some interesting softwares
in a very short amount of time by just saying what you
want it to do and it sort of builds itself and it's not even so bad and can
even work unless it's too complicated it can even work so yeah I've been
definitely playing around with it but recently not so much I was really very
occupied with the Kennedy tournament and it's also the temptation you know to
try to dabble with AI too much essentially it's sort of like for me
it's more like a toy right now and it would just be a big waste of time to
indulge in it too much so lately I didn't have time for that now
Welcome back everybody. We are back with the candidates 2026 Yavrakir Sindaro back at the
board now for his game against Wei Yi. We've had a whole bunch of moves in the open section
including several moves in Hikaru, Prague,
but before the break, we specifically called out
a couple of potentially spicy games
in the women's candidates that we'd love to go ahead
and take a look at.
I think there's more than one choice
for where we could go next though,
so I don't want to make that presumption too early.
We're going to allow Tanya and David
to pick between the games.
So Tanya, over to you.
Thanks, John.
Not an easy choice to make
because it's pretty exciting in early days
in all of them,
But I know, David, when we look at the red boards
in our bottom row, there's one that captures
both of our attention right now.
And I think that has actually two boards
that are very fascinating.
Those are the two boards on the extreme right right there.
Bivisara Asubaba with the white pieces
against Divya Deshmukh with Bivisara's king
still in the center as is Divya.
So castling not on the agenda in this one.
And Tanzanji Goryasthina also looking very fun
with the Black Bishop planted on D3,
not allowing Tanzanji to finish development.
I'll leave it to you.
Where do we go first?
Oh, tough decision.
And actually both of them are theoretical still,
despite the fact that we have been playing now
for over half an hour.
I'm gonna start with Bibisara against Divya.
And just because there has been a little tactical flurry
over the last couple of moves.
And I just want to do maybe a very quick action replay
from the start,
just so that everyone is aware of a bit of chess history
because in the Queen's gambit declined. We see by transposition it goes to a semi-slav and I
always had trouble facing this when I had white in my younger days and it was this move Queen to A5,
the Cambridge Springs variation and the Cambridge Springs defence. The whole idea is to create
tactics against the pinned knight but also some ideas against this bishop and white here captured
in the center and this is just very different Tanya from most Queens gambit declined variations
where black normally has a pawn in the center because this time black takes with the knight
and there's so many pawn sacrifices in this line like knight takes knight black can even start
snapping off the pawn on a2 but maybe a warning label attached to it we did see bishop a3 instead
and very natural moves from both sides developing here and it was at this moment rather than
just get castled, which I believe is also theoretical.
Bibisara might have thought she could win some material.
What do you make of this, Tanya?
She tried to trap the rook, if I could draw my arrows.
But she found herself unable to take it here.
The rook trapped, but bishop to be seven.
A counter attack.
Cool move.
Fun stuff.
And I look at the clock.
It almost feels like Divya is the better prepared in this one,
knowing that this sequence just doesn't work.
You capture the rook.
Black will take the bishop in the center, hit the white rook and c2, also the bishop and b2 will be on free.
You can go rook e2, try to chase the bishop away with c3 hanging, the knight on f3 hanging, I think the tactics just work out very, very well in Black's favor.
So actually this bishop shuffling that Pivis Arar has gone for works perfectly for Divya allowing development.
And after bishop to b7, as it continued, I think we have a couple more moves.
the queen stepped up to defend the bishop at the center of the board.
David,
right about just to move back.
Okay, did she not take the bishop on b7 and after capture now, queen to d3?
Yes, you know where I was David? I was in the history that you were talking about earlier
because there was one certain game being played in this line in which the move queen did
go to E2, but this one is different. Do you want to tell us something about that? Because I think
those two players who played it, I've heard their name before somewhere. Exactly, this position's
only ever been reached once before, and it was two very famous players, Magnus Carlson and Vincent
Clymer back at the end of 2024. So quite a recent game, and here Black continued moving the
bishops, continued dancing by attacking the white queen, but actually just by trading off
and playing a very simple move for it to c8, putting some pressure. It looked like black would have had a more than healthy position.
So maybe Bibisara was aware of it, although I'm looking at the clock and thinking
Divya is actually the better prepared player. She did not trust Magnus Carlsen. It's a quite a rest thing to say,
but she went her own way. She didn't defend with the queen and now queen to d3.
And I guess the idea is that in some variations white might even still be able to attack on the king side,
it but it does look like fundamentally black is totally fine it's either that or
Vivisara is doing a one-up at Magnus because I want to show the difference in
what we have and what was achieved in Magnus's game right so now keep in mind
the reposition on B7 chat in this in this particular live board that we
have the game that we have going on and let's back up and show them the way
Magnus and Winston played on David because the move Queenie to invited
Winston to go Bishop A6 hit the Queen and after the Bishop falls back
to block that. There's a trade that we saw and Vincent happily planted his own Rook on
C8, a really nice square. It's on the open line and it's already targeting on C3. Now
the way that Bibisara has gone about things, did you have to find her Rook to be slightly
misplaced for at least a couple of moves?
Yeah, you're right. It is pretty much trapped. It can't move across this diagonal. I'm
not sure where it's going, maybe b5 when the Rook has to later zigzag out, but even that
is coming with some difficulties. Yeah, some ideas of hitting the Rook as well. I, yeah,
I prefer Bibi Thara's idea to Magnus' idea, that's for sure, even if it is small details.
And Divya does castle, she hasn't used much time, Fanya. Was this another one that
the Indian training camp has cooked up together?
I'm seeing this position for the first time, so I can confirm that. Divya in general
as one of her strengths has always been that she is somebody who's very confident of her
decisions on the board and she's not somebody who double checks and triple checks her line.
She's not second guessing herself a lot. She does tend to play fast and put pressure on
her opponent's clocks quite often as much as combative her plays on the board. It is
on the clock as well. So not surprised that she does have a time advantage here, but
I will double down on that thought that I do like making Divya's Rook land in B7
than the more natural c-line which is what happened in Magnus versus Vincent. Still a long way to go
David but queen to e4 with the direct idea of trapping that rook not too many ways to defend it
and I'm just wondering would that force a queen trade a queen to d5 and going into an end game?
Yeah I think you're right like queen to a6 looks like a clumsy square maybe has the pro of
kind of stopping white from castling but I think the most natural move would be
to challenge the queens. And the question is whether this end game, who it favors?
Black has a nice lead to pawn, white has a backward pawn. Who would you pick?
At first I thought queen d5 and the end game should be absolutely fine for black.
You're a little ahead in development. The rook is lining up on c-line or the e-line.
But it does feel that after maybe perhaps shot castle, white is doing fine for some reason.
I'm not really able to decipher why is this so fine for white. I would actually pick black in
in this position, I like the healthy upon formation.
The D5 pawn is on a light square, cannot be attacked.
Meanwhile, white's pawns fixed on the same color
as the bishop.
Good news for Devere.
Yeah, especially if you could pick up this rook
and like plant it anywhere on the C file,
any safe square and black would definitely be better.
But my question, Tanya here is why white's thinking
like castles is maybe the other most natural move
other than hitting the rook.
I did notice that this is quite a common pattern.
If she castles and goes pawn to c4,
she gets hanging pawns.
I used to get this pawn structure a lot from other openings,
like the panel of Botvinnik attack against the Karakan,
the C3 Sicilian, and often an idea
when you have your queen or bishop on this diagonal
is to throw in knight g5.
So I just wanted to ask you about this.
It looks caveman-esque to threaten mate in one,
but sometimes that's how chess works.
What do you make of Black's chances
if White goes for checkmate?
I think the chances are pretty high that Divya spots it
and finds a way to get out of it.
But it's still an interesting line, right?
Because there are ideas like even going H4, H5.
For example, if you stop it with a move like G6,
it feels incredibly loose.
The queen can swoop over to the H line.
You've got H4, H5 coming in, and things
become quite dangerous in this position already.
So you might be forced to, you might be forced I say,
but let's go back David, let's start back.
If not G6, F5, I don't think you ever want to make a move
like F5 weakening E6 as well.
9F6, there is Bishop to E5,
continuing that pressure on the defender,
still asking some questions.
Not an easy choice to make here.
I mean, is Queen F5 the move?
And are you happy with that Queen trade
that damages the pawn structure?
I mean, I just want to do a quick comparison
because Qf5 makes a lot of sense.
It's definitely the safest move,
but strategically, yeah, it's unclear.
Like if white gets a few more moves,
like occupies the light squares,
maybe with a pawn of c4, gets the knight back,
gets castled, gets the rook into the center,
then white has the, well, white has a pass pawn already,
but I'm not sure about the advantage here.
And there was a lot of ifs in my sentence,
like white needs four or five moves.
So this would be interesting.
I'm just trying to understand why she's pausing.
otherwise she might just castle. But the difference would be that if castles say black moves the rook
and now knight to g5, maybe black gets extra options such as the super safe knight to f8
just to defend and I think now no more attack. I'll point out one more difference. If you want to
go for such a line where you want to trade the queens and try to fight for an advantage in the
endgame, it's very often important to have your king in the center because castle is not the
only way to get it to safety. In some lines the king can step up to e2 or d2 closer to the pawns
and that could be a way to develop your rook as well. You don't have to necessarily go to castle
and King Ziggur would be a massive blunder for some reason. Did I just get my keys trapped?
Yeah I would think that they're the same King e2, King d2 because the idea is to put the
king in the center and a nice square but I think you're right Tanya like this bishop is
is just trapped, I trapped it myself.
And four and a bishop e5, f6, that doesn't help either.
Actually, any square just loses on the spot for this bishop.
So maybe not immediately king b2, but you could hide it over to e2
and try to centralize it.
The fact that she's thinking, I think it's very possible
that we might see, and not the standard castle
and something more fun here, but let's bring up our bird's
eye view and continue looking at the other openings that
are on play pretty complex battles.
I also want to point out that Hikaru
on the board that we were looking at,
in fact, did decide, as we mentioned,
to trade with the Knights.
So pieces have come off the board to me.
That does look like a decision.
That feels like Hikaru wants to play super safe right now.
On our top cinder or vei board,
vei did decide to go short castle,
so no long castle fun.
But the position, Javaku, you're still going
for the fight.
That's the top left board right there.
There is a rook on the G line,
so relinquishing any right to castle
on the left flank by Jaboqir,
which means he's ready for a battle in this one.
It's going to be a fun one.
Karwana Asipenko also remains somewhat tensed in the center,
but pretty much in the balance.
Anish Blubom, you know, I think the great Blubom streak
will come back with a vengeance today.
I'm predicting a draw in that one,
given that the queens are off the board,
a slightly damaged pawn structure for Matias,
but nothing to worry about
with the king keeping things safe.
Meanwhile, in the women's board, there are other boards
that catch my attention, David.
You know, we've got the fight between the leaders
as well, Zyujina, Ana Muzichuk, a big clash,
but I know there's one more board that caught our attention.
That's right.
And it looks very balanced between Zyujina
and Ana Muzichuk for now.
The same has to be said between Lagna and Baishali,
even if I really don't like Lagna's Bishop on B3,
that Light Square Bishop, very trapped for now.
But Tan Zhongyi, Goyekina, let's jump into that one,
because that's probably the most dramatic.
There's also a material imbalance.
And we like those, but then a lot of pawn sacrifices
in the opening in the candidate so far,
not normally working out for the side
that sacrifices the pawns.
I'm thinking Wei Yi against Fabiano a few days back,
losing in 19 moves, a few pawns down,
piece down at the end and Hikaru yesterday.
But this one, Tanya, again,
very quick action replay, E4, E5.
We saw a lot of these in the women's candidates today,
knight to g5. Well, I always get confused. The two knights, the fried liver, what's this
called? But after a capture, not knight to xd5, because this would be the fried liver attack.
And this was really scary for black, who has to put a king on e6. This has been analysed
to death, but very promising for white. Instead, knight to a5. And if we catch up, check.
Black blocks, still very well known stuff. Bishop d3, the trendy move. And yeah,
we see knight to f4 hitting this bishop.
This really reminds me of a clash between Hikaru and Fabiano
from a few years ago in the way chess
where Hikaru won with the white pieces.
And ever since this has been analyzed very, very deeply,
Black has compensation due to the shattered nature
of white forms and the bishop pair.
But a few moves later, c5 is a cool move, Tanya.
It looks like both players very well prepared.
And c5 was a very thematic idea in this opening as well.
you want to get your bishop on B7,
won the open diagonal.
But the more important fact that I think
you were about to highlight that as well,
the D4 square for the knight,
knight C6, knight D4,
you can also look at getting rid of the white knight
if you go for that plan via the bishop landing
on G4 as well.
So once black's offside knight does come to the center,
you have enough compensation for that sacrificed one.
And I will point out,
one of the things that you're fighting against
is that dark squared bishop that Tanzonghi has
which sort of disconnects the rook as well.
So you're giving up a pawn, but you're playing for a lead in development, but it gets pretty
fun as the game did develop further.
You're looking at ideas of bishop a6 landing in as well with d3.
I really like this move c5.
It is the second pawn you're giving up, but a lot of piece activity here.
Exactly.
A lot of activity.
Second pawn captured.
Qxc5 now.
And one of the ideas was to lure away the white queen.
So now this pawn is doomed simply.
The white rook gets out the way preemptively.
Bxd3, now B3, finally trying to deal with the problem piece and okay it looks like Goryashkina
after a long long think has moved to Rook, Rxe8 and I see there have been some games in
this position before. White has always played the move Bxa3. I'm not sure the difference
tanya between Bb2, putting pressure on the center on the long diagonal and Bb3 but
But there must be differences.
This is a very chaotic type of position.
And while Goricina has picked up one pawn, she's still down a pawn, but I will say, David,
I've played these positions from the black pieces, and I love the compensation that you
have in terms of the piece activity.
White's queen, out in the open, often gets chased all across the board.
Your bishop's about to land to B6 if you're black.
The rook lining up on C8.
And it's white that needs to be very careful.
There are attacks against the king on the diagonals.
You have a long-term bishop pair to fight for.
Once they're reclaimed there,
the knight will reroute itself via C6 to D4.
It's a really fun fight.
And this is a battle between two titans of women chess.
I wanna point out, both of them have won the candidates.
In the past, one of them is a former women world champion,
Tanzongi, taking the title in 2017.
Goryachkina, winning the candidates in 2019.
Tanzongi winning it in 2024.
So they have so much experience in this format,
this tournament know exactly what it takes to go a long way and interestingly enough fun fact here
David I will both these players win last so far until round five with Gorya Skeena doing a great
Gorya Skeena streak five back-to-back draws for Tan Zanghi she's had four draws and one loss that's
a minus one score for her so both really hungry starving for their first win in there in
in this candidates.
Yeah, and often that's the way it happens, right?
You're having a tough time,
but then eventually you bump into someone else
who's having a tough time
and someone has to eventually win.
It's either that or you settle for like a very quiet draw.
But I think Tanjong Yi is shown here
that she wants to end that streak.
She wants to get on the scoreboard,
at least in terms of getting those wins.
So yeah, it's gonna be interesting.
The opening choice though, you touched upon it,
But I've only ever played this once from the white side,
gone for this greedy line where you take the pawn
and you try and cling on.
And I remember playing a Dutch grandmaster
and after the game, it was a draw in the end.
He was like, do you like suffering?
Do you like to suffer?
And I was like, wait, what?
What do you mean?
That was an interesting game.
He was like, why are you so greedy?
Why do you take pawns?
You gave me bishop pair.
You gave me activity.
You gave me everything.
And after that, I was like, okay,
and never touching this opening again.
Like his words just had such a profound effect on me.
So I think I agree with you on slightly bias
towards black's cause here,
especially with this beautiful Bishman D3 can't be removed,
but I guess a pawn is a pawn.
So very existential questions there by your opponent
in that one, David,
but I completely agree with his thought process.
I really enjoyed these positions with the black pieces.
It just feels like more than enough compensation
and you either end up winning upon back
and white gives it up just to neutralize the activity,
the initiative that black has,
or you just keep enjoying your position.
The queen comes out.
Sometimes you'll even see a move like F5 land on the board.
You know, we haven't spoken about that,
pushing that knight away,
and then the queen joining the party via F6.
It just feels like happy, happy plans
for the black pieces.
But Tan Zongi, she has to be well prepared in it.
She's gone for it.
She needs to know all the ideas.
I think we will finally have a decisive result
between these two players,
just given the nature of this position.
But, let's see how it goes.
And I believe we do have a move.
She's not developed the bishop.
Instead, she brings her queen back to c3,
preempting bishop to b6,
so hiding against any of those attacks,
and keeping it flexible.
I think she heard you, David.
She doesn't know whether to place her bishop
on b2 or a3.
Exactly, and if in doubt,
then why not keep the options open?
And she's actually prioritizing
getting rid of this bishop.
I just commentate his curse.
I just said it's untouchable.
Can't evict it from this beautiful square.
but she wants to play Knight C5.
That's why she's cleared that square
and she wants to hit the bishop, kick it out.
But it does feel superficial
and it does look like it's a novelty.
I don't see any games on the chess.com database
from this position.
So a brand new move and Tanya,
she spent just over 10 minutes since the game began
if we forget increment.
Do you think this is still preparation from Tan Zhongyi?
Yes, actually let's remind everyone
that in the women's section
we've got a different time format, right?
It's an hour and a half.
It's 90 minutes and the clock is what the players thought with
and they get a 30 second bonus time,
increment time with every move.
And as we can see the clocks,
I definitely think it is part of the preparation.
I think she's taken some time.
She's not blitzed it out completely,
but this is the kind of opening
where you wanna take those couple extra seconds
every move, it's pretty dynamic from the start.
But I think Tanzongi looking at her on the screen,
looking pretty relaxed.
She's up upon, she knows that Black has initiative.
I think she knows what she's doing so far.
And again, Queen C3, not a move that you spend.
I would take a lot more time to make a move
like Queen C3 than Tan Zongi did if I was out of my bowl.
But the first thing you're thinking about
is developing your bishop.
So she's got all the ideas.
I like the concept of Knight C5.
We'll come back and check in with this game, David,
as it progresses and Goryashkina
fighting for her first win as well.
Let's bring up our bird's eye view
as moves are happening all across this fair right now.
And speaking of untouchable bishops,
there's an untouchable player in the opening
that in the candidates, that Javakir Sindarov,
lots happening on our top left board as well, David.
And I think let's do a roundup of what we have
in front of us, but let's head there.
Because Sindarov's decided he doesn't need a castle today
against Wei Yi.
Exactly, lots of players not needing the castles.
Hikaru's also just moved his king to F1.
That was not a massive.
He's just recaptured a bishop.
So Hikaru not castling, Yabuki unlikely to castle.
Let's go to the tournament leader as,
I mean, this is what confidence does, Tanya.
There was a nice post on X from Gary Kasparov
talking about how confidence plays a role
and how impressed he is by Yabuki's syndrome.
And I mean, with Black, he's taking huge risks.
Like he said in an interview, he's happy to be solid,
but I mean he's doubled his own pawns,
he's refused to cast a king side.
Should we do an action replay of the last few moves?
Let's do it.
Let's take it from where we left it last.
It was around the time the bishop on c4
was picked up by the black knight.
So Paul most feels like yon's a go right now.
And that takes bishop happened here, pawn takes knight.
And you know, while we go through this action,
I just want to point out as well,
the javakir's run of four and a half,
eight, four and a half out of five.
It reminds me, we've never seen anything like that
at the candidates, but I was thinking about it, you know,
when you think about top level elite runs like that,
it does remind me of Topolov 2005.
San Louis is what I want to say.
And at that time the format was different.
It was still an eight player event,
but it was the world championship.
At that time the world was divided
and you had the fee day, you had PCA
and that was the fee day world championship.
He went on to crush the field in the first half
with six and a half out of seven in a double round robin.
And it was such a massive score, David,
that drawing the rest of the games,
just keeping it solid was more than enough.
And he won with 10 out of 14 at the end of the tournament
with one game to spare.
And at least for the first part,
you know, the first half, the opening chapter,
for me, Singhirov is a story like Topolov 2005,
whether he finishes it in the same way
is remains to be seen.
Yeah, exactly. And whether he can show the same kind of gear change and just stuck cruising now that he's done most of the hard work. He's won so many games. I just wanted to highlight this one moment, Tanya, because here, maybe a less brave player like myself would have just taken this night off the board.
I would have been like, okay, this pin is super annoying. There's extra pressure now on this night.
Yes, I'm attached to bishops in general, but just removing this piece and then maybe castling, for example, it can't be that bad.
It just looks like a position where white has a little bit more space, but not too much damage has been done.
Instead, Sinderov says, no, I'm going to be the most ambitious possible.
And he hits the night saying, double my pawns, please double them, open up lines for my pieces.
And I guess I've seen pawn sacrifices for worse, for less, and he's not even a pawn down here.
He's opened up a file where he bravely castles into it.
And very important here that bishop h3 looks like a nice pin,
but white can block that file with the bishop.
And instead just pawn to a4,
he's slowing white down on the queen side.
But he's also saying, yeah,
what are you gonna do in the center
if this bishop might be here for a long, long time?
Black has pawn breaks.
It feels risky, Tanya,
but he's got the confidence,
enough confidence now to take those risks.
And that can be such a double edged sword right because like you mentioned that do you have it in you to also switch gears when it's necessary to do that and you can ride high on the confidence but that can make you take certain decisions that might backfire the optimism rises go sky high and then are you able to curtail that in that moment.
moment. Incredibly gutsy of Javukri to go for this. In fact, I won't be surprised if we
see his king in the center for the rest of the game. He might feel safest there. The way
he's expanded on the queen side, I don't know if Long Castle is even on the agenda
anywhere with b4, b3 coming up so quickly. He keeps the king in the center, finds a
way to perhaps line up his queen in a rook. A crazy idea but I'm going to mention
it, David. I don't know what are the chances we might see it but it will be
really funny that happens the king stepping up on square with black and I
want to just start threatening checkmate with queen f8 queen g7 exactly I'll
just put that on the board like if white just doesn't do anything special and
just starts making moves the queen could come across and I mean the bar agrees
Tanya like the black king surprisingly safe in the center even stared down by
bishop holding a doubled pawn on its own and white just lacks a plan like
maybe white should be playing for b4 maybe I shouldn't have moved the
because without this pawn break, there's no chance of getting rid of this bishop,
which is both a great attacker and a great defender.
This knight has got nowhere to go.
Maybe the bishop can block, but how long for?
And this type of position looks fantastic for black.
Maybe eventually building for a pawn break.
No, I'm getting carried away with black's ideas, Tanya.
Slow me down.
You know what? Because you're tired of black's ideas,
Black for ideas, I'm going to add one more idea to that.
The fact that he went A4 on the last move, Jabukir,
he didn't rush with this.
And I think it's aimed at exactly what we're talking about
against White's counterplay,
because you can't really go B4 here.
That just loses a pawn on A3.
He's clamped on on the queen side,
B4 pawn takes pawn and you end up just dropping that A3.
Wow.
But apparently it's still fine for White for some reason
and this is where I turn to our resident grandmaster.
David, can you explain this pawn's sacrifice?
I don't understand, Tanya.
I would love Black's position.
Porn up, bishop pair.
Computer says, tiny edge for white.
Okay, I'm just gonna follow the computer line.
So this is not me.
Root to D1, what's that even do?
What's that threaten?
Or maybe it threatens Nite takes E5, that's clever.
Double pin.
So if Black just moves back, then Nite takes pawn.
And there's a pin on the D file and on this diagonal.
But if Black just sidesteps,
oh maybe it's hard to sidestep Tanya.
Like if the queen gets out of the way,
now White switches the rook and in infiltrates.
Okay, this is so tough.
So then would you be forced to go king e7 in that case?
Just to get the rook connected to the queen
and fighting against Knight takes 4?
Oh, check this out.
Also not a great decision.
Check this out, Knight takes 4 and takes,
oh wait, not check.
Wait, I'm losing to which material?
Did you just start with?
Oh, Queen of three, Tanya, you all right?
Queen of three, Queen of three, yes, yes.
That is super strong, hitting the pawn, hitting the queen.
I was actually gonna,
this is winning for white apparently,
but I was gonna do it the other way around.
I thought I was so clever.
Takes, takes, check.
That's Tanya, I've run out of pieces.
I won the queen, but I gave away the rest of my army.
Well, an incredible line.
which means David Howell that B4 is possible for Wei.
And it's probably what he should do.
Yeah, if it's possible, he has to play it.
Like, this chance might not appear again.
Like if you move the rook away,
then it's gonna become even worse
because then Black really will win a pawn for free.
And, you know, what do you think, Tanya?
Is he gonna seize the ball by the horns?
Is he gonna find the moment?
Is he gonna put Sinderov on the back foot
for maybe the first time in this tournament, nobody's been able to do that so far.
Well, first round I think SFN Co did have some chances but it was a crazy battle and at the
end when the scrambles did happen I think the practical fight as it did on to Javakir coming
out on top but that was the one game that could have given us a completely different storyline
to the candidates but ever since then I can't remember a single moment where one could say
that Javakir is even slightly worse or is under pressure. I saw the feature chat there as
as well, implying that Wei Yi, a making cinder off,
think a little bit in this position.
He might have to think a lot once before it does happen.
David, yes, he goes for it.
I think Wei Yi finds the way forward here.
You know, Black's plan, it just feels
with the king moving forward, queen coming up to f8, g7.
You allow a couple of moves and you're the one
who's on the back foot here, is White.
It's not something that Wei Yi wants.
He's the kind of player who is looking
for his con to play.
I will, I don't know what are the chances,
But I think they're pretty high that Wei Yi plays B4.
I thought you're just losing a pawn in this position,
but you calculate your way forward.
And the other thing that I've noticed
about the Chinese school of chess is
they don't care about pawns when it comes to peace activity.
That is what they value over everything else.
So thinking about that,
I would predict that B4 on Wei Yi's radar,
and he goes for it.
Yeah, I think it's the type of move you'll calculate.
So it's just about whether he sees ideas
like that root d1 we showed with the double pins,
trying to win a pawn.
It's like the most well fortified pawn you'll ever see.
And ironically, black can't hold it
in a lot of variations.
If I think you'll see b4 for sure,
it's just about what he calculates.
And it's been a long think, Tanya.
It's been 20 minutes in the tank,
as we see on the top left of the screen.
I don't know.
I think a very confident Wei Yi in full form plays it,
especially if he's playing someone he expects to be,
but it must be a bit scary.
playing someone like Sinderov who's in form, who wants chaos, who's been risk-taking himself.
It's scary to be the guy to kind of go for it. You might get punished.
What is he another fun line that I just came up with while playing through the moves that we
just analyzed David? You're going to like it. Okay, hit me. Hit me. Okay, a way to find the
way okay he plays the most dynamic combative resource of b4 and black does take the pawn
on a3 so let's follow through we saw all of this and here you showed us the move Rook takes
pawn Rook takes rook Bishop takes rook right and it felt like rook d1 was so incredibly clever
let's have that on the board and rook d1 just felt so clever because you're pinning everywhere
you're pinning f6 you're pinning d6 Knight takes pawn is a massive threat but look at this
other cool alternative just to show that it's not the only move that we might be thinking about
but the rook can line up against the bishop here, hit the bishop and let's say you're a little
careless maybe black has better resources you move back and black to play there David.
Oh Knight takes again. No wait, wait. Bishop takes up six. Exactly, exactly. Well Knight takes one
would have also worked but I think the bishop falls back at the end of that line the ideas
are all there but bishop takes f6 comes in with an attack on the queen the queen will have to capture
the bishop back and you give a check and you win the rook and g8 what a journey for the rook on h1
to have castles landed on a1 landed on a8 landed on g8 to win material yeah the life of a rook
that rook is a long distance runner that is for sure and okay this one oh this one is more
direct. This one's more concrete. Like the Rook D1 I showed, that's maybe more mysterious and
Black has so many options. So I love this Tanya. This is strong. Like, I mean, if Black can't just
simply retreat the bishop and chill, then I think we're going to spot this and be super tempted.
I agree. I feel Rook A1 is easier to spot as a human than Rook D1 is. Maybe when you arrive
at this position, Rook D1 can start being on your radar because the first feeling with Rook
to D1 is that everything's defended, D6 has guarded, what am I really threatening, the
king can step up and it's just a move that you don't look too deeply at. But like you
said, you never stop your calculation till you don't have any forcing moves left on
the board. And this is a direct threat with an infiltration idea. So we're very likely
to find this, David, just how much he believes in this position. I'm sticking
with my prediction before coming up?
Yeah, I don't know.
I want to agree, Tanya.
My heart, I'm saying, pay before,
make the candidates super spicy, make it interesting.
But long things, as we saw from Hikaru yesterday,
they tend to result in kind of either rush decisions
or safer decisions.
He might be talking himself out of it.
He might be thinking, OK, instinct says before,
but, oh, it's one of the situations.
Maybe I want to play it safer, a draw is fine.
and then you start to get emotional and you,
well, I at least chicken out of these situations.
So it's very tempting.
Can I just ask what then should Black do
if it's not retreating the bishop in this position?
Is it hitting the rook?
No, but that just feels terrible.
Bishop, no, can't be bishop H3.
This eval bar says 0.0, it says it's level,
but this tactic we showed with white taking
and skewering the King and Rook just looks over.
I was just very happy with the tactic
finding the Bishop F6 tactics
that I just stopped investigating anything more.
I said, Rukk1, I'm a happy camper going with B4.
You just simply really look for options, right?
The Bishop is attacked
and you're not thinking about alternatives in that moment.
Do we have a decision?
Not yet.
And I will also point out, by the way,
really so far isn't minus one.
He's had four draws.
He's had one loss to Fabiano Caruana.
So he's also looking for his chances, right?
You know that if you have to make a run of the candidates,
at some point, David, you need to start winning.
You really do.
And Tanya, I've just turned on the computer to check.
And incredibly, the bishop should drop back.
I was thinking there's no other logical move,
so this is correct.
And after bishop takes, this looks super scary for black.
It looks totally winning, and it is.
Unless black finds, rook takes pawn check, giving up
the rook, because it was going to die anyway.
now taking the bishop and 0.0 is the computer's assessment but black has given up the exchange,
black has the bishop pair and the pawn. Oh this could go either way so maybe where you seem to this
far seem to this position and he's like wait is this too risky how do I even evaluate this
white's king is quite open now maybe he feels there's more risk than reward.
Very possible you know especially when you put the position on the board you see the bishop
pawn but it's really the king's safety, the white king's safety fighting against two very strong
bishops on the board and the queen to boot as well. That it is something that can start feeling
like your rook isn't powerful enough. Yes, it can give a check but that's just one check,
black's king steps forward and maybe you can follow it up with rook to bh, trying to hit the
b-pawn. Is there anything to be said about this line David? And maybe this is what's going
going on in his brain right now.
Yeah, he's probably looking at a position like this,
being like, OK, I have a rook.
It's an open board.
But maybe he's also, in the back of his mind,
got those past Cinderov wins just emblazoned in there.
And he's just thinking, OK, Cinderov's
mated a few opponents now.
He's really good in these dynamic situations.
I think he's talking himself out of B4.
I'm going to predict no, Tanya.
I'm gonna disagree, sorry.
No, I love it because I generally know it is David
that every time I predict,
it's usually the opposite of that happens
and every time you predict,
it might not be the most exciting thing,
but it's usually the correct one.
So I think we might be heading into that direction.
That's storyline one more time.
I do hope to see before happen though,
it'll be some fun lines.
And it's funny, right?
You speak about the Javakir bias
that's probably creeping up on the players
of the candidates in Cyprus right now.
We've heard of the Magnus bias,
but definitely with this kind of a performance,
score line just seeing how much in shape a player is, it can
subconsciously affect the decisions of his opponent.
Yeah, definitely. I've been there myself when, especially when
having a bad tournament yourself and you look at someone who's
in form who believes they're going to win every game who just
thinks that the pieces will fall on the best squares and
somehow things look easy for the opponent. Suddenly, you
just, you know, start triple checking every line, start
doubting, doubting those instincts. And yeah, maybe
leave him to it Tanya it's a 28 minute thing now maybe he's trying to rival Hikaru the almost record
from yesterday. You've got to be really careful about doing that you know it's it's not something
that worked out well for Hikaru you don't want to spend that kind of time and that's exactly what
Javaki Panth is on but bringing up our bird's eye view and they were just going around the
Hania Fabi it looks like has some bit of an advantage at least the bar suggests that we
We do a deep dive into it. He's playing against Esiprenko. Huge game for him.
He's playing against Nondidog, the player who's not informed here in Cyprus with the white pieces.
Fabi definitely ambitious about his chances, but is it really a position that has enough that Bishop on d4 that he does have?
I think it's a strong piece. It can't be challenged anytime soon.
It can always retreat if it is. So Fabi relying on some play towards that long diagonal.
Meanwhile, Anish Bluebomb remains in the balance.
Though I do see that Anish is fighting for some activity on the queen side, some dark square weaknesses.
where the white knight is heading into a bottom left board,
a big board that we have been discussing.
Ikara Nakamura going for some early trades
and then eventually with just one set of minor pieces left,
the king on F1, no casting there,
but the H-Born has started moving forward.
The big question, how concerning is that for Pragyananda?
On our women boards, Yujinna Anamuzichuk still in the balance,
Lagnava Shali as well in the balance right there.
Meanwhile, Bibisara Asubaiva against Divya.
she's still playing against that Divya's rook on b7 which is currently stuck.
Having the hanging pawns is Bibisara.
When will she advance those pawns?
Tanzongi-Goriachkina remains as fun as ever with an extra pawn for Tanzongi
playing with the white pieces, but a lot of piece activity for Goriachkina.
Yeah, I think you summed it up perfectly there.
Most games still in the balance, so they're a very different nature to some of them.
And yeah, maybe we're checking on Fabiano just because we haven't been there so far today.
And as you said, stakes are high in the game, Tanya,
but also the position because it could just easily fizzle out
in the next five moves.
Like if these pawns disappear in the center,
if the lights go and bishops get traded off,
maybe it's just dead equal
and maybe Fabby won't get a chance
to win this game or press.
He's been spending nearly 20 minutes.
So he needs something here and now
and it's gonna be something about peace activity.
Like the black queen has moved a few times now.
She went to d7 earlier, got stared down by a rook
and then had to flee to C8.
So white's a bit ahead in piece development.
It's gonna be that or maybe damaging the black pawn structure
but I don't really see how yet.
What moves come to your mind first?
Well, I just kind of checked in
how the queen arrived at C8.
It was already on D7 and I think it's interesting
because that tells us a little bit
about what Espenka wants in the position
and we'll back up and take it from where we left it
and right around here we see the strike attention
being created at the center of the board.
d4, we see the pawn trades, the knight captured back,
a pair of miners off the board.
And right here from d7, he steps back to c8.
I think Asipenko is getting ready for pawn takes pawn.
Notice how that was not possible in the previous move.
The rook would open up against the white queen
and then bishop takes nine, thank you, game over.
Now for black, I think it's really ideal
to be able to get rid of the light square bishop
in general in these kind of setups.
So David, it solves a lot of problems,
the more pieces that are off the board.
So first and foremost, Fabi needs
to fight against the immediate idea of the capture
in the center of bishops coming off the board.
And is there a good way to do that?
Yeah, it's not easy.
I can only come up with one way of keeping
the bishops on the board.
I mean, the most natural move to my eyes
would be to allow the attention to persist and just
defend this form of the night.
But I think, as you pointed out,
like this type of position, let's say the bishop's come off,
black gives a check and I just don't think it's enough.
Maybe a check isn't even the most accurate,
maybe rook to d8 or something, but a position like this,
maybe you can grind, maybe you can hope that eventually
the white knight gets around to c6,
but it's a tiny advantage,
black should be fine with best play.
The only way I can see is to take this pawn first
and either the knight will capture and okay,
the bishop stay on the board a bit longer
or I think black might take with the bishop.
Then, okay, you can block it with e4.
And the question is whether white's bishop is happy
to kind of have been blocked by its own pawn here.
Yes, it's still on the board,
but maybe not on the best diagonal.
That being said, at least he keeps more pieces on.
White gets the knight out.
Black's queen is still caught in the crossfire.
Maybe this is the most ambitious
from Fabiano right now.
I like it.
I like the idea of pushing ahead.
And then maybe you don't stop there at the right moment,
that pawn will go to e5.
And you know, when the knight is removed from there,
you can look at the makings of some king side pressure
eventually on those eight, seven, tender spots
at the right moment, or even advancing your pawns
further on that flank.
But again, it just comes down to how much of a fight
Fabby wants today.
And I think he wants a big fight today.
You know, you're playing in a tournament
where there is this debutante,
Cinderella, who almost feels like he's crushing everyone,
running away with it, a point ahead of you.
But as Fabi is the most experienced,
probably one of the most experienced players at least,
but maybe even the most experienced players
at the candidate here this year,
he is, it's his sixth candidate, I believe,
in Cyprus, David.
So he knows exactly what it takes in a tournament like this.
He's finished second twice, he's won it once.
He's played a world championship match.
Someone in his mind, I think there has to be
this feeling that there is a big possibility
of a Cinderella of stumble.
There is a big possibility that a lot of things
will happen with so many rounds remaining.
I mean, at the end of it, we've still got nine games,
including today, to be played.
And with that, given the roster that we have,
Espenko is definitely one of the opponents
that he wants to maximize his chance against.
So with that pot process, the idea
of developing your knight and going into that absolute
symmetry with no pawn advances,
nothing coming with tempo, again feels a bit soft.
Very likely Fabi might go for it and think that he just wants to play this on.
But I think it's more likely that we'll see a maximalist approach by him in this position
of trying to get that e4, e5 idea in.
It's just his mindset.
He's playing against Asipenko.
He wants to catch up with Sinderov.
And it might be the only way that he can really push for advantage in this opening.
Yeah, I agree.
I think we'll find out so much information just on this one move alone.
You might look innocuous, like not that much is happening, but if Fabi is in that must
win mode and is thinking about bigger picture, tournament, cinder off, then he'll take this
pawn.
No matter what black captures back with, knight, bishop, he'll play e4, he'll kick
it back, and then like he said Tanya, e5 maybe, or knight c3 first, one or the
other, and the game is still fully alive and tactics, queen still on.
he wants to play a bit safe if he feels that okay maybe he's not in the mood today or he wants to
have his hand on the on the break just in case then he'll play knight to d2 allow a bunch of
exchanges and try to grind but i'm not too optimistic i don't think that works against
yesipenko who's very good technically in end games in defensive positions where it's symmetrical
i think yesipenko is quite good there so yeah i think phabbe really should take on d5
But the longer he thinks the more again I'm inclined to say, maybe you'll take the safe option.
Come on, Fadi. You've got to give us a fight today. I mean, this is really the moment, right?
No time for safety when you're playing with the white pieces. Take your chances.
And it's not to say that the idea of capturing the pawn and pushing the e-pawn
is anywhere close to a big advantage. But at least it creates questions
and poses problems for Esa Panko to solve, you know, direct threats for him to deal with.
And a more open dynamic position in boot as well.
It keeps the Bishop, LightSquad, Bishop alive.
You'll have more pieces left on the board.
So Fabi, let's go.
Pawn takes Pawn and E4.
Yeah, let's go.
And let's go to the birds eye view, Tanya,
because there's some good news for you.
You're on point today with the predictions.
Wei Yi, after a long old think,
has gone for the Chaotic B4.
We're going to see tactics in that matchup.
Wei Yi against Zindarov.
that means maybe we'll see action here as well because Faby will potentially be influenced by
what's in the air out there in Cyprus and feel if where you can go for it then so should I.
And you know we've spoken about the first phase of the candidates being done before the first
rest day and now the next one there are two more games including today to be played before
before the players call it an off for a day right and I think this phase of the
candidates traditionally has shaped up the tournament in so many ways it's the
big block right it does it might not look like the most important one but goes
on it sort of like those mid-overs in an ODI match which go on to define the end
bit of it and I think I'm expecting some decisive results to happen before we
hit the next rest day especially on our top leaders which is Fabi and
Sindhraup trying to play for more but let's bring up our birds-eye view and
head straight over to the action that you're calling out David before on the
board by Wehli. That's the top left board right there. The most combative option he's
sacrificing upon very likely has seen the line that we were discussing earlier with the Rook
eventually lining up against that Bishop at the end of it. Should we go through it one more time
for those who are just joining us, the idea that Wehli has about giving up the A3 pawn?
Let's do it. It's the man of the moment thinking right now before the last move.
I think we just we forgot that it is legal to ignore on pass on Tanya like
I'm saying when David I thought that's the only move that you have I forgot for
a second I need to refresh the rules in my mind but that could step back but I
think this is would be an admission of miscalculation not admission of defeat
but just saying that something's kind of it wrong blacks gonna have to go
super passive right. Bishop c7 this just looks really sad compared to what we've been analyzing
white now has the finger on the button can start pushing forward at will. I think this would be
last resort for cinder off so okay Tanya let's go through it again.
On pass on let's go back to thinking it's forced.
And okay bishop takes pawn or rook takes pawn we only really looked at rook takes pawn right.
Fair. And now that you mention it, I mean bishop to expound is an option, but it just feels a bit loose somehow.
I think that might be something even stronger after bishop to expound.
You know, the queen overloaded defending that rook on a and the pawn on f6 feels like the makings of tactics everywhere.
I would even consider the idea of just doubling up on the a line might be a little slow, but it's on my radar.
Yeah, oh, that's a cool move.
That is ice cold.
Just Ruta A2 and as soon as you say it, Tanya,
that makes a lot of sense.
That is a deadly threat.
And I mean, if black's forced to go back,
then we can play that same tactic, right?
Bishop takes pawn, even stronger than before.
And the black queen, the overload is in effect.
Yeah, Ruta A2.
Yeah, I just don't think you leave a rook
on this A1 square on this line.
You don't kind of self pin yourself or almost self pin.
So Rook takes A3.
Let's go back.
Take, take.
And now we mentioned two moves.
Rook to the center, threatening some tactics to do with pins
or Rook to A1.
And after all the analysis we did,
I will say Rook to D1 feels objectively stronger.
You know, the idea of sacrificing that exchange
at the end of the line,
if you do attack the bishop instead
and the follow up, the bishop falls back,
tactics everywhere.
are really cool in between and in between move instead of taking the bishop you first
give up your rook open up the white king that rook was about to fall any way to a check and
then evaluating this position you know you've got a bishop there you've got a bishop and
a pawn that's four points to the rook having a five point a five pointer rook but king
safety and the bishop pair that adds up as well to intangible points right you just
start feeling the open diagonals the black queen into play I mean from a human perspective
I'm not, I would like to play this position from the black side.
I agree, like there's already threats of like, especially if the white rook goes away,
there's threats like just a queen check and the bishop coming into h3 and
yeah, I could easily see this backfiring on white. Maybe at some point the white king
needs to kind of run towards the center. But yeah, if we compare it to the other line,
take, take, take, take, and root to d1 at the end.
Exactly, I mean this is very sophisticated and I just like that. This is definitely something
RQd1 for example that Wei Yi could have thought about in that long pause he had but maybe
Yavokir had missed when he first allowed b4. In general, I love b4 because it accelerates
the play and that's what we've always taught to do against the bishop pair before the bishop
settle long-term become weapons. You strike before they can get comfortable.
And Sintra does look uncomfortable right now. You know he played a4 and one would just imagine
that you make a move like that and you take a pause from your plan of doubling up on the g-line
thinking you've stopped all counterplay on one flank as the pawns about to fall. And your
opponent is ignores that and goes ahead with it anyway. He's gone into a bit of a tank. It's
been about six minutes right now. I'm expecting him to take a little bit more time but at
the end of it you have to go for well the only move the first move there's
nothing else that you can do on Passa here everything else is illegal but even
if it was legal if you were to fall back with the Bishop like you said it's just
an incredibly passive position that you land up with with D6 being weakly
expansion on the Queen side the Bishop on H4 looking incredibly strong
attacking F6 and the plan of King E7 just starts looking very very slow in
those positions so Sunderhoff thinking about it slightly surprised with his
pawn sacrifice David I think this is gonna be a really fun battle and if
If Wei finds Rook D1, he might be playing for a push for an edge against Wei in that position.
Great call. Wei, psychological edge now. He played a move that Sinderov thought was just
impossible and he's got some tricks up his sleeve. So we'll come back to this, Tanya.
I'm expecting a long think from Sinderov now.
Yes.
In a half minutes and counting.
Let's do it. Let's go back to our bird's eye view.
And as a cinder of navigates a complex battle that's on his board, what catches your attention, David?
Oh, a couple of things. Maybe I do kind of want to delve into Giri against Bluebound, but that looks like it's going to be static for a long time, lots of maneuvering.
So I don't think we'll miss too much, but there have been developments in the Hikaru game.
You touched upon it earlier in a kind of an overview, but maybe we delve a bit deeper because I see King on F1.
I know the game is going to be fun and Hikaru, he's made some big calls in the last few moves.
Very interesting position. Should we just back up from where we left it? Because it was around the
decision of trading on D5 that we felt would tell us a lot about Hikaru's mindset and
at least in my head I thought Ponte X Pawn was the fighting move here. Hikaru goes for the
other option which does trade off a bunch of miners. Night takes Pawn and we saw the
the liquidation happened, the bishops came off the board as well, and a developing move
and it doesn't stop here, right? More trades. And he just decides that he's going to choose
a very non-standard way of finishing development where he doesn't need to connect the rooks.
He recaptures with the king, so that king isn't getting castle for this game at least.
And then he starts pushing the H-pond, not only looking at an aggression with H586,
but maybe a potential rook list if he gets the time to do that. Meanwhile, Pragyananda,
will say has not made any questionable decisions. You know he's been very logical. He's traded when
given the opportunity. He's developed all his pieces. Now the queen comes out, the rook looking
at the e8 square, the knight eyeing the e5 jump as well, eventually expanding with b5 c4, maybe
planting the knight on d3. It just looks healthier for black to be doing. Yeah, it just looks easy
for black. Like objectively we see it's fine. Like white hasn't done too much wrong either,
but yeah I don't know if this is the way to play for an advantage. I don't know if this is
the way to knock Prague off balance. Like yeah I'm I don't want to be too critical but that knight takes
d5 move earlier unless it's some kind of preparation which is unlikely due to the clock usage. I just
think it's Hikaru like he can't stand the tension like any opportunity to trade off pieces this
whole event he's going trade trade trade exchange please like keep the kill the tension
And that's normally a sign that a player is a bit nervous,
or not very confident.
I've been there myself, like these days,
especially because I don't play so much
when I sit down at the board.
If I get given the chance to trade off Queens,
sometimes I am a bit too eager.
Same in middle games, openings,
I'm just too keen to kind of make it simple
because in my mind it's like, okay, I can control that.
Otherwise I feel out of control,
otherwise there's too many variables.
But the best players, they keep the tension.
They only go to end games when it favors them like Magnus.
And yeah, we'll see.
I love your plan by the way of especially C4,
Plunt and Knight into D3.
That's a hard one to stop.
In these Bernonis, Tanya, like three versus two
on the queen side, these three points are going to march.
That's why Black loves trading pieces.
Long term, he's the one for choice.
It looks, again, coming to the point
that Black has just not made any questionable decisions
in this game so far.
By the way, I did see Hikaru reaching out for a move
and he does take the decision to plant his Rook at the center
file.
I'm expecting eventually that H-point to move forward,
whites might also jump onto F-5, and maybe
hope for a Rook lift, either via H3 or E3,
and then line it up against the G-line.
And that could be a plan that could be on Hikaru's radar
to create time to play.
But I want to just follow up on what
you were talking about as well.
Coming into the candidates, we mentioned yesterday
a lot of the tier lists that happened.
And of course, for many people,
Nekaru has so many fans as well.
A huge fan favorite and a lot of people rooting for him
to play the World Championship match.
And he would always be in one of those top tiers
when it came to any candidate's favorite list.
But his path to the candidates has been a bit questionable
in just the choice of tournaments that were chosen.
And at the end of it, yes, it worked out well.
And he's mentioned it himself
that the system allows that to happen.
So he just made it through the easiest one
that he felt it was there.
And maybe the system needs to change.
But at the end of it, how well does that play out?
Because once you're at the candidates,
you're playing the absolute elite in the world, right?
And Hikaru Nakamura's last elite classical tournament
was May 2025, which was Norway chess,
where every round you have to hustle and grind
against the very best, just like you do at the candidates.
Do you think that lack of practice
of playing against these top guys
is something that does come into play
in a tournament like this?
Because to me, it does feel like
an important discussion to have
when we talk about Hikaru's performance so far?
Yeah, I think 100%, it plays a huge role.
Again, I can only draw my own experience,
but when I haven't played kind of the top position,
when I don't feel that I'm at my best,
when I feel a bit rusty,
when there's doubt in my mind about the form I'll be in,
that's when things start to go wrong.
Like you have to come in match fit.
I mean, the top athletes in any sport
they're training day in, day out,
they want to test themselves against the best.
And yeah, I think, I mean, Hikaru, super classy player,
he'll never lose that class,
but it might just take a few rounds to warm up.
And that's my fear here.
Like maybe it'll be round 10
by the time he hits top gear
and then starts playing his best.
But of course, the chances to win the candidates,
they might have gone by then.
First place or nothing, essentially.
So yeah, it's probably not ideal preparation.
I agree, Tanya.
Even if this position is still full of life,
still Rook's queens on the board, potential for an attack.
I don't think Hikaru maybe is feeling yet
like he's hit his peak.
Yeah, very interesting to see how this one develops.
And I think it's truly a game for three results,
despite having such few minor pieces on the board,
some committal decisions by Hikaru in this one.
And with the play this divided on either of the two flanks,
I would say that Black has chances as much as White does in this.
Hikaru looking for an attack on the King's side,
Prague aiming for an expansion on the Queen's side.
And on that, as we were discussing about Hikaru's path into the candidates,
let's bring in John and get his views into this as well.
John, it's so fascinating, the storylines that all the players have had.
Whether it's in the women's section or the ones who made it in the open,
this is to me when we talk about the chess world
and I talk about classical chess.
It's part of the Holy Trinity of tournaments.
For me, it lines up with the candidates,
World Championship and the Olympiad,
these three tournaments.
What's your take on everything that we're seeing?
And do you think the performances are sort of a reflection
on everything that's happened in 2025 with these players?
Well, how many hours do we have for the broadcast
to answer that question?
Unlimited, Jan, take it away, the flaws are.
So I think that a part of what makes these tournaments
so difficult is that in a standard open tournament you can have a bad round or come into your
stride and generally speaking because everyone's sort of on the same level in terms of you
only know who you're playing the day before and stuff like that. It's more of a level
playing field. I feel like the consequences of not coming into your stride earlier on
in the tournament gets felt more heavily in the candidates, gets felt more heavily
in a world championship because you know who you're playing. They probably have
a team that have prepared far in advance and you need everything to click from day one.
So it's no doubt that the tournament has been rough for Yesipenko and Nakamura for example
and I actually have absolutely no doubt that Hikara will be able to hit his stride as well.
But like you say in terms of the tournament result, unfortunately there's a big chance
the damage is done.
What I like though from our point of view is that if it turns out the damage isn't
done, and his 3% or 5% to win, for example, comes back. Oh my God, are we in for a treat
between now and the end of the tournament, right? So no matter what happens, we win.
And that's part of the magic of this, where you feel it to a slightly larger extent than
perhaps you would a standard open tournament. But there's still plenty to play for, not
just in the tournament, but today as well, that positions have been really rich too.
Even though we've got a bunch of eval bars that are very stubbornly sitting in
the middle. Actually there are loads of really fun imbalances, there are some very tricky
positional arrangements that the players have to think about how to navigate throughout
the rest of the day and we are setting ourselves up for some really juicy middle games. So
thank you both very very much, we are going to take the opportunity to recharge our
Kathy, I certainly am, and when we come back we will check out a whole bunch more
of those games. Before we do though, I've got a bit of trivia for chap as we
head into the break. World championships of course have had all sorts of drama in them throughout
the years, but here's what I want to know. Which world championship match was delayed by a volcanic
eruption? Is it Overnictal, Anantopolov, Karpov, Khorchnoi or Fisher Spasky? Send your answer
in Twitch or YouTube chat using the hashtag candidates to win chess.com diamond memberships
and chess ball courses. Use exclamation mark trivia in chat to know more and I'll see you guys in a couple of minutes.
I'm on your grandmaster and I'm a retired I am so I'm going to actually use this board
to have the advantage. If I'm touching the piece, it's going to show me whether it's a good move,
a bad move, or a decent move. Okay, okay. What if I touch this? Oh, taking is not a good idea.
So what's a good idea? It's ridiculous. That's it. It's ridiculous. I know it. A lot of people fall
for that. I know you want to flag me, but I'm just like, I'm going to go sometimes in my intuition,
sometimes with the magic of this board.
I think we need to try to bring the pieces back.
No way, Anon, take that.
There's just no way this works.
That calculated to the end.
I mean, I have to, you know, out of respect for the move.
I got it.
It's not a good move to take it.
Is it Queen H6?
It's Queen H6 first.
Of course I knew it.
What?
I don't know how I stopped this.
I've got nothing here. I can't even move.
Anna.
Thank you, I'm on.
Good game.
What do you mean, good game?
Good game.
It's the best game of my life.
You are actually now one and O against me lifetime.
Does that make me grandmaster?
Not that I want to talk about this too much, but this is new information for me.
When you were in Dubai, did you see any results of that?
Yeah, yeah, of course.
I hear something.
There was a lot of fake news, a lot of fake news.
We hear a lot of things, yeah.
But in general, it wasn't so bad, even in Dubai.
Great.
And you did make that bus to Oman,
and you flew home out of West Africa?
Yeah, it was really hard to road.
For me, I think I cried four or five times during these days.
but everything good is if it's good and it's good.
I'm glad that you're here.
How would you rate your current form?
I don't know actually.
I think the tournament will show in each form I am.
I just want to show good chess.
Welcome back to the 2026 Food Day Candidates.
Indeed it is time to find out a little bit more about volcanoes and chests.
I love that this is mid-break trivia as well and that's important because the start of your
break should be when you're pouring the kettle, the water from the kettle into your
mug.
The end of your break should be when you're taking the tea bag out and adding the milk,
means you get to sit down and contemplate trivia in the middle. Which world championship
match was delayed by volcanic eruption? You had your answers in chat and we can now reveal
the correct answer is Anand Topolov all the way back in 2010. Very well played to Beatrice
Vilata on YouTube. You will be contacted very shortly with your prize. Congratulations
and well done to everyone who got the correct answer in Twitch or YouTube chat. Back to
the chest now. I'm still joined by Tanya Satshdev and David Howell. We have some very exciting,
very tense positions on the board. Nothing massively one-sided just yet, but plenty of
fluidity and lots of rich positions to choose from. David, I'm going to go to you this time.
Where do you fancy going next?
Oh, I'm honored to be trusted with this call because it feels like a big one. It feels
like we're heading into the crunch moments of all the games and here we see all the boards,
Hikaru pushing forward that H-pawn going for the attack, Giri Bluebound still very solid play from
both sides, Fabiano has allowed some bishops to leave the board, I'm really surprised at that
but it's hard to resist where you get the cinder up again. The women's board,
they all look in the balance, those four red boards at the bottom there.
I'm sorry everyone, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I think the action is
hottest between Wei Yi and Simba Rath.
I'm really glad you're taking us there because there have been a few moves since we checked
in last with this one, David Howell, and we were discussing in our break about the
volcanic eruption that caused the delay in the match, and I think Anand's journey
to the venue is well documented in that.
And I will say Beatrice, congratulations,
but you get extra points if you can name that volcano.
And why do you do that?
And why do you try to pronounce it?
Good luck with that.
We come back to chess, David.
Let's start from B4.
B4 did happen.
We found the way forward.
And look at this.
After sitting down,
Senator of calculating the ramifications
of picking up that pawn,
which could have been very dangerous for him,
he does take the pragmatic decision
to actually not capture the pawn,
but instead continues to try to put pressure on White's d4 soft spot there.
He wants to get rid of the defender and after the move b4, he trades that knight.
He gives up his bishop pair saying that I want to plant my other bishop to that central post,
which cannot be challenged because your bishop on h4 is super offside right now.
I think this is Sinderov's attempt to keep things under control in this game.
Yeah, I fully agree.
it's a really mature decision like to not embark on any of those complications we looked at earlier
just go to something he can control and it's a pawn sacrifice as well Tanya you mentioned the bishop
on h4 white can win a pawn where you can just grab now hit the black queen and only then save
his rook next but he's paused he's not making positive signs where he looked like he was
shaking his head a moment ago looking away looks a bit frustrated position still is balanced
the eval bar even says tiny tiny edge for white but I think this is the type of position that
white could lose control if he's not careful. I could imagine a black queen posting up on e6
hitting a weak pawn here. This bishop is going to be so hard to get rid of the black rook is
going to be so annoying for the rest of time and I think first we have to investigate why not
grab a pawn. This is so incredibly deep because I don't see a clear repetition to it right
and instead of grabbing a pawn himself, cinder of a sacrifice, the queen is hit,
you got to move it. Queen d7, it's like the most natural move and I think you were headed there as
well. I'm that e6 spot. And now the question is where does white go with the rook? Because if you
were to play rook to d1 for example here, David, you know rook c1 runs into bishop b2. So at least
bishop b2 is an option there so we can for now hold on with that. And now you were mentioning
queen g4 but I really like your either queen e6 as well here. Just hitting that c4 pawn and
And again, I'm not seeing a good way to keep that pawn defended, Rc1 walks into bishop b2.
If you move your queen away, the bishop on f6 is hanging. That queen is overloaded.
You might just be winning the pawn back, with interest in fact, if anything more,
because the bishop on d4 now looks absolutely gorgeous for black. The rook and g8 beautifully
plays. The queen coming into play. I'm liking this idea of cd4, of counter-sacrificing
a pawn more and more as we look into this position. Yeah, it's one of those positions
as well. If queens disappear, only black can be better. Like there's so many weaknesses in
white's camp, c4 now, a3 a bit later. And I just want to show an instructive variation, Tanya,
because in this position I was thinking, okay, critical has to be taken to pawn. I'm starting
to think it might not be the best move, partly because of the eval bar, partly because of
just how difficult white's moves are going to be. But let's say white tries to take away
some of the burden, the load here from the white queen, just by keeping a3 defended,
So the white queen can focus just on her bishop and now, for example, this move,
Qe6, attacking this pawn. Let's say the rook slides and something along these lines,
just hitting the bishop, bishop retreats and now just offering a queen trade,
like black is better. It's crazy, blacks are pawned down, but it's hard first to keep the
queens on the board. Qe8 is queen here, this would be a double attack, black regains the
the pawn with interest. But if white's forced to, for example, retreat the bishop, take-take,
and this bishop, I want to point out its similarities to a famous Kappa-Blanca game,
where Kappa-Blanca put his opponent's bishop on g3 and never really got back into the action. And
despite being down a pawn, black has the advantage. The king is just going to come into the
center, maybe f5, maybe h-pawn will disturb this bishop. The MVP is black's minor piece in the
the sensor. You know I'm gonna say this is absolutely genius by Senderov. He was
surprised by B4. You know he took his time and then goes for a very counter
combative sequence of moves. Where he's not thinking about picking up material
himself but he saw far away off. I mean it's really hard and I checked with the
engine here David that in fact all of white's best moves here the top two
moves that I have in front of me. Bishop takes pawn is not one of them. White
needs to actually not allow the black queen, this part that we're discussing
either via e6 or g4. Bishop takes pawn gives huge initiative to Javakir. So in
fact, where he should just pause and simply move away his rook and that's not
an easy decision to make because for where he bishop takes pawn has to feel
like a pawn is screaming to be taken. It comes with a tempo against the
queen and then you simply move your look away. Yeah it's crazy that a porn is
worth a full tempo here but what's also crazy is the fact that Wei Yi, there's
so many memes about him, his expression is always the same no matter whether he's
winning, losing, whatever emotions there are, time trouble but he has looked a
bit unsettled just the last few minutes. Ever since Cinderella went for
this line I think in Wei Yi's mind he's struggling to equalize with
white. And look at him, he's staring up at the sky at the ceiling now. I think that
cinder of that flow that he's in right now, it's disturbing everyone. And I think Wei Yi,
it's getting in his head a little bit.
And it's fascinating that cinder all right, because that flow that he that we're talking
about has got little to do with, you know, with his demeanor or his presence on the
board. I think everybody just realizes the magic in the chest that he's showing
right now, how he's finding these ideas and it starts from the opening, you know, it starts
from the opening up until the way he creates chances in the middle game and also his execution
so far has been close to flawless. I mean, we've seen those high accuracies taking on
Pragyananda with 99 percent, Fabiana Karwana close to that as well. Yesterday's Hikaru's
game, I think it was around 97 percent. This incredible accuracy is what he's playing
with. And again, to find this idea with the black pieces and this is of course
all over the board. This is not part of of Sinderov's preparation. I am just amazed with what he's
showing, with what Javaki is showing, with the fight that he's showing. It really brings back
his reminiscent of Gukesh 2024 Toronto in so many ways. Just not caring about what color you're
playing from, what is a tournament situation, who's sitting opposite you. All you care about
is creating your chances and playing the best move that you're finding and the form is
so good that you're finding them move after move as well. The optimism that is there regardless of
the color, the fight that he wants to bring on regardless of the score and not trying to shut it
down is just incredibly impressive. And for Wei Yi also this has been his debut at the candidates.
I will add to the point you were making. This tournament has been slightly different like that.
I remember the 19 move loss that he had to Fabiano Caruana a couple of days ago
where he had this incredible preparation and then two moves later as soon as the preparation
ends, one mistake, one blunder game over. It was the miniature of the candidate so far and you could
see a devastated way. I think the candidate just does things to you that you know it's just a whole
different ball game as a tournament. You know just watching these players in action as a fan,
as a commentator, you can feel the stakes, you can feel the pressure, you can feel the tension
and the energy in the playing hall. What it does to even somebody who's the picture of
of calmness usually they give away emotions. Exactly as we're finding out
now and Tanya just one more instructive variation just to show that it's
actually easier to play black here yes it's equal probably objectively but
easier to play black than white check this out if white plays the move root
to a2 keeping the pawn defended I think quite natural just again taking some
duties away from the queen. I saw the computer wants to just forget completely about f6 doesn't
care at all. Even a move like queen to c8. This is crazy. Allowing white to take the pawn
with tempo, threatening checkmate and just saying, okay, I don't care at all. I'm just
going to play queen to e6. I'm going to say you have to trade queens and probably
White has to agree. And this position, Black's a full pawn down, but Eval is just saying
0.0. If anything, Black is better. This bishop is so strong. Potential for past pawns. Rook
is coming. Backward pawn here. This is mind blowing to me. I struggle to understand this,
even with an engine, even with the Eval bar. I'm not surprised, therefore, that Wei Yi
is also struggling to find his bearings.
incredible and I think a lot of the compensation in all of these lines that we're seeing where
so counterintuitive that black being down upon is happy to take the game into an end game
has a lot to do with that dark square bishop of Wei. It's basically never coming back into the game
right? The f-pawn is pinned you really want to play searching on each one you'll have background
problems to deal with later and then also it's a far way up where are you really finding a path
for that bishop to come into the game. It's cut off with its own pawns as well as Wei's chain
of E5 and D6 taking away any kind of play and meanwhile for Javakir the plan will be either
you develop on the A line start targeting the A3 pawn or maybe play on the king side
on the other side when the king moves away you can decide where you want to switch up
the rooks which pawns you want to attack but rook A7, rook A8 also feels incredibly
natural in this position with the A1 square under control by the black bishop. It's
not going to be the easiest task to keep that pawn alive. Very, very fascinating
But what is, I think to me what blows my mind is that, you know, we have the luxury of
take backs.
We can play variations and understand things in retrospect as commentators.
In hindsight, moves make sense when we've got the evaluation bar on the engine helping
us.
The fact that Javakir has figured this out over the board, David, that he's sacrificing
this pawn, this very critical pawn, a key pawn in the position.
And it's just going to play against the white bishop very often in end games.
anything he has enough to play for here.
That is incredible stuff for me.
Yeah, this is a world-class stuff from Cinderhub.
Wei has also done nothing wrong.
If anything, he's played a great game so far,
but he's coming up against some very creative,
strategic play mixed with a bit of dynamism.
And I think here, at least according to
our all-knowing friend, the computer,
Wei needs to just stop this idea
of the Queen's coming off,
stop the idea of the queen coming to g4 for example. He needs to take a timeout and play moves like h3,
allowing the black queen to post up on a nice square and then now just for example defend this
pawn. I'm not sure with the rook, which rook but a position like this is just balanced, totally equal
but I mean to understand this is one thing and where he needs to get over that discomfort
that he's clearly experiencing. This is potentially, this is huge moment, Tanya.
It's not also the easiest decision to decide why you want to place your rook, because it's
not intuitive to put it on a2.
It feels quite defensive there, right?
Yes, you're doing it to free up your queen, you want to defend a3, but ideally you want
to place it on d1 or c1 or somewhere along the central lines.
So not an easy decision to start with.
First way you need to make the right move, and I believe rook to a2 is objectively the
best decision here for white. But subjectively, practically, from a human perspective, I would
say that I would be so tempted to plant that rook on D1. Also, I'm maybe some kind of exchange
sacrifice in the center to get rid of that monster bishop.
I agree. It's definitely on the radar. And I think that might be the kind of decision
he comes to. It feels like almost a one in six dice roll, like he's got five squares
for his rook, but he's also got bishop takes pawn, which looks like a freebie. So
You roll the dice, you just say, like, okay, anywhere.
And they're probably all, actually Bishop takes pawn.
Now, ironically, he's probably the worst of them all.
Rook C1 also counts intuitive
because of your Bishop B2 idea, Tanya.
So yeah, it's just about whether greed gets the better
of him, but the first hurdle is not touching that pawn,
not taking it off because Black gets a tempo,
will trade queens or will get a bit of an initiative.
So maybe we let Wei Yi ponder here.
He's not looking like he's enjoying this moment.
So maybe we give them a bit more time to think.
And it's understandable, right?
You make a move like before you're
expecting to grab the initiative.
And suddenly, your opponent plays inspired chess
and finding all these ideas on the board,
where there's a counter-sacrifice you need to deal with,
as Wei thinks.
Let's go around the horn here right now and see,
take in world is the other action that's happening.
Once again, brown boards are the open.
The red boards are the women.
We'll do a quick roundup, David.
Let's start with Fabi versus Asipenko.
The queens have come off the board.
The pawn structure is symmetrical.
And to me, yes,
white's bishop more active than black's bishop.
For Asipenko, the bishop in E7, so far not doing much,
but I would say balanced and draw the most likely result.
It just doesn't feel like you have enough
until you're able to get that A-pwn rolling
and create a second weakness on the board.
Yeah, fully agree, draw a very likely result.
Maybe this is a good time, Tanya,
for us to make some predictions.
and we'll have to call upon John as well.
How many decisive games are we gonna see today?
It's that time of the round.
Ladies first.
Oh.
What?
Yeah, to be fair, Tanya, if you think about it,
that's an advantage.
That's an advantage, Tanya, you're doing well there.
If you guess first, then David and I
can't pick what you pick.
So if anything, you get the most freedom here.
But John, I need time to go to,
I mean, I wanna look at all our positions
because again, I want to make an informed prediction
and not set myself up for failure one more time.
So I'm gonna try to do this in real time, okay?
But then if you take too long,
I'll just be uninformed and correct again.
Which I'm happy to be, don't get me wrong.
Fine, I'll try to rush through my decision-making process.
Yeah, not gonna be an easy task,
but let's give this a go.
I think in the open section is where I'm going to start with, I would say where he is, Javakir
Senderov, crazy fight ahead, but you know what, I'm going to predict a draw in that one.
Fabiano, Esipianco, this one, I'm saying a draw.
Anishgiri, blue bomb, I mean this was a draw in my head when I saw the pairings yesterday.
Hey, Karuna, Koura versus Pragyananda, I'm calling a decisive result in this one.
So I say one decisive game in the open.
Don't want me to do which one, but I've just said one decisive game in the open.
In the women's section, I'm looking across the boards.
And while the bar says it's pretty much level,
but a lot of fight is what I see.
A lot of fight across the board, especially the Asubayava
Divya position, looking quite hot.
That's the second board on our bottom row
from the left, upon which I find done,
decision made, two decisive games, six draws,
is my final take.
All right, so two decisive games says Tanya.
How about you, David?
Where are we going today?
Tanya stole my answer so I'll say three decisive games.
Really? You're going to blunder in time trouble.
Someone's going to blunder just before me 40.
I am categorically not going to guess one because I refuse to be that boring in terms of results.
So I guess I'm going for again.
Okay.
Q3 and 4 it is. I'm going to ask Chak to put in a number.
Chak put in a number of how many decisive games are you expecting in round six of the candidates?
It's actually heating up.
John Keith and I on that and let's see what happens.
I see two, David says three and John's for four.
He wants a lot of thoughts.
I will sign off by saying this,
maybe if our glorious mods are listening,
we can even do a poll where we have one, two, three,
four or more and we get that feeling in chat.
I repeat that.
Because then I'll give you,
I'll then give you the results
when we head into our next break
or maybe when we come back from the break
And I will tell you all, who chat agrees with the most?
John, wait.
You know, you can't leave at this because you know what?
Last time we ran a poll like that, the options that Moll's gave was David's right, David's
obviously right, David's always right and the thing is that I just get crashed on such
polls when I'm competing with David's prediction.
So I...
Tanya?
Well, I'll be happy with the poll.
You've been completely overruled and the poll's already live.
I could use for you. It's extremely neutral. The poll is how many decisive games and the options are simply one, two, three, four or more.
None of our games are associated with these answers. This is being extremely objective here. So we'll find out who Chat agrees with in just a bit.
Obviously, I want as much blood on the board as possible. That's why I'm wearing red today. The lights are red. I am here for it.
but I decided not to say six. I'm going to save that for another day. Back to you guys.
And Tanya, I just love the fact that John didn't even mention the answer zero. There could be zero
decisive games. It could be all draws, but we're pretending that's not even an option.
We believe in the fighting spirit of the candidates.
We do and there's still a lot to play for on the boards in all games, complex battles. We
We did have day two, which had eight decisive,
eight all draws, not a single decisive game
in the women and the open.
I'm hoping that's not the storyline today.
I have a feeling we'll get at least one, David.
And I'm just hoping chats with me on that poll.
That would be a first, honestly, Chad.
That would be a first if you make me win a contest,
which I'm competing against the greatest predictor
of all times, David Howell.
I'm not sure about that title.
I'll take it though.
I'm very, I'm very flattered, Tanya.
We'll find out soon whether it was a moniker I deserve,
but okay, we see action in the Hikaru and Prague game
and just a very quick action replay
over the last few moves because we left it
with me praising Black's, well,
Prague's opening decisions,
but maybe questioning Hikaru slightly.
Rook to e1 was his choice.
That rook was doing nothing in the corner, makes sense.
And now I love Prague's next move, pawn to g6.
And if he gets one more move and blocks with h5, then white is just totally stuck forever
on the king side.
So he's basically saying, okay, you can push forward.
The whole idea though is to stop the white knight from jumping, controlling that knight
on g3.
h5 from Hikaru.
Black's knight is the one to leap into the center and Rook lifts.
Still a bit blunted.
And now Black's plan is easy.
Tanya, I don't think Hikaru is enjoying this too much.
where do you see his activity, his plan coming from?
Great question, putting me on a spot there because I'm really
struggling to find a good plan for white here. Also, because
that knight on e5, you know, we've been talking about how that
knight is such a strong piece, it's iron that d3 square once
the pawn moves forward, maybe c4, but it's also a great
defensive piece. For example, he's just now shifted the
king to g1, getting it a bit to safety, love that emoji on
the knight, fully deserving of it. If white was to rush
move like queen h6 and it starts looking dangerous because pawn takes pawn is a direct threat in
this position. Then that knight suddenly goes to g4, hits that queen, kicks it out and says
that was absolutely useless. You don't have time to take the pawn and I think you've got nothing
better to do but to slide back exactly where you came from. Yeah and this is a cool tactic
actually you point out here Tanya because I thought queen h6 was a mistake originally because
because of queen hf2, queen sacrifice and knight g4 but I stopped a bit too early with my calculations after taking back black is a pawn up but whoops clumsy knight so yeah knight to g4 and at the very best white could repeat the position but I don't think preg would allow it a repetition at the moment so okay king to g1, queen h6 up the sleeve for later but what if that just continues to your plan that you mentioned earlier maybe a5 or maybe c4.
Yeah, that's the big question, right?
What is the follow-up of white's counterplay and if not, easy to be black here.
a5, b4, rook c8, rook b8, c3, c2, queen game over.
You can just be looking at the pawns on the queen side and if white isn't able to create
threats, assist them with your rook and move forward.
And I've noticed this so many times, David, as a player, when you have a clear plan
or an easy plan to follow that doesn't require you to do something crazy or something nuts
on the board. You just feel so much healthier about your position and you're on the side
that it's so much easier to play with. I can't say the same for Hikaru right now. I can't
say the same for White pieces because I'm trying but I don't find a natural plan for
White here. The one thing I want to note though is that pushing C4 might allow White
in certain cases to reroute his own knight towards the center of the board looking at
That's C6 square.
Not easy to execute though.
Yeah, sometimes you've got to give some in order to get some.
So it's just a question of whether
Prague is happy to take squares,
but maybe give away some squares.
Feels like Hikaru's all in on checkmate.
And I found it really interesting
that when you were playing the prediction game, Tanya,
you were going through every single board.
This was the one.
This was the one in the open candidates
where you said decisive result.
And I have to agree because, yes, it says 0.0, the engine.
but it's such an imbalanced pawn structure,
but it's hard to imagine a draw.
You know what would be hilarious is David,
just talking about what a joke my predictions usually are.
Let's say black goes C4,
let's say black goes C4,
and queen at six,
knight G4,
you know where this is headed,
queen D2,
depending on F2,
and you know 95 because that's the best square
for the knight,
queen at six, knight G4,
And I said, this is the one game that's going to be decisive.
And it might be the first one that ends in a draw in round six, David Howard.
Don't tempt fate, Tanya.
Don't say that.
Like, as soon as you mentioned, it actually makes a bit of sense.
And just to show why, like c4, like the knight coming in is such a big threat,
but white can't stand against it.
So white needs to create threats of his own.
I think the only way Prague plays on is maybe to offer a queen trade.
And yeah, actually the end game quite promising for black.
So maybe he can play on that.
but knight g4, if the queen goes back,
if black doesn't play knight, back to e5,
if black takes the time out,
then suddenly this knight could find itself in trouble.
Maybe f4, and there's no way home for that piece.
Wow, the computer actually points out e5,
which is a scary move.
Knight e4, maybe hikaru will see knight e4 today,
even if he didn't yesterday,
and this could get really spicy, so.
Maybe, maybe you're right,
that equality is still here through very precise means.
But I'll give you the counter-argument to what I just said.
I think if Hikaru wanted that bailout and wanted to go for this idea, he would have done
it maybe without King to G1.
If he really wanted a shutdown of this game and was happy with the draw, this repetition
idea could have been played a move earlier.
Again, keeping all the other angles of the game as you just discussed with e5 a threat,
the knight belongs on e5.
It's probably objectively the best decisions for both these players if Q8, 6 was played.
Pidhekaru showing a little bit of fight there with the move King to G1.
So maybe perhaps we do have a long game. Let's see what Pragyananda eventually comes up with.
Even if it's not C4, I am expecting something on the left flank for him to come up with some
idea. Maybe start with A5 or the C pawn. Could you also think about lining up the
rook behind the pawns right now as Pragyananda goes into a thing? He's about an arbor on
the clock. The clocks are pretty much level. It does feel to me that while Pragyananda
is comfortable in this position. I think Ikaru knows that he has a bailout with Queen
86 at any moment. We'll see if he does try to bail out in the near future. Okay, maybe
we move to a board that we haven't checked out at all really so far today, Tanya. The
one between Anish Gehry and Mathias Blubowm, two crowd favourites. We've got to give
them some love and yeah maybe we jump over and here we see the live position
we're already 26 moves in so this is the most developed of all of the games in
the open candidates yeah we won't delve the whole way back but enough to say
that it was the Queen's Gambit declined Tania White gave up the Bishop pair for
the doubled to double the black F pawns but who would you pick here would you
take this slightly better pawn structure with white or would you
take Black's inherent strengths of the bishops.
It's the kind of position that I would need, at least 15 to 20
minutes, to really judge and evaluate what I want,
because it sort of feels like a queen-less middle game to me,
with only queens and one set of minor pieces off the boat.
So many pawns still remaining.
I don't see a way in which the rooks will actually
get traded off.
There are dynamics on the queen side
with the dark square weaknesses.
I do like the healthy pawn formation.
And in my head, I'm thinking at any moment,
I jump with my knight to c5, you know,
the bishop on b6 restricted by the white pawns.
Though I'm biased towards the bishop pair,
I do like the activity on the queen side.
And also notice David had the bishop on e2,
just puts a lot of pressure on that one h5 weakness.
You know, it's not just a double pawn,
but it's the h pawn as well for black
and the black king has to be stuck to that.
If I had to make an instant decision,
I'd say I'd want to be white in this position.
I think I agree and not just because maybe white has a small objective advantage, but black just has no plan
I think black is forced to wait like I'm trying to think what black pieces can move and he just retreated his bishop blue
Baum that's a very deep blue Baum kind of move, but the rooks are gonna stay here forever. Just
Minding the a file just in case white ever breaks
I don't think white can ever play b4 with the rooks like that like the knight has to stop the white knights coming in
They have to kind of it has to protect the c5 b6 squares the black Bishop
Dark Square Bishop can't be improved the King can't move like he said protecting h5
So I think blue balm is just gonna wait his next moves are probably Bishop g6
Bishop f5 Bishop e4 wait wait wait forever and it's just Onus on a niche to find a plan
So I think I would take white just because more likely he can do something
But any pawn breaks are gonna come with a lot of risk and maybe like you say nice c5
but the question is what next I would say that draw is a very likely outcome in
this game it just doesn't feel like despite us wanting to take white that
there's enough at least at this moment to hope for a lot here or even hope for
anything here you know blacks construction on the right side cannot
exactly be targeted very easily there is no way to actually attack age 5 9 f4
would always be captured by the bishop destroying blacks whites on pawn
formation there. So, hard to imagine any assist to that bishop. Slightly more pleasant. I think the
clock reflects that as well with more time on the clock. Anish would enjoy, he'd enjoy shuffling
around, trying to play for an advantage. I'm expecting him to try to grind this out. We'll come back
to this, but definitely not the most exciting of the lots that we have on our zoomed out view of
our eight boards in action right now. And David, I want us to go to the red boards
because I do see a pawn that has gone all the way up on that H line arriving on H6 for
Bivisara Asubhava against Divya Deshmukh. Now Divya had a loss yesterday. She's sitting on a bit of
an attack with the black pieces in this one. Maybe that's a good moment to jump to that.
I also want to point out a big game for our standing Juhjina against Ana Muzichuk.
You know Ana Muzichuk at the top of the table. Juhjina also with two back-to-back wins
and looks like quite a big fight, H4 on the board with that as well.
Where do you want to go first? I'll let you take the break.
Yeah, I'll go in chronological order in terms of which games you mentioned first.
Lots of H pawns being pushed now, so let's go for the furthest advanced pawn,
Vibhisara against Divya. And yeah, I'm surprised the pawn was allowed to march that far
forward. I've got to admit, Tanya, if we just backtrack a couple of moves,
maybe back to this position after h5 I don't know if that can play the move h6
or wants to play the move h6 but conventional wisdom ever since alpha
zero emerged is that you have to block the pawns you have to stop them getting
that far down the board so I'm a bit surprised you didn't stop it here and
now instead Divya offered the bishop trade and h6 this is a bit scary like
Do you take this pawn, have an open king for eternity, do you block, but then risk that
a white queen ever lands on g7 that's always mate, a knight in f6 will always be matey as
well.
I don't like black's choices here, normally I quite like playing against hanging pawns.
We talked a bit about them yesterday with colours reversed but this feels like a good
version for the Bebasara.
It's amazing and I want to go a little deeper into this moment right now David.
to try to break down, you know, we've been talking about the genius of Javakir and I feel
like the same has to be said about the genius of Bivisara, the way she's executed this
H plan because let's back up and actually see that it wasn't ever easy for Divya to
stop this pawn avalanche, this pawn coming forward. I want to go back by just a couple
of moves when H4 happened to start with. So this was the first moment and if we
bring it up right here. Now notice how after 8-6 White has set up this clear path
where in fact you could start with Rook to C3 hitting that Bishop on A3 and the
whole point is that after Bishop B4 your Rook remains on a file where it can go
over to the G line whenever necessary. You can never take on C4 because Knight
E5 follows up with tempo lots of attacking possibilities are there you
actually end up winning big material. But even if you fall back with the
bishop at this moment and don't fall into this trap. 95 rook g3, the practice
flows, you've given a big hook on 8-6 and it starts feeling uncomfortable. You
don't have 9-6. So moment one, not possible. So let's back up again to
h4. Also notice that rook in b7, which is provoked by the Visara in the
opening, you know it's not moved from there and Divya actively tries to get it
into the game. She goes rook to e7, tries to get a better placement for it,
also rerouting hopefully a queen trade to be offered next. Divya Sara just falls back not
allowing any queen trade here and at this moment one more time if you do start with 8-6 ideas
of Rooks if you are incredibly strong because the black bishop is running out of squares
David. Moment two you don't have time to make it for this. Again tactics C4 whenever it's
picked up in those lines you have 9-E5 we've shown that before. So again Divya realizes
she needs that e7 square for the bishop. So what does she do? She shuffles her rook one more time.
She goes rook to d7. And this is where Vivisara doesn't stop with the h pawn. h5,
8-6 is coming up next, right? Last moment for Divya to try to play 8-6. But now 8-6 falls to the
idea of 9-e5. And the problem is that Divya's rook just has absolutely no good squares. You can
go rook to e7. But there are so many moments in this position that you could capitalize on.
apart from the idea of the queen sliding over with big attack, there's queen g3 ready to come in,
8-6 is a big threat as well. I see it's not the best move but it keeps the pressure on
and apparently c5 instead of queen g3 as I'm looking at our engine right now is super strong
right now and 8-6 in many of these lines that the queens are not off the board becomes a big
hook in white's position or you have a great attack where you're trapping that black
bishop on a3. It's got no way home. So Divya Veshma essentially had no good moment to stop
that h1 from getting to a6. And that's how Vivisara planned the whole play.
That is incredible Tanya. That's a perfect breakdown. And you're right, like move by
move that's how to kind of gain these strategic edges by using tactics. Like the best strategic
players are so tactical and she's achieved this goal of playing h6. Yes, with the
hanging pawns, but the opportunity to push one of them forward later that could just tip
black over the edge, tip her off balance. The pawn was captured and she's now thinking
a while. I'd say the most natural move is maybe to jump in with the white knight, but
it feels like there are options. At some point this rook has to come into the game.
Maybe the white queen is the one that will hunt back the pawn. And I don't think
Divya's going to be able to relax the rest of the game. She's going to have to
a knight as a blockader and the hope that it's enough to cover her king. Yeah and the reason
I wanted to break it down was David simply because you know many times we watch these games and we're
like wait why would anyone allow 8-6? You've got to stop that. You know even I would play 8-6 and
that's the sort of thought process that you have when you look at it from a linear from sort of a
very single-minded perspective but actually understanding how deep and how how deep chess
is and how difficult it can be over the board. And to understand just how much the players
are looking at is actually really, really instructive, I think. And now Divya probably
thought that she would be able to stop this plan, but failing to do so has to deal with
this position. This is a tough defense. Divya might be facing her second loss in a row
today.
Yeah, that's a tough position. Yeah, very impressed to play by Divya Sara. Let's
out of this because drama is happening on all of the women's boards right now. It looks like we've
seen big mistakes by Tanjong Yeath who's having a tough tournament so far. It's usually there as well.
David, look at what's happened on the bottom left board. We don't have to go there but I just
want to say bottom left. Hikaru versus Prague, we'll go to the women's board. But I really
hope this doesn't end in a repetition right now, right here with the Black Knight chasing
in the white queen just saying.
Oh, this is almost a draw offer from Hikaru.
Like Hikaru, if his queen gets kicked back,
like G4 we mentioned,
like that would only be the second time
if Prague starts repeating.
So Hikaru could still play on,
but I think Hikaru would love a draw right now
in this position.
I don't think he's better.
Just a very quick peek into that board,
maybe just before we go back to the women's,
I really want to go to the Tanjong Yi position.
There's tactics there,
just for everyone at home. Such a big match for both players chances. Queen h6, Tanya like you mentioned h6, g6 is a big threat
VH file opens so black has to react
Knight g4 is the most natural and
We talked about how here black has to be a bit careful of threats like e5 and knight e4
Black's knight is a bit offside. So maybe going back and a draw, but I'm actually going to predict pride plays on maybe you'll repeat one
I think he plays queen g7. I
I love it. I'd love to see that happen. I want to fight on this one. We'll come back to this decision
We keep an eye out on it. If we see that might jump chat. Don't worry
We'll be right back on it. But David you are mentioning big action on the tan zombie board
I see that you just picked up the night. That's a bottom left board bishops hanging. What are not is going on?
Backrank issues as well for white
Yeah, this position is really turned and I'm really reminded now of the Pregrag nickel itches
words to me. Do you like suffering? Because White's whole opening was based on grabbing
a pawn and the suffering has begun. Okay, we'll go back to actually the position we
left it. It's only half a dozen moves since we left the white queen going back to c3,
it should be 6. You mentioned Tanya the most natural. Locking in on this diagonal,
trying to deter White from playing c5. She actually played this anyway and very
instructed that the bishop on d3 is the one the MVP that needs to be removed so
black says okay you can take one bishop but leave my life square bishop on the
board every move comes with tempo the white queen I've lost track of how many
times she's already been kicked around the queen retreats the knight comes in
should be to only move already I mean knight to b4 also looks very tempting
here but f6 and it looks like a one move blunder from Tanjong after e4
She needed to, wow, this knight is trapped, Tanya.
Like she needed to find a crazy move here.
I think one of them is findable.
She's got two moves to hold the balance.
Knight h4 just looks horrible.
It's still trapped.
Maybe after moves like g5, let's not investigate,
but top computer moves here,
instead of what she played is rook to a1.
Like-
What?
That's it.
It was fun chatting with you,
fun doing commentary with you, David, how long I'm out. I don't understand chess anymore.
Can you not be so excited and say and wave bye to me? He's supposed to be like, no, don't go.
I meant like, sorry, I shouldn't even have suggested it wasn't a bye. It was like sorry for
even suggesting Rook A1. It's an apologetic way.
I feel like we both are about to lose our jobs to AI if moves like Rook A1 is the best at this
position. I like, I actually want to show why, but the more findable moves to hold the
balance since the knight is here is knight to d4. This one looks visually difficult because
it looks like we're losing a piece but after knight takes d4, rook trade and the bishop
and queen will regain the pawn back and it's going to be equal, opposite color bishops,
but the reason rook a1 is good is because the more natural moves she played rook c1 clears
the path for the knight. This was the idea of rook a1 as well but now there's problems
on the c-file that I don't think she's realized because after e takes f3 she's still thinking
but I mean she has to take back the bishop with one of these two pieces and I think the difference
here is that after queen takes now knight to d4 there's going to be a check it's going to be a
fork and the rook on c1 is going to be hanging at the end of the line like rook takes a rook for
example knight e2 check I mean this just looks like mate as well Tanya I mean this just looks
So matey and also knight f4 at the very least queen hanging everything winning for black
almost game over. Well that's a stunning line and it's the geometry of everything it's sort of
just combining all these aspects of the position you know e2 coming in with a fork on that rook
and c1 backrank problems d-line e-line open the knight jumping in at the right time and as I see
this David it's not the only move right because you could also capture with the
rook this is a stunning line by the way Mike before everything that you just
showed looks amazing but rook takes bishop I'm hitting your queen as well if
you take my queen I'm oh my goodness I'm super happy rook takes queen rook takes
queen what am I missing well I guess black moves out the way queen yeah
first I wanted to go g4 but after queen takes pawn I think white solves all
the problems and while white's two pawns up, so it must be something else. Queen...
It's very chill of you to say that you pulled the queen somewhere.
Tanya, I might have actually finally come across the real reason Rook A1 was so
genius. After queen f5, the queen is hit, queen takes pawn, the most natural move,
and black to play and win.
What you're asking me? Yeah, sorry. I'm asking chat. You cannot say if you want to. I mean, it has to be something insane, right? It can't be Quintex, Queen for sure. So we're ruling back one hour chat. Let's work this out together with all the ideas. Okay, the first move that I will consider here is the night jump that you spoke about earlier. I do see the background weaknesses night before Quintex, Queen, Rook takes Rook, Rookie one is checkmate. So I would say that, oh my God, he's going to play it. David will play.
What is it?
Right, d4, knight d4.
And I'm going to adorn that with a double x-glam.
Good work, Tanya.
And it's the back rank.
You said it earlier.
You said it ages ago, actually.
And it was the back rank that has come into play.
With a white rook on a1, it's fine.
Like, there's no rook takes c1.
There's no rookie one mate.
But here, everything just falls apart.
Like, queen is hit.
And more importantly, the back rank.
Like, I didn't even know how to play on.
I'll just show that line or one of the lines
you mentioned.
This is just game over, checkmate.
And that's why if we go all the way back rook to a1 after pawn takes knight, now she could
safely have taken the bishop and white is actually better because this tactic doesn't exist.
There's no knight d4.
That's such an unlucky blunder, like so unlucky.
And she's realized it.
That's when she hasn't moved.
This is just completely lost.
If you can't regain the piece, if you're getting checkmated or losing bigger material,
you can't pick up the bishop with your queen on the rook, it's just game over.
You it's not a kind of disadvantage that you can find back from David
This looks like it might be the end of the road for Tan Drang Yi
He's gonna have to part with a bunch of material the best line here apparently is to okay
Except that she's gonna lose material Queen takes Bishop knight to d4 and it's a queen sack like he and knight to e2 so strong
family fork there
Rook takes Rook knight e2 check and she has to just give up a queen Queen takes knight
Wow.
Porn clicks and she has to hold on for dear life in a position like this and okay, to
be fair maybe some hints that she can build a fortress if she can somehow remove the e2
pawn.
That would be key, right?
If you can't win the e2 pawn, this has to be lost.
So will you be in time with an idea like f3 king f2 or will black manage to snap up
all the pawns on the queen side while you're able to get that?
The bar does suggest that it is a close to a winning advantage.
This one's a fortress.
First she has to find this.
Firstly, she has to deal with the shock of realizing that she's lost that night
and there's no good way to pick up that bishop on D3.
And then deal with all the consequences with the line.
What beautiful stuff here.
John, I'm going to bring you in on this one.
Crazy things happening.
Looking at some of our predictions as well.
You said 4, David said 3.
I said 2 decisive games.
I think this one might be the first to finish.
Uh, it might very well be Tanya. I have a feeling I know why you brought me in as well
But I might have a little bit of bad news for you
we ran a poll on Twitch and on YouTube and
Tanya was extremely happy when the poll numbers from Twitch came out and it turns out the two decisive games won the poll
By the way, it was extremely close 4%
So 35% said two decisive results and 31% said three decisive results. So very, very tiny.
The difference is there. However, when we add the YouTube poll, three decisive results
comfortably wins. It won by a good three to four percent overall, not even just on YouTube.
So I'm afraid Tanya, David has just edged you in terms of agreeing with chat, but neither
of you have to worry because there are going to be four decisive results and I'm going
to win anyway.
So really, we're just fighting over second place and it's not really worthwhile.
Just like the candidates, you know, it's all about the first place, John.
It is indeed.
And I'm loving the fact that we've got these kind of positions here.
A very tricky position for Tanzongi to have to deal with right now and some of the variations you guys have just shown us are
Absolutely fantastic. Will we see any of them on the board? There is still time to do so
I will remind chat that Tanzongi has 45 minutes on the clock to Goryashnikas 22 minutes
So, you know with double the time we could see some more complications yet
They are going to be going into what might be a very complicated second half of the middle game in just a moment
but for now, we are going to go to a break while our players make their game-changing
moves on the board.
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action from the candidates.
Has this ever happened to you?
Oh shoot!
Another mouse slip!
What about this?
Oh, well holy bishops on croissant!
I think I'm getting carpal tunnel!
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Well shucks, this Hikaru guy seems pretty good.
With Chessup 2, mouse lifts and sore wrists are a thing of the past.
My carpal tunnel is gone!
Well this sure is fun.
I'm playing online against my new friend Hikaru.
Who needs a family?
But I sure do miss clicking on a piece and seeing all of my available moves, like
they have on chess.com.
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Wow! Well, I'm convinced! But hey, what if I don't just want to play an opponent online?
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You got it, Danny.
And how do you know my name?
Play chess today on the board of tomorrow.
There are actually rating prizes in this tournament.
And in the 2500, the player who's been doing very, very well
is much as blue-bound from Germany.
He's doing quite well here, probably in contention
for the rating prize in the 2500 category.
I was always more or less increasing rating
until I became like 2600.
And then basically I hit a hard wall.
Like when I was 19 or something, I got to 2650,
but then I also fall back down to like low 2600s.
And yeah, it's basically 2600s were for me,
like the hard stuff where, yeah, like really it was,
it was tough to keep improving,
like level is already so high.
And I mean, yes, some of the very talented crews
drew to 2700, but that was not the case for me.
So yeah, like the 2600 areas where I was stuck the most.
Welcome wearing Karlsruhe.
This is the Grinke chess classic 2017.
We've got some local heroes, one of the stars
of German chess and the size of Blubow,
who has jumped the ranks recently.
I think Karlsheim would like to get chances to play,
but actually Blubow plays ambitious chess.
So really interesting to see what's going to happen.
So this is Matthias' first ever 2,800 player.
He's a good guy to break that record.
To be honest, my first game against Magnus,
it was basically also the first time I played
like a really, really top player.
And I didn't even know at that point
I was qualifying with winning the Open 2016
because back then there was no classic
and in the next year,
I started asking the organizer
if I can get conditions to play in the Open,
then he told me that's not the plan.
You're going to play the classic
like Magnus, Fabi, and everybody is playing, and I was like a bit shocked, so in that first
game I was like really starstruck and playing Magnus, and I just wasted all my time and had
horrible position. Matthias is down to 17 minutes. Bluebomb only has six and a half minutes,
three minutes now, 30 seconds for Matthias Bluebomb, and he has to calculate now all these
things. This is nightmare, just very good for black. I thought it's just completely over
this point. And look at the Carlson game. This is amazing. This looks survivable now from that
sense. Some might have the feeling that Magnus played E5 too quickly and he missed something.
Had a horrible position but then he actually messed it up. Magnus looks fed up. He's thinking
what happens to my beautiful pressure, my beautiful position? Definitely Magnus made
the wrong choice with DTXE4 but nevertheless I mean Matias deserves credit. With one minute
on the clock to defend like this. This is a superb defense. And that's it. The
incredible save by Matias. Incredible what a result for him to draw against Magnus.
Been one minute on the clock after move 20. So maybe that point was where everybody's human.
Like of course Magnus is incredibly good but he's also human. Like you can actually play against these players.
Welcome back, everyone, to the Fide Candidates 20-26. Round 6 is ongoing now, and all 8 games
are still happening, although some are beginning to steer towards a potential conclusion. Tanzanese
game in particular, we saw just before the break getting really tense. Whether or not
Not that finish is soon, kind of up to the players and the choices they make, but honestly
any of these games could potentially repeat or fizzle out or have a huge number of exchanges
at any moment.
The fact of the matter though is that the players on the hall are absolutely here to fight
and that fighting spirit means that all of them could be going on for quite some time.
So Tanya, David, I'll throw it back to you to decide where we go next.
Who's going to be the first to score a result today?
Yeah big question to me it does look like it could potentially come from the
Tanzanese board all the lines that we saw right before we jumped into the break
the big blunder that happened and now Tam cannot pick up that bishop on the board
so she's struggling with that as we saw on our bird's-eye view a lot of action
on but David we are going straight into the Hikaru board and I believe he did
go queen to 8-6 and Pragramanda jumped in if I had to take a guess let's
back up. Let's back up to the moment when we left it last. In fact, Prague went with our idea. I'm
going to say we kind of called out this line. c4 did happen. Now knowing that knight is headed
towards d3, Ekaru jumps with the queen to 8-6. Aying that pawn takes pawn, checkmating on 8-7
idea. And as we rightly, well, we did show that queen takes pawn, does not work here. Queen takes
pawn, king takes knight, queen. The knight coming in with a big fork. It looks like you're
winning material here but instead you're the one on the bad end of the stick pawn takes
pawn winning a two pawns at least and maybe even more in this position. So instead the
only other remaining move to stop Hikaru's idea was jumping with a nice kick out that
queen and Hikaru's come back to the square from where the party started from. It is
a draw offer. Is Praveen Nanda going to go for it? David has he done it already?
yet but big news Tanya because they did repeat the position twice. After c4 this
is the first repetition. Qh6, Ng4, Qd2, the knight came back to e5. This is the
second time we've seen this position. Qh6 was played by Hikaru, also the
second time this has been seen. So it's all in Pragg's hands. He has the
power. He can stop the clock here and now. He can write his move down,
Knight e5, stop the clock, point out to the arbiter that he intends to repeat the position a third time, and the game will be declared drawn.
So does he play on? Does he risk it?
Other candidate moves would be maybe bringing a rook to the center. I'm not sure which one.
And maybe pushing a pawn, but we've seen that it's dangerous. White has ideas like e5, blowing things open. White has ideas like f4 and the black knight's never getting back to the center.
big moment Tanya what do you think is he going to take the draw is this the final
move of this game you know having having spent some time with Prague and seen
and commented on his games before the feeling has been that that he doesn't
repeat twice to change it up the third time usually he's not the kind of
player who has that it is well known in the chess world you have that
philosophy where you know you repeat it twice, put your opponent under pressure or under this
false narrative that you're going for a draw and just to get them a little casual and then
you bounce back with a move and continue the game. I haven't seen Prug employ that too many times.
Also David, not just that, not just the psychology part of it that potentially Prug
going for the second time means he's going to do it for the third time as well,
it's also the dynamics of the position. E590 for the moment you point out that idea,
It starts to be incredibly scary, the attack on the king side as well.
I'm also thinking about Prague versus Esipenko that just happened yesterday.
It just happened yesterday where again in a position full of pieces,
what looked like full of life, both players found a way to repeat the game.
And maybe even the black pieces with what's happening on the board, the psychology of the
situation, Prague just feels 95 is making a prediction.
I think it happens. I think this one ends in a draw right here right now.
Yeah, it does make sense. I think if there were easy moves that didn't risk too much and that maybe
totally rebuffed the white attack and just kept the game going, then he would play it. But yeah,
the more I looked at it, the more I think maybe I'm very different. Like if I want to play on,
I will always repeat twice first. And I've actually missed wins because I've been repeating and
then not realizing there was actually something stronger and then my opponent is the one in
not he doesn't repeat but I always try to assert psychological dominance by
saying okay I'll tease the opponent twice but not thrice and yeah it's
interesting insight that you think Prague will not repeat on principle just
because yeah not because he's trying to gain dominance or gain time towards move
40 but purely because he believes it's the best moves and I don't see
anything other than rookie eight. Like now that we've seen E5 and I don't know
whether we put that on the board and show how scary it is, show why a pride might
not repeat. But it looks like Hikaru as well as expecting a repetition Tanya.
Hikaru there looked like he was ready to go and film his recap, join his stream.
He's happy with the draw, he's shown that. I mean unless you're fighting for
the extra time on the clock, I generally haven't seen Prague employ the
repeat twice change the third time strategy and here in the open there is no
extra time to fight for right you want to get to move 40 but he does have enough
time I could be proven completely wrong and the fight might go on but I do
think that Prague he's thinking more and more about it a week in deep dive
into it and talking about Hikaru thinking about the recap or joining
his stream it did happen yesterday right where it felt like the game was
still going on but Hikaru was quick to join his stream and go on you know
go on talking about it. So maybe chat can tell us that is he already on it. If he's already on it,
then we know this one's ended. Exactly. People get a peek into the future. But I did see a
featured chat saying Prague needs to go for the win. Ideally, they both want to win. The leaders
might increase the gap if Cinderov wins, if Fabiano wins. So a draw doesn't really suit either
of them. It's not a terrible result. But here we see another featured chat. Prague doesn't
want to draw otherwise he would have done well he would have done that already he's calculating
and that's the thing he'll calculate Tanya but if his calculations aren't favorable or if he's not
sure then maybe a draw is likely. What do you think is it worth showing this e5 line to try
and figure out what's going on in his head? Yeah let's do it let's do it let's let's take a look
at e5 because if Proctinx that's not dangerous he very well might continue playing continue
the battle because he's got clear direction on the left flank. So should we try to make a move like
maybe a5 continuing with the plan here David and see what happens after the e5 break?
Yeah very logical like black's superior on the queen side so keep playing on that flank
and oh practice body language giving something away there maybe but e5 and this time I have
a feeling Hikaru will see this knight e4. I kind of joked about it earlier but
But I believe it's so powerful, so systematic
in this pawn structure.
And the whole idea is that the queen gets hit.
Suddenly, if you go back the wrong direction,
you could get your queen trapped in the corner.
And this just looks way too scary.
The queen can come, and that takes pawn.
Nobody wants to play a position like this.
I've got my one eye on the board and one on Prague,
just trying to decipher where his minds are
with the line that you're showing.
And it's not something that's super hard to calculate
because e5 is a very thematic idea
in these kind of positions, you know?
We've seen games where you end up sacrificing the e-pawn,
pushing the f-pawn forward just for that e4 square
and the kind of attack that gives you.
I also saw Kroc sort of look at his core shade
as the kind of situation where he could be thinking
for the next 39 minutes to be exact
and then call the arbiter and it still be given a draw
because Knight to e5 would indeed be a three-time repetition.
I don't expect him to do that there in howl though.
I once did have an opponent who,
I don't know if he was trolling me or just enjoyed sitting opposite me.
I don't know, but he did exactly that.
Like I was sitting there a bit depressed that I had to take a draw
and he was about to repeat the third time and he just sat there and sat there
started watching other games, started smiling.
And I think he left it to two minutes left on his clock.
So like a 40 minute think and then he just signed the score sheets
and he was like, OK, that's threefold.
So probably could do it, but I don't think there's any reason to play on
if he's down under 30 minutes and still, what is it, 17 moves after this one to make the time control,
I think that's already danger zone, especially with E5 coming, so blocking that square with a knight.
We're talking ourselves into it, aren't we, Tanya, that he might take a draw. Maybe he's talking
himself into it as well. It's the most pragmatic decision, I think, for everyone in the situation,
David, to repeat. Again, it's not so much to do with, well, of course, we can talk about
about the psychology of it, the time of it,
but it's just this line of E594 is incredibly scary
to face with the queen ready to jump onto E86
at the right time, the Rook lined up on the H5,
the knight arriving there
and Froggy's looked at this idea.
He knows that it's there.
And I think he senses the danger in it.
The fact that he went twice in with it
is when it kicked into my head
that I think very likely
that we'll see a three-time repetition here.
For Hikaru, I would say with the white pieces,
this draw might hurt a little more
and it hurts Prague in the tournament with the black pieces currently again it's still a long one to go
Prague is at 50% he's won one game he's lost one game in the tournament so far tomorrow he faces Fabiano
Caruana with the black pieces they have this kind of a solid draw where you haven't had to face too
much danger I don't think it's a disaster for Prague in any way you know it's a long tournament
ahead he needs one win it could come from anywhere he doesn't need to rush and make this one the
the big battle of the candidates 26 for himself.
Yep, that all makes sense.
That being said, I still want Prage.
I'm on the side of chat.
I want Prage to play on Riki8.
It's a fine result, but Riki8, come on.
Sense the opponent, sense that Hikaru
doesn't want this game to continue.
Prage, you can do it.
Keep the fight alive.
So Ruki8, I think would be actually quite nice, David,
because after Ruki8, E5 suddenly is not that strong
then you just capture everything with a piece right so it's really the only way to fight against this
idea knight on e4 is only super strong if you're forced to capture with the pawn yeah exactly so
i think it's a 50-50 pride plays on with rookie 8 stopping or deterring this e5 idea or he takes
the draw here and now but oh he stops the clock tanya i think we're going to get the result
He took us to the arbiter.
Just discussing some variations. I don't think Hikaru is too happy pointing out that he maybe
could have improved a bit earlier. Prager responding what he would have done in those
variations but ultimately it did feel like a balanced game. Hikaru maybe would trace
back all of what happened to that knight's d5 decision where he just traded off three sets of
minor pieces pretty much within the space of a few moves and lost all winning chances. It felt
like he was the one who needed to force the draw at the end. And yeah, I think Prague, as you
say Tanya, may be the happier of the two, getting a blackout the way, solid draw, never in trouble,
but time is running out for Ikara Nakamura. You know, when you took that decision of capturing
on DeFi with a knight and allowing the traits that you just referenced to it, almost to me
feels like in his head time has run out already at the candidate so far. I just didn't see a very
ambitious Hikaru start to finish in this game with the white pieces. There wasn't any big opening
idea to be shown by him. He traded as many minors as possible, as quickly as possible,
and he went in with the first repetition that presented itself on the board. As we go to our
birds eye view David lots of action and I'm especially eyeing that top left
board right there. Exactly there was a shake of the head from Hikaru Nakamura
and not just running out of time because he needs to stop winning but also
because the leaders they keep impressing. Chavo Kisindarov has an
advantage now with Black Wei Yi losing his losing his way in that labyrinth
and okay there we see both players actually turning around both looking at
what was happening with the Kharuz.
Sinderov, he's playing like a man possessed right now.
He's playing like a genius.
Let's backtrack, Tanya, because just a few moves since we were last here,
but big, big moves and huge consequences to them.
The rook was attacked on a1.
We left it here saying six logical moves for white.
The one you don't want to do is to take this pawn,
but it's also the most natural.
He took it.
The queen moved.
He put his rook on d1.
normal a bit earlier but after Qe6 almost impossible to defend the pawn now
while keeping the bishop protected he just gave it away he said take that
pawn h3 giving the white king some breathing space but I've got to say
I'm not so impressed and question mark to this last move unless he's lining up
an exchange sacrifice I don't really see what's going on Rg6 now hitting
the bishop. Sinderov at some point is going to start moving his pawns
forward and this bishop is just such a beast, Tanya. I think if you have to fight
the idea of rook takes bishop at any point because it really does feel like
with the last few moves that's ways a way of trying to defend this position. At
any moment, Sinderov can play c5 either after hitting the bishop, pushing it
back or right now and then you never have to worry about that problem of
giving up the rook and you really reinforce the bishop on d4 also coming
with threats of your own pawn. The biggest problem in this position for Wei is his own bishop.
You know, David, you pick up that bishop and you put it on e3 or anywhere else on the board.
You put it on c1 as well, anywhere else. We're looking at a completely different position. I
think that would be so incredibly easy to hold as white simply because bishop will challenge
the other bishop. You're looking at a game of majors. Here there is no target. There's no way
for that bishop to come back into the game, pretty much for the rest of the game, I would
say. So it's not just the monstrous bishop that Cinderabh has at the center of the board.
It almost feels like an extra piece. I'm the queen side. At any moment, the queen can swoop
into from e6 all the way to a2 and start targeting looking at the x2 pawn. I'm the
a3 pawn as well. c5, c4. The bar just confirms that it's big advantage. Javaki right now.
David, it would be insane if he was to go on 5.5 out of 6.
way he's been playing. He deserves five and a half out of six way. He's going to put up
a fight. There's still a lot of work to be done, but I'm also drawn to the clock, Tanya.
15 minutes for white and he's got to make 17 moves. People keep doing this against
Cinder off. They keep leaving themselves with no time and he's so brutal. He's so
efficient and he's so tricky that it's impossible to play like that against him.
I saw him reaching out on the board right now and it felt like he was reaching for the
king David.
Is he about to move his king?
And if he is then he wants to put it on f8 where he feels it's safer but does that give
way that one window of opportunity?
So in fact give up his rook for that bishop on d4.
Yeah, way he has to play it.
I think he just has to take this bishop and say, okay at least I can breathe.
At least I'm not cramped.
I don't really believe in it.
Rooks look so great in such an open board, but Tanya, I think that's what he's been building up to.
You can breathe in and the bishop can finally come to life, right?
One can imagine giving up the rook for the pawn and the bishop, and then when the white bishop falls back to G3 and let's show that on the board,
at least you have a target to fight for on D6 as well.
Suddenly you've got some plans and maybe potentially easy play, but never an easy decision to make because you are giving up material long term.
winning that back any time soon and the a3 tender spot still remains.
That's going to be a Achilles heel in white's position for a long, long time.
And you know, I think the reason just to explain why Singarov didn't protect his bishop,
which otherwise would be the most natural move, the most desirable one.
The blue arrow actually appeared a bit belatedly there, but c5 would have increased the advantage
because after capture, Wei was relying on a switch of attack, opening up the
the b-file suddenly. Black can just push. Black has got such an ambidextrous rook here, just
covering everything, covering the king when it eventually lands on g8 or g7, covering the sixth
rank and it's just unstoppable. The c-pawn is going to motor forward, protected pass-pawn.
It's I think long term this was just almost game over. So a bit surprised Cinderov rushed,
but we'll see. He still has the edge and still hugely up on time where he needs to just
decide now he's like either you sack or you don't like but he did just play for it to be one.
Yeah and let's just talk about the death row that he's gone through in the first five rounds of
the candidates right winning the first game against Asip Anko then Deakinna and Pragrinanda
then defeating Fabiano Caruana and then yesterday winning a beautiful game even though out of
prep and then playing solace right after that after he's out of book winning against
Hecarina Kamura. So that's world number two and world number three in a matter of of as many days there.
And then Pragananda, one of the other players considered a favorite of this candidate since like Cinderov or Cinderov.
You know, he's like, sure, the hierarchy of candidates might be cute, but I'm just going to unleash my God level mode.
And he's doing it today against Wey as well. He doesn't care about the fact that he has a point lead and needs to play safe, needs to keep it safe.
just going out every single game. Yeah, it's crazy. Like before this tournament,
syndrome was rated. What was it? 60 points behind Hikara Nakamura. Actually more than
that. 65 points behind Hikara Nakamura. But he's closing the gap. Hikara is going one way.
Syndrome is going the other. Maybe he'll be world number two coming under the tournament.
And we have moved from where you... Queen to H5, I believe. Queen to H5. Hasn't appeared yet,
But queen h5.
On the cameras, that's the square that it looks like David.
Does he want to switch his rook across?
What is the idea?
Like, okay, black wants to play king's g8 anyway.
And I want to just point out that actually even queen takes pawn, David is not a threat.
King g8, very logical.
You keep everything defended.
But yeah, let's just show that.
Let's say you make a move that we've been advocating for, you take the pawn, I believe Rook
8-6 just loses on the spot.
You have f5 square, but you lose the bishop on h4.
That really compounds it.
And that's what I mean, like the clock situation, Tanya.
I think he's already in kind of, well, red line territory, danger zone.
You start making moves like Queen h5 because, okay, firstly, there's no obvious moves
that you're not going to stack the exchange, which I think in practical terms you really
should have done, but no obvious moves, so much choice. You start guessing at some point
and it's like you start playing vague moves. I've been there so many times myself. Many
of my losses when I'm in time trouble is because I start playing like moves on general principles.
No time to calculate. And Sindreov is going to keep moving his king across. It doesn't
need to, but that's also going to throw the ball back to Wei Yi and he's played
so quickly, Tanya. He's still got nearly an hour in the bank.
And I've seen him do this time and time again, you know, even in the games where he did get
his prep, I think today was not one of them, that the moment his opponent has this huge
gap, he's so alert and so focused and sort of so efficient with the way he's spending
his time when his opponent's thinking that he's ready with his response.
He plays it confidently, he plays it quickly, just not giving time or clock to your opponent
and keeping pressure on that aspect as well, where with no increment that just becomes
are decisive factors like blunders at this level just happened because you crack under pressure
continued pressure not because it's a one-move blind spot very often it's what happened to
Praveen Ananda throughout the game and having no time for those final few moves you know eventually
queen f7 falling to rook takes rook takes bishop in that position here it doesn't matter if
objectively there are better moves for black I think the fact that cinderov is making good
moves and not taking that much time is far more important from a practical perspective
exactly as long as cindorov doesn't blunder and he nearly never blunders
at least tactically as long as he doesn't then he's a massive favorite now in
this game and I was actually just before king g8 going to point out Tanya that
we could have seen echoes of Nakamura against Prague because in this
position I think cindorov could have just started repeating he didn't do
this because where you would gain time on the clock or at least get closer
to move 40 but he could have played here root h6 my mouse going funny
Qg5, Rg6, and he could have been like, okay, draw, but Sindorov's not in a drawing mood.
He's in a winning mood.
So after Qh5, he plays Qg8, and I think Wei's plan was to play like Rf3, Rf5, bring up
the other rook, double them up on the f-file, but he's just not going to get time after
c5 if he starts, let's say, take-take, playing Rd3, Tanya, he's just not got time
to put it on the third rank.
going to get kicked back.
No time?
Yeah, suddenly it's like the four versus three on the right flank has nothing to show but
Cinderov spawns on the queen side once they start moving forward with c5 and the trades
that he pointed out will be incredibly strong.
And the fact that Javakir is showing intent here, he's showing that he isn't thinking
about a shutdown or a bailout and he wants to make way sweat for that draw.
also speaks of his mindset. It really is a champion's mindset.
Yeah. And as our featured chat pointed out there, now it is 30
seconds per move, average for way, he's literally going to move
every 30 seconds now. And there's no easy moves. There's no
plan. Black has a plan, white doesn't.
David, that's less than eight minutes. And we're on move 23
that's 17 moves to be made. He's reaching out, he does
put the king on h1. You know Queen h5, King h1, not clear. I don't think Wei has a real
plan when he's making these moves. It's the clock talking.
Exactly. I think he has sort of maybe a threat with his last move. He wants to play the move
f4, since he's got his king off this diagonal. The whole idea is that the Black Bishop would
be undermined. Like if Black takes a time out, then maybe f4 here and look at this,
Tanya, the bar. Suddenly White has the advantage f4, f5. The problem is Black's
next move is c5 anyway. I think finally he's forced syndrome to play the move he
wanted to make all along and the bishop is defended so now f4 just doesn't work
you just take it. So forcing a good move that's that's a happy choice then for
syndrome. c5 was anyway something that I think we've been talking about with the
last couple of moves and look at that he barely is taking any time. What is this
fun he was just reaching out for that c1 he has a taste but not for long. c5 on
on the board, he is unbreakable, unstoppable,
it is Javakir Sunderav right now.
I mean, there's confidence,
and then there's what we're seeing in front of us.
This is just swagger, like he's getting up from the board.
This is such psychological blow after psychological blow.
He's saying, okay, I'm just playing with you.
You're just reacting.
You're only here to make up the numbers.
Like I'm just gonna keep up the pace.
Six minutes for now for Wei Yi to make 15, 16 moves.
This is almost terminal.
Getting the secret lab up the right way there, Tanya.
Good work.
It's all going the wrong way.
It's awesome.
I've been enjoying the show.
Now, this is incredible stuff.
I mean, just the speed with which he's playing
and how he just makes the move, gets up and leaves.
And this is not any other tournament.
He's been against the elite,
the absolute best in the world here, David.
That confidence, he has reasons for it,
but he's been like that from the very first game.
What a 2025 it's been for Dravakir Sindarov,
finding his best form coming into this candidate, his debut.
I think he gained more than 50 points in the last year,
playing against the very best, the very top,
the highlight, the breakout here,
but the highlight of it, winning the World Cup,
qualifying for this.
And then he's just hit Cyprus like a star
ever since he's landed.
Yeah, I was actually playing in the German League,
in the Bundesliga, just over one year ago.
I was playing against Anish Giri, I think, that day.
And it was a draw, nobody will be surprised.
But I was playing Anish and Jabalke was on the same team
as Anish, he was playing against my team.
He managed to win a really nice game.
And I think that was the day he crossed 2700.
So that was maybe every 2025.
So in literally 14 months,
he's gone from 26, high 2600 player,
still super strong elite.
But I mean, he's put on after this game,
it's gonna be 70 plus points in just over a year.
And I mean, at a time of deflation globally,
like that, especially at the top level, that is insane.
And he's climbed up to the world number five rankings as well
with his show here, Inside,
who is right behind his countrymate,
Nadebeck Abdul-Satcharov.
And you know, it's crazy.
We talk about these two teammates,
but also it sometimes feels like a domestic driver.
And wow, F4 on the board as well.
So I believe that's a big move, David.
Whoa, F4.
It's been played by Wei, but does that allow the black pawn to keep moving forward?
Do you just take it?
I don't understand.
That's a clear pawn.
That's pure desperation now from Wei Yi.
It is.
I don't understand it, Tanya.
That's a free pawn, no?
It definitely optically looks and feels like one.
I'm not really seeing a refutation for it.
i don't think you should rush with c4 in this position because white is also
threatening f5
if you try to hit the white rook you can just avoid that
but why not just pawn to expound what is the problem here?
look at this, javakir sindhraub
he doesn't need more than a minute, he goes for it, he goes pawn grabbing
because he doesn't see a repetition either
and the way he goes into another tank
David, three and a half minutes on the clock
he can't even go into another tank right now
this is going from bad to us
Yeah. I mean, he's not going to be able to make the time control at this rate.
This game is not going to go past move 40, like ways,
I think going to lose on time or he's going to be toast on the board.
Like, I think the final chance, Tanya, was to change the momentum,
sacrifice the exchange, route 64, back before going off with this Queen,
playing this F4 bluff stuff, route 64 earlier, tiny material investment,
but at least he changes the trend and then makes it more difficult,
asks questions of cindarov but now he's just making it simple cindarov is blitzing and that's
impressive but it's because his moves are easy it's just it's just inexplicable but i think it's
panic again it's the kind of move that comes because there's so much incremental pressure every
single move that you're dealing with for the past 10 15 moves you've had to be accurate
and then you play f4 with no time on the plot where he i think he's going to bring his queen
back to attack the pawn to try to win it back. If nothing else, Javakir Sinderov, after queen
to f3, can at least drop his own bishop back to the central square and say I'm not giving
that pawn back anymore.
Yeah, that's exactly what we're seeing unfold. Back to f3. The pawn is hanging, so Bf5 by
far the most logical move also makes it easier to start throwing the c-pawn down
the board. I think the only thing he'll have to double check and calculate, knowing
him he's already calculated it already so we'll see bishop e5 in three seconds but
bishop e5, Tanya take take he does allow the white rook in but it's just one
check like this check is nothing black king will hide and he's gonna move
instantly King looks very safe here very safe but it wasn't the bishop he was
reaching out for it was the rook I think he's gonna put pressure he's gonna
double down on that e4 pawn David saying that you snap up f4 line up the
rook with the queen and I the e4 spot. That makes a lot of sense. What was the computer
saying? Rook to e8 would be a big inaccuracy if
Sinderov does reach for that rook. Rook to e8, white would have the resource finally
bringing his bishop back. This bishop's been offside for as long as we can remember bishop to f2
and due to the fact that there's a tension on this diagonal black can no longer save his bishop
because c5 would be hanging. Take, take, take and white is back in the game level material but
after bishop takes after bishop to f2 at least the white rooks break free maybe he'll get a
rook endgame or pawn down that he can hold way. So this is actually a big moment. Sorry if I
if I just put those moves back on the board.
Oh, why not go for it, David?
He's reaching for the rook.
And he falls back for the second time.
Oh, he's too excited.
He's going to play it.
Doesn't mistake, though.
Bishop to E5 is so much stronger.
Don't do it.
He does it.
He does it.
It's an inaccuracy in when he has a way back into the game
if he brings the bishop all the way to F2 to try to
trade off the monstrous bishop on D4.
Shavukyar, Cinderov, just a bit of rush there.
But wait, 20 seconds on the clock, no increment!
What?
No.
Oh my god.
He's just going to get flagged.
How much time does he have?
He's played Bishop to F2.
No, this can't be correct, David.
No.
He does have more time than this.
I believe he still has a couple of minutes left.
But move 28, he's still got to make 12 moves in a couple
of minutes.
We'll ignore the clocks for now.
But Tanya, the advantage is almost entirely gone.
Cinderoff has butchered his advantage in one move.
He was too excited.
That was the moment to slow down.
This might be the moment where the tournament momentum
changes.
If he doesn't win this game now, Cinderoff,
he's only got himself to blame for not slowing down,
spending one of his 57 minutes on Bishop to E5,
the most natural move winning advantage.
And I'm just going to relay what we're
getting from our production that actually Vee does have six minutes on the clock to complete
the rest of the remaining moves and he's got about David what move number are we on right
now.
How many moves in six minutes does Vee need to make?
He's got 12 moves to make, this is move 28, 30 seconds per move.
almost to go. Six minutes and you just find a way back into the game. And where he's survived
and hold this. And I think now Javakir realizes that he's given him this opportunity. But
he has to fight back. Javakir Simnerov is a very practical player.
I don't think he can control his nerves right now though. I think he got so over-excited
he thought he was being gifted a point, just like he was against Ikari yesterday.
free gift but now he might be realizing it's not so easy and he's slowed down a
little bit but he looks eager to move again Tanya and it really reminds me of
I mean a couple of months ago I played a game and at some point I was 75 minutes
up on the clock totally winning position or big advantage and I just couldn't
control my myself I was blitzing and let things slip I think that's
happening to Cinder off right now he takes the bishops he's just thinking
that he's gonna he takes the bishop he can take the e4 pawn at the center of the board notice how
way he can actually pick up that c5 pawn because g2 will be checkmate at the end of that line so
actually for Javakir this could have just been part of the plan right where you end up being not one
but two two extra pawns on the board these two pawns up. Rook t6 you just capture on b4
Let's just show that quickly. This is my analysis while we wait for Wei Yi to think. We should
mention there are relay issues from Fide's side. So this is us trying to re-enact what
we see on the camera with us. But rook takes pawn, rook takes rook, rook takes, and now
Tanya, black has a winning move on the spot. You can play queen to e3 apparently, forcing
a queen exchange due to the weakness of white's king and if the queens do come off on black's
terms then this is so instructive. A black pawn reaches the second rank and now this
c-pawn starts marching forward and this is just totally winning. Moment of truth he's
going to... oh my goodness! Jogger Cinderov just needs to trade the rugs and go queenie
three and he'll win his fifth game of the candidates. I'm trying to reenact this
Tanya again the Fide broadcast is down but uh oh Javaki is about to win this game. Bishop
takes we actually have reached this position now. Rutik's d6 here we go this is the lifeboard
pardon me everyone for the delay there but the tension got to Wei Yi as well he actually does have
time. He's got a little less than six minutes David you're doing a fantastic job keeping us up
today with no relay coming in. Live from Fide, we will get that fixed soon. But Rook takes,
Rook the winning line, you get the Rooks off the board. Queen E3 will be game over.
Does Jabakir Sindarov sense it? Is this the moment he bounces like we were saying? Such a
practical player. Maybe not the objectively the best moves, but he finds the ones that
poses maximum problem. He's just reaching out for the Rook. He spotted it, David. Queen
E3 is happening next. Wow. If he slows himself down, Sindarov, he's got this opportunity to
end it here and now. Well now what's low down? Is Yamakuyo Sinderov? He doesn't slow down but he
still finds the best move that's on the board. Wow. Wow. Maybe this had it all worked out.
We should mention that Wei Yi instead of taking on d6 could have trade on c5, put a rook on f3,
game goes on. But the losing Glanda has happened. Sinderov is moving to 5.5 out of 6.
There's no way to keep the queens on. There's no way to avoid losing more pawns.
White's king is doomed.
And let's show that you can't step the queen away.
There's a check on e1, there's a check on g3 and there's a checkmate with the rook sliding
in at the end of the line which is why Wei will be forced as David you're putting the
moves Wei about to make his decision but no decision will help him.
He is reaching out for a queen and it doesn't feel like it's going to be a capture
from that hand movement.
He stays connected to that e1 square, plays it to h4.
Oh and he puts it back.
Did you see that?
Oh, Tanya, he put it back because he realizes only now that it's lights out after Qh4.
Black can win in multiple ways, but Qg3, forcing the Qt now, and the back rank.
We showed it in another game, but the back rank, it's going to do White, QxQ,
and that mate threat still persists. Rd1 and black,
still with a c-pawn, is going to march it forward. Inevitable now.
Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And I am inclined to think with the speed with which he just
threw out Queen to E3. Didn't even pause. It was less than 20 seconds. This was an idea
that he had in mind when he played the objectively inaccurate Rook to E8. He had seen this line
David. Known that it doesn't work and Ruk takes pawns so easy to fall for and that's what Wei Yi does
and Javakir's syndrome is about to go five and a half out of six. The only other player in a world
championship cycle with a different format to have done it was Topolov in 2005. Exactly the same streak.
Yeah, odds are now that if he does win this game, we're assuming he does now,
then he'll just need draws for the rest of the time. Tanya, he can start coasting. I
I don't think he's going to slow down because it's not his style.
It's not his vibe syndrome, but this is another level.
This, I mean, he's, he's got level right now, syndrome.
It's got to be said.
You know, I never thought we'd see a speed run on the candidates.
Speed run to 2,900 at this rate.
What to do?
Where you, he's dead lost Tanya.
This is so, I feel so harsh.
He's barely made any mistakes.
Rooktiste 6 I think was the first real blunder but even before that he was up against it.
Sinderov just played a flawless name.
I'm shook with just everything.
Just everything that we've seen unfold of the candidates in Cyprus.
Yes, Shavakir Sinderov I think he was always in the mix for things.
But did anyone expect him to one be in the fight in the way he is and second
five and a half out of six potentially even four and a half out of five in the way he's played this game with the black pieces?
David just never in any big trouble. It was way with why to have to find a way to neutralize.
Who's going to stop this guy? I mean, at this rate, I think I want to send her off versus
Magnus Walsh championship match. Exactly. I mean, Magnus is waiting for a challenge
before he comes back. If he comes back, and this is going to be quite the challenge,
where he is going to find a more resourceful, tenacious move face Quinn to F3.
I like that one better. No immediate knockout. He's keeping the fight alive
but White has no counter play Tanya. He's still a pawn down and he's getting attacked.
I'm very inclined to think that even if you take the simple part of being
positional trade the Queens push the C-pawn get the rook in attack all the
weaknesses on the third rank is black. It almost feels at least optically. It
should be close to having a winning advantage in that end game rook on end
game as well. But knowing Cndorov, he wants to go off the way he's king probably. So I
will say Qg4 is a check, so you always need to watch out for ideas because black's king
is also a little bit in the open.
Yeah, he will calculate. I think taking the queens is definitely winning. It's got to
be something to do with c4. I think the one thing Tanya that he should avoid and
will avoid is to take on b4 just because black needs a second avenue. Like one of
them is the attack the ongoing attack and the f4 pawn which could become even stronger e-pawn but
if you combine that pair it up with the c-pawn running as well the white rook is not going to
know which direction to turn I think just push the c-pawn like it's quite nice to keep the queens
on because the black queen actually controls the promotion square keeps white honest but like
you say it is a bit scary to allow checks that's the one thing on his mind. David he's 20 years
old. It's his debut as a candidate. Okay, he goes c4. He says I don't even care about
a check. I'm just going to push my pawns. The king is going to be absolutely safe on maybe
both but I would be inclined to get it on f8 so that at least I'm not getting checkmated
anywhere on the side of the board. I don't really see a way to even lose the game off
a king to h8. He goes c4 and he's ready to push the pawn to just keep going
all the way.
Yeah.
Wei Yi is throwing, it's the last throw of the dice here, he's throwing his queens forward
hoping to get some checks, Perpetual is the last hope, but it doesn't look likely.
I really would like a clock update on Wei Yi and we're going to try to find that out
for you, Chad, if we can again the relay problems continue and David as everyone's
saying you truly are the syndrome of the broadcast and they're keeping us true to
the moves that are happening.
I can't mention this is move 33, so there's still seven moves for Wei Yi to get to move
40 here to get extra time.
King f8 towards the center is the solution from Sinderov.
Very good choice.
It felt like that, right?
You don't want your king at the corner of the board with the queen in the rooks there.
Your back rank constantly under trouble in those lines.
So intuitively did feel like the one where there's more air and we are getting an
updated in a minute and 30 seconds for Willy to make those seven moves. Wow. Comes back
with the rook. Oh that's a sad move to have to make. Now the C4 marches. How are you going
to stop that one though? Three squares away from touchdown. C3, C2, C1. Game over. I
I didn't see it, Tanya. I think this might be it. Queen exchange, winning now. Rook exchange, winning.
White's king on the back rank. The black king, it's going to be hard to trap that.
Hard to give a perpetual. It can be guarded by its rook. He's going to keep pushing.
Hesitation.
Hesitation, but then he comes right back and makes the move anyway.
And he plays it fast. He's not giving away any time to breathe on the board or the clock.
Shavukyar Sunderas, c3. You made it sound simple with the pawn push. He believes in you. He believes with how simple this is.
And notice how the king on f8 absolutely safe. White queen no inroads, not even a single check to be given.
Black always has the option of planting the queen on g3. But right now, we desperately trying to give some checks. Queen to g5.
Queen to h6 is a perpetual if allowed. So now it will be a huge blunder. I'll just put
this on the board. Sinderov will not play the move pawn to c2 because suddenly it would
be a draw on the spot. We see the eval bar go to the center. This is a check. The king
can't go to the middle because actually this is checkmate, queen to d6. And this will
be a full turnaround. Oh my gosh, he's reaching for the f pawn. He's going to go f3.
a move that would be David. F3 would be a fantastic move right now in the live position.
He's going to do it. He's not allowing the perpetual. He wants none of that. He wants the
full point and it is on the board taking away the 8-6 square. Any queen trade wins. David,
we ready with his response. But even with an R on the clock, I don't think he saves this
rook pawn and game. No chance. And this is just incredible calculation because it's quite
a narrow path to victory suddenly but he's blitzing all the right moves Tindarov. Queens
off we said that was winning and I think the plan Tanya is just to put the pawn on the second rank,
put the rook on the second rank and say to White that you're a zhuzhuang, you are totally out of
moves and he's just correct. The black king will slowly make its way up the board. Tindarov's
just waiting for the inevitable now, he knows he's going to get the full point. Another
win with black. This is boss mode. This is the boss's board boss mode. What even is
happening here at the candidate? It's unbelievable. And he almost had that look like he doesn't
really see a way for a way to even stay in the game. And that's it Kevin! Just like
that! Where he resigns, Javakir Sundarov picks up his fifth win at the candidate.
It's five and a half out of six for the Uzbek genius, the prodigy, Zhabakir Sindarov, leading
by what a margin, what an incredible game and what a performance David.
Wow, and it looks like Sindarov immediately showing what he should have done to put up
a bit more resistance at the end.
That is incredible.
leaving the board. Said to Wei Yi, maybe Kxh1 instead of b4, but we were saying b4 was the
best move. The computer was saying b4 was the best move, but Sinderov made it look like it was
like an error. That is incredible. And I mean the boards have refreshed. Thank you, Fide,
finally giving us the moves back. But it looks like that was the first decisive game,
maybe if many, but extra pressure now on Fabiano Caruana who's a pawn up.
and Tanya maybe we can just show very quickly why Wei Yi resigned in that final position because
there was still some work to be done and let's just jump in and this was the final position
again incredible play by Djavikir Sindarov. I'll just take it back a few moves to the final mistake
because in this position after queen takes e4 here Wei Yi could have put up more resistance
if he had a bit more time on the clock he should have taken these pawns off the board
simplify a little bit and realize that okay he can't take this pawn because of a checkmate on g2
but just that he needed to go for a fortress instead. Putting a rook on f3 solidifies everything.
The f4 pawn will likely drop with it white will get counterplay on the f-file just stacking up
all the major pieces on the f-file could have kept the game alive. Cinderov maybe underestimating
this but Wei Yi totally missing this led to Rook takes d6, Ablanda that was predicted by Cinderov,
take take and after queen to e3 there was nothing to be done and we saw the queens come off the board
eventually by a roundabout way the c-pawn marching down and in this position f3 was the
killer move just protecting the h6 square covering this diagonal white has no checks queens had to
come off the board and where you resigned here due to a capture being met by for example
point to C2, Rook to E2, totally cutting off the second rank and White is paralyzed.
Black here can just play with his food all he wants or he can just go for the
immediate killer blow and game over. Tanya the calculation just incredible
95.5% accuracy to top it off in such a crucial game he found all the star
moves when it mattered.
This is mind-boggling and it was very interesting what he mentioned to
way at the end of the game coming up with another plan maybe at some point we
can show it I don't know if right now it is but I wonder how much of today was
something that way he had not way syndrome had prepped because they were
less I forget he walked into the structure of the double F pawns from the
very opening right he played root gh quickly he went for a for and that
moment when he said that King h1 was probably the move that you had to
play it was with an idea that white can eventually start pushing the f
gone. Do we have a second to just show that idea that Cinderov just had on his mind? He
didn't reveal too much. But to me, the fact that he said it, it did feel like it was part
of the prep. Right about now, I think before you go before, he just wants to go king h1
and then eventually move the knight away and then play f4. And say that this is the
way white needs to fight. And notice the evaluation bar does not shift. It's like
Like, Sinderov has some super god level prep.
He's playing god level chess.
Yesterday he mentioned that he had prepared this line,
the castle against Hikaru for a game in the World Cup,
not the candidates.
Is that where do you find holes in a guy
who's playing like this and who's got no problems
when it comes to absolutely any opening?
I mean, he even knew the plan for white,
for way in this game.
That is incredible.
And just to follow through,
like if black does the exact same thing as the game,
then first of all white has saved a tempo because yes the rook is hit but b4 is much
less useful than king h1 and now for example a capture and it will be very different because
the c4 pawns protected that dropped off in the game Tanya that fell off very quickly
and as you said the f-pawn is no longer pinned so even queen exchanges which we said
earlier were favoring black they can now be met by just a simple protection as the
white king is off G1. Like to see this deeply to understand all of this. Yeah, this is another
level of chess. We've very rarely seen this. And this is even comparing to the likes of
Magnus at his peak. Like the streak he's on right now, this is, I mean, he's going to
be a massive favorite against Ganesh, if you can keep this up.
You know, the deeper you go into center of games and the analysis, it's like peeling
layers, right? There's so much depth to everything that he's playing on the
board, the openings that he's coming up with, how he's executing the plans, his knowledge
right now, how confident he's feeling. David, I don't know who has it in this field to take
this guy down. I mean, who's going to do it? Hikaru failed, Fabiano failed, Kruk couldn't
do it. Today, where he collapses. We'll see. Second half, there's still a lot of
chest to be played and it all might depend on Fabiano Caruana this round whether he can
eke out a win or whether he gets held because the eval bar is staunchly in the center of
the board but Tania he is a pawn to the good he is a pawn up so can Fabiano grind out
a victory we left it a while ago and he has won a pawn should we do a quick action replay
see how we got here that's good let's take it from where we left it lost yeah we left it
a while ago, we saw actually that the bishops came off. Black gave a check on the diagonal.
Fabiano thought his best bet was in the endgame, getting queens off and very symmetrical looking,
but white's piece is slightly more active than the counterparts. This is an odd move to me.
Rook to d3, the knight goes back and the rook goes back. I think Fabiano losing some momentum there.
He's relying on the trap that if the bishop gets hit here, no squares, but the white knight can
lead forward hitting the under fender bishop and the white bishop escapes instead f6 and this is
where the fide board all of them froze a moment ago but we saw a few clever moves from Yesapenko
a6 clever moves from both players bishop back to b2 discovered attack against the knight mini
tactics and Yesapenko said okay no more fun for you I'm just going to simplify taking
allowing this double pawn structure for black but he realized that the b4 pawn alone
clamps down on everything and to catch up this is the live position Tanya and I think he's right
the b4 pawn does a fantastic job of holding up white's white's foot soldiers and the black rook's
just going to sit nicely on c2. I'm just going to add to that point a little bit because looking
at all the pluses and the triumphs that you have for for the black pieces here David I actually
don't think this can last too long because of that rook on a once a badly placed you have
How to take the rook on d6. Rook takes rook has to be the move here because the bishop
on d8 is hanging. And my question to you is, how are you actually escaping the chase that
I'm going to put up against that bishop of yours? How do you fight it? You go bishop
to a5. I do have rook to c5. You can't take the pawn on b4 because there's rook f5 check
winning your bishop. Thank you very much. The only square that you actually have remaining
to keep the game going is the b6 square with the bishop if you're Fabiano-Caruana
and you've just seen what Javaki has done,
and you want to go for a win.
Bishop to b6, keep chasing that rook, David.
Bishop, let's say you go back to d4 to the center square.
I won't stop here.
I'll push that pawn forward.
Only way to keep the game going, bishop b2.
Thank you for just bringing up your pieces
in this horrible manner.
If your white rook comes on to c2,
and if you're telling me rook b1 here is a winning
attempt, I am not buying any of that.
I mean, it's white now who's frozen, totally immobilized,
can never move the bishop because the a2 pawn drops,
can never move the a pawn with an embassant
and can never move the rook, defends the bishop.
Black can just slowly start bringing the king to the center,
start pushing the pawns.
If anyone's playing for a win, it might be Yesapenko here.
So Fabio might need to bail out.
I think you're right, Tanio.
We might see a draw in the next half dozen moves.
Live position, oh, he takes the rook as well.
Maybe rook d1 was the only other option in that position,
but now it's almost guaranteed
do we see this whole line?
All right, so he puts the bishop on V6 to start with.
That's where John is.
We've been doing all our predictions here.
I called out two decisive games here.
And looking at this one, John, going into a potential draw,
I know I had the support of our chat, at least a Twitch
chat.
What do you think?
Are you sticking to your prediction?
Do you want to change the number?
I'm still happy with my two end decisively.
Oh, I'm sticking to my number, Tanya.
You could have changed yours to two decisive only in the open.
That's what I want to know.
But we are good to go, I think.
And actually, to be fair, there's
an incredible amount of pressure in this game, right?
The fact that Yesipenko was able to thread the needle,
stay calm under pressure, and get to this point
is let's not take any credit away.
We can joke on the broadcast, but he
has managed to do some fantastic work here.
The game is not over yet.
There are still potential for mistakes to be made.
But I think if he comes away with a half point here, it's well deserved.
Fair to say?
Yeah, fully agree, John.
I think it draws very likely here.
I have a reasonably important announcement to make.
If anybody happens to have a spare sub to the channel,
now is an excellent time to use it.
And I'm going to explain why.
We're about to go to a break.
But we managed to catch Hikaru Nakamura
for an interview after the end of his game.
And his interview is so long that we have no choice,
but to simply play it all throughout the break.
So if you would like an ad-free break,
uninterrupted listening to the Hikaru interview,
you've got about 30 seconds to hit that sub button now
because we will be going to that break
and you will get to hear that Hikaru interview in full.
As a reminder for the predictions
that we were referencing earlier,
I believe we had Tanya predicting two decisive results for the day, David predicting three,
and I was the sacrificial lamb where I was forced to go four, because I refused to go
one or zero.
All three of those results are still technically possible, remains to be seen which of those
is going to happen.
For now though, we're going to hop into a break as we listen to my client interview
Hikaru Nakamura, and we will be back with more action from the candidates after
this.
You're a fan of progenanda and cindara of what did you mean by that?
Why are you a fan of those two players?
I mean, they're part of a new generation of players who are upcoming.
I mean I would say I don't think either of them have reached their peak yet and
They're just they're they're fun people to talk to and play again
So I mean with was Prague specifically he's he's been around actually a lot long in the Cinderabh on the scene
I remember playing in 2018 or 2017 in India
But it's just I mean it's kind of nice to be around people that you've been around for the last like decade or two decades
Is what I would say because you know nothing against five year Magnus running these guys
but I've seen them far too many times and it's just a breath of fresh air to play and talk to
people who actually I would say on some level view the game differently than the older generation.
And of course round five you threw the kitchen sinkets and are all trying to win. Going into
today is your mindset still that you can win first place in this tournament?
I mean it's hard to judge. I think what I would say is that it's going to require
something weird happening and the reason I say that is not so much because the
Cinderhub is so far ahead of the pack, or Cinderhub and Fawbeer ahead, but it's
because everybody else is doing badly. And generally when everybody else is
doing badly, you're in a situation where you have two players who are going to be
fighting every game, and I think a lot of players aren't going to be super
super excited, shall we say. So objectively I think it's fairly
unlikely, but if I have a chance to win a game or two, you never know what
can happen. It sounds like you're in a different situation than most. You
still want to play fighting chess because I know you don't want to go
home and analyze a 20 move repetition draw. You want to have something to
show your fans, would that be right?
Yeah, I mean, I think certainly when I play these games here,
I definitely want them to be interesting.
Obviously, it's not fun to lose.
But playing interesting games is certainly
probably my top priority.
Also, because frankly, who knows how many more classical
games the Chess will play after this tournament.
So without endless terms ahead,
I think that it's good to at least play some stuff that
isn't going to be boring.
I do need to ask you some comments about you
made up for round five.
The team members that you're working with,
I know you're not gonna say who they are,
but are they team members you've worked with
in the past at prior events?
In past events, yes.
Not all, but yes.
Some of them have.
And did you have some private meetings with them
about the situation that unfolded
about you not having castles prepared?
Not really, it was just a simple what's that message
like you guys messed up with smiley face
and that's that.
I mean, it's, you know,
I've played a lot of tournaments.
these things do happen.
It's pretty rare that it's a situation
where the team doesn't find a move
as opposed to me forgetting,
but you know, these things happen.
It's life, and it's easy to dwell on them
and be very upset, but you know,
I don't think that's very productive.
And frankly, I think it's stupid to make people feel bad
when they already are feeling bad enough
about the situation.
Got it, so it's just a simple what's that message
and then you move on and start focusing
on round sticks, is that right?
Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
It's very chill.
I mean, especially at this stage in my life,
in my career, like getting angry,
like you're being really upset about games.
It's just not a thing anymore.
I feel like that's maybe one of the reasons
you've used Chris Littlejohn for like 15, 20 years.
I don't even know how long it's been
because you guys have probably developed so much trust.
Is that one of the risks of taking on some new team members
that maybe you haven't built that rapport
with them, that kind of thing?
No, I mean, I don't think it's that.
What I would say is that,
you know, Chris and I have been working
a very, very long time together.
So we have very, very good general understanding of each other
and what his strengths are in terms of preparation
and what mine are as a player.
And it was just a bad choice, conceptually, to go into it.
But as far as other team members,
it's just a matter of looking at the final game.
They overlooked it.
But as I said in the feed interview,
I think this is probably the important point,
is that you have to be very careful when
you look at this game because I think,
I haven't seen it, but I'm guessing on the internet,
people are probably saying, why didn't they look at Castles?
And I do know from looking when I did my recap on chess.com
with the weak engine that the castles,
it shows up as like the top move.
But in reality, if you use like the really strong computers
with a lot of cores, it gives away a big advantage.
And if you let it think, eventually the advantage comes
down and you see that it's a playable move,
but it's not the top move, not even close to it.
And so I think that's very important to note
because it's very easy to look at and be like,
well cast top move, how do you not see it?
But that's just not the reality
because of course the players who are playing
this tournament are using much stronger computers
on the basic one, if you can see, on Chess.com.
That's fascinating.
Sorry.
Fascinating technological insight.
I think my bosses are gonna hear that.
They're gonna take it to heart.
99% of you watching the Chess.com engine is okay.
For those of you at Nakamura's level,
you need better technology apparently.
Well, I mean, I'll give you another example.
If you go on this line with this Queen D8,
I think Rooksy won, there's the one
that's lined with the Queen Sack.
I forget how it goes.
We're Black Sacks of Queen.
On the engine on Chess.com, it's in like plus one.
And eventually as you go,
it removes, I guess, like point two.
So it's worth noting that that's that's the important point about the game yesterday that it's not like it's super obvious if you're using a much stronger computer system and pop up but you know these things happen and it's it's just a shame it happened in this term as I said in the recap on obviously I would
prefer this to happen literally any terminal over the last four years like could have been American Cup could have been Norwegian's could have been anywhere but it just had to be here but you know it's it's it's for me at least at this stage is pretty easy to shrug it off and just move on and
Yeah, I'll just try to enjoy my time here great insight sounds like you've moved on or you've moved past it
I love to hear that good luck going forward. Thank you back to you guys
Welcome back everybody, we are back with round six from the candidates.
A lot of action went on while we were listening to that incredibly insightful interview with
Hikara Nakamura.
A huge thank you to Hikara and a big thanks to Mike as well for being on site and getting
us that interview.
That was phenomenal stuff and I hope you folks on broadcast enjoyed that as well.
Now, as you probably noticed on the bird's eye view, while that interview was going ahead,
we do have some rather fascinating swings and eval bars, but the most important one in the
game I think we should probably head to next is Muzichuk Zujin Er.
Very important board as far as the candidates are concerned, a very interesting result that
could shape up how the tournament goes from this point through to the end, and it looks
like Muzichuk might be about to win.
David Tanya, over to you.
big big moments and there's been a huge swing just over the last dozen or so
moves that is Zuzinaire the player the woman with momentum on her side who finds
herself falling victim to a killer attack and Tanya normally we say that two
nights can fight against a rook but here black has an armada of pawns she has
three extra pawns and the white knight's superfluous getting in each
other's way no stable squares their outposts and the black rook queen
It looks so strong together.
It looks incredible.
It's the black attack of the majors with the queen and the rook right.
You line up.
Queen g3 looks so strong.
You don't even need to get greedy with that extra pawn.
Already you've got rook and three pawns if you're Anna Muzichuk against the two minor
pieces.
Through the mat, that works out for you.
But more than anything, it's the king's safety.
I love Queen g3.
It comes with the idea of rook h4 as well.
It feels almost like a killer attack brewing on that side, David.
Anna Muzie-Cherk. She's on three out of five alongside Jujina right now. These are two of our leaders
and I think this would be a massive win for her going into this round with the top seed,
taking her down with the black pieces if she's able to convert this to the full point. I don't
see white surviving after Queen to Chief 3. Exactly and the fact that the women have
increment means that her 30-something seconds here is more than enough. This is move 37.
She just needs to make four more moves if we include this one.
This is the 37th move.
And she has to have it.
You're just using a piece, no?
Yeah.
It's lights out, I think.
Queen G3.
What's your handshake, Janya?
She plays Queen G3.
She finds it.
Anna Muzichek on her A game in this candidate so far.
She started with a couple of draws and then picked up a big win against Katharina
Ladno.
And then now here she is about to take down the world number to David.
I think you're on the money right now. I don't see how I can keep the fight going.
Knight to g4 only runs into rook takes g4 taking advantage of that pinned knight on f2.
You're about to be done in exchange and a whole bunch of pawns.
Yeah, they say that knights are a king's best friend or at least I say that too much as a commentator,
but here the knights really don't help at all. They need some pawns around to
cement them to anchor them,
Some protection for the king and there we go. This clock is stopped. It is resignation Anna musi took the last-minute entrance
Winning this crunch this key encounter and she's guaranteed that she'll be in the lead whether she'll be joined
Is a big question now? I think lagno is the only one who can who can catch up
But yeah, what a powerful performance
She made it look easy with the black pieces to attack and to win like that against the super strong player
not easy Tanya. She's looking like she's going to be difficult to stop. She's
definitely going to be a big contender in this women's candidates and for Zyuzina
the roller coaster for ride continues. She's I think had the maximum number of
decisive games in the women's section. This is a false decisive result. At 50%
now is the world number two Zyuzina. Not looking happy there on the
camera but Anna Mozichuk she's going to make a run for it. She's known she's
informed she's she hasn't lost a single game so far and for her before the
rest day. She does face Alexandra Goriachkina. It's going to be a big fight and I think she's going
to do everything to keep that one under control. She'll start with the white pieces as well, David.
Yeah, that is going to be a huge game. In the meantime, let's jump to another board where it
looks like it's about to be a decisive result. That's between Katerina Lagno and Vaishali
because we have seen twists and turns in this one as well. And I wish I could show everyone
how many red moves there have been. There have also been a couple of brilliant moves
from by Charlie in that game.
And it looks like they have just reached move 40.
So we'll just do a quick wrap up.
Here, Lagnos is going to spend the extra half hour
she's about to get, trying to dig herself out of this.
But it looks like a big attack, Tanya.
And just, yes, the rook is defended by the knight,
but white pieces are just totally offside.
Can't ride to the rescue as the black rook is soon
going to cost white her queen.
Yeah, you're up a piece, but it's not even about the two pawns for a piece in this position.
Rook g5 is just a parba move coming up.
I don't really see a way to actually stop that.
You can only sidestep the pin that's about to happen, but it doesn't really help your
cause.
The queen will be overloaded.
Black's queen will step in either via h3 or the f2 square.
Once White decides where to place her own queen here for Katrina Lagna, one of the
leaders going into this round, I think she's about to indeed face a big loss in
this one.
for Vaishali, if she's able to do it, David,
that would mean her first win of the candidates.
She lost yesterday to Jujina.
So getting a win against Lagna
would be exactly the kind of confidence boost
that she needs at this point in the tournament.
The Rook coming in, the Queen coming in,
I don't see the White King surviving.
Yeah, this is just over.
The White Queen will give itself up
and no compensation, no fortress.
And yeah, maybe Vaishali will go
on a five game win streak or more.
Like she has been known to be a very streaky player.
Just while Lagna thinks, I just wanna take us back.
a few moves just to the beginning of the time scramble where it looked like quite a packed position
But after a mistake from like no already passive for white coin to d2 if I shali played two brilliant moves within the space of four
Bishop takes pawn first of all destroying the shelter around the white king and I think just untouchable
if this bishop is captured then
Black can play many moves even just queen takes pawn the knight is soon gonna come
The rook is actually gonna block things up and whites King can never get out of dodge here
But bishop to h6, I just want to show one more move, Tanya, because here Black kept the
extra pawn, and another brilliant move, bishop to f3, sacrifice, and this is just so thematic.
Pontex bishop would just be met by simple recapture, and checkmate is coming.
This is really nice clean attacking play from by Shali, and that's how she got to
the winning position that we saw.
Well, Shali, usually when she gets this kind of position, she's on absolute beast
mode.
this is her bread and butter. When she plays a sacrifice for a very direct attack. I think for
Vaishali what's really important is to be able to figure out ways to play more cautious positions,
more controlled approaches, what we saw yesterday trying to defend hard positions. I think that's
where she's an absolute fighter but hates playing positions where there's no counterplay. So finding
something like this peace sacrifice would have been very easy for a player like Vaishali. It's
just so up her alley David and I think then she executed it beautifully as well if we play
play on and see and come through our live board.
Yeah, let's do it.
The bishop was captured.
Not much else to do.
This is a very clever move from Lagnau here,
trying to create some counterplay,
but also giving the white king some squares to run to,
so it doesn't get trapped behind its own pieces.
And there was one moment that Vaisali
let Lagnau back into the game.
She didn't find Rook takes Rook,
which would have been a game over.
Instead, she did open the door just for one second,
Rook to F5 to focus on the counterplay.
And here, like, no, took the pawn.
So actually a piece up with a winning advantage for white.
So did feel like there were some twists and turns.
Knight g5, but the final mistakes arose here.
Bishop takes knight, rook takes rook was better.
And here in this position, I believe it was the final blunder,
queen to f1 when she should instead of maybe using the f3,
been using the f3 square or using her knight to write back
and save the day.
Bit of an odd blunder, allowing g3 to collapse like that.
but maybe provoked by the time issue.
And Tanya looks like the game, I think,
deservedly back in by Shelly Sava.
I don't think it lasts too long,
because I'm just trying to understand
how white can even hide.
Let's say you go to h1 and the idea of rook g5,
and white tries to keep everything under control
with a move like queen f1,
saying I won't allow queen h3 check,
or your queen stepping in y and f2.
One move that comes to mind
that I don't see a defense against,
maybe there are many,
but just simply line up the queen with the rook
and start threatening queen h4.
Queen g3 and I don't even see how you're fighting the checkmate in one in this position.
This is where you wish that knight was anywhere else other than b3 or that the white bishop
was anywhere else or again that there was pawn shelter. That's a nice touch there Tanya.
Queen g3 was the killer move in the game we just saw and Queen g3 could be the killer
move in this one as well. It was the trick and by Charlie both using the queen on the
square very effectively. It all comes down to pieces here right the white king has got no pawn
shelter at all all the other pieces super far away when the action's on the other side nothing
coming to its defense. Vaishali I think after completing 40th move has just gotten up for
Katrina Lagnau it's now just brand new problems I don't see a way through here David for her
to be able to solve this I think this will be Vaishali's first win at the candidates.
Yeah, we'll leave Katarina to mull over the ruins of White's king side here.
I think she'll be in the tank for a while before maybe finally admitting defeat.
We have had another result, and it's a surprising one, Tanja.
Tanja was able to build a fortress and hold despite earlier blundering
and Goryashkin, the streak continues, still winless, both players,
and another chance slips away.
Yeah, six games in and still hungry for that first win and we did leave this game last thinking
that you have to sacrifice your queen and you did mention that that might be turned on
these best chance to hope to be able to build it and I believe that's exactly the path that
she chose David.
If you want to do a quick deep dive into that, I will also point out that Fabi versus
Esquianco is still on.
In fact, Fabi found a way to keep the game going.
The bishop isn't chased anymore around the board.
the middle board on that top row right there. But Fabi is going to be all about whether he can
break through with that Ape on and make good of those two versus one majority on the left side.
Should we just quickly check in with how Tanzongi held on to her game?
Let's do it. Let's very quickly jump before the big time scramble in the other boards.
And this was actually the final position. And we actually saw a repetition of moves.
But just to show exactly how she saved it, it was indeed a queen sacrifice.
after a bit of a blunder earlier we last left it with Rook e to c1 a very
difficult mistake to understand but yeah the tactics were all in black's favor
here the whole idea was that Rook takes bishop, Qf5 that was this
incredible knight to d4 move worthy of any diagram with some back rank checkmates
in the air instead Qxd3 she gave up her queen, queen takes knight and after
some exchanges she was able to hold on. The black pawn fell off and we weren't
delving to all the moves but eventually white was able to play the move f3
bring the king and gobble up the pawn and just to show why it was a draw in the
final position Tanya simply everything's defended for white this is how to
build a fortress from brick to brick everything has to be cemented together.
Very instructive and also placing maximum of your army on the color of
the bishop and Tanzangi finds away from a very difficult game a very
difficult opening and then keeps everything under control still keeping her hopes in the race alive.
But we've already had two decisive games and it all started with the headliner,
the big mover here at Cyprus, Javakir Sindarov getting his fifth win against
Wei Yi at the candidates moving to five and a half out of six and our very own Mike Flying
caught up with the big man. Thanks guys and this is not on tape. This is actually around
six. This is happening again. Javakir Sindarov wins again. You just said this is maybe
the tournament of your life. Why only maybe? Is there some tournament we don't know about?
Yeah, I have to say because I'm only 20. Yeah, I will play a lot of tournaments
after this tournament also. So that's why I tell maybe, but still I'm really enjoying this tournament.
Well, this is maybe the best tournament I've seen in person. The only difference being that I saw
Fabiana when seven out of seven to start the Sinkfield Cup in 2014. You were about nine years
Do you remember that tournament?
Yeah, of course.
It was a big surprise for me.
When everyone was very strong
and he was playing 7 out of 7,
I really enjoyed his games.
He was fighting every game in this tournament.
And you're preparing for each game
and there's a long way to go.
But are you aware of the historical nature
of what you're doing?
I mean, are you even thinking about the fact
about the fact that no one's ever done this before?
Actually, I'm not thinking of it.
Probably wise.
Now the other half of the Kisparov quote, you answered half of it in your press conference,
was that when you're playing well, you trust your intuition.
Or are you like really trusting your calculation intuition because you're playing so well?
Yes, some moments I'm trying to my, I mean, it's not a good idea to play with
or intuition, but at some moment I was trying to believe in my intuition and play it a little
bit faster, but in general of course every move needs to conculate very well and because
chess is like game, everything can be changed in one move.
Yeah, you're playing so well in that time pressure, you're actually putting pressure
on your opponent.
So now I just talked with Nakamura and he said he's a big fan of yours, he's one
of your competitors and he's a fan.
How does that make you feel?
It's very nice to hear from him this kind of words and I'm also, I mean, I was also
one of the biggest fans of him.
You know, when I was young, he's really my idol.
I have a photo with him like in 2012, and I was like, small boy.
It's my dad's computer probably.
Yeah, I was always loving his games because he was playing Kings Indian and at that moment
I was a big fan, can you see them?
I will right now also, yeah.
OK, you're busy trying to win the tournament,
but can you just promise me that you'll call dad
and we can try to get that photo on the broadcast?
I will try to get this photo.
I have a photo of his father also in 2012.
He was like so small, like me.
OK, this is going to be great stuff.
You heard it here.
He made a promise on the air.
Try to get those photos.
Please do it on the rest day.
Yeah, I will tell my father to try to find these photos.
This is fantastic.
Javakir Sindharaaf, he's gained so many fans.
I'm one of them.
Nakamura is one of them.
And we're having a lot of great feelings here
in the press room.
Hey, good luck keeping going.
And hopefully I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Thank you.
Back to you guys.
Thanks, Mike.
What an amazing interview that was.
Javakir Sindharaaf winning hearts with his play
over the board, but also with his interviews right there.
Lots of memories from 2012.
To me, it sounded like he's got a photo with Ikaru.
He's got a photo with Fabi David.
But it's the story of when your idols become your rivals
and he's taking them down one by one in Cyprus.
Yeah, that's so relatable.
And I think throughout history,
there've been many cases like that.
I remember Mini Magnus playing Kasparov, playing Karpov.
And now we might be talking about
Cinderov meeting his foes when he was young as well.
But I think just that smile, like it's so contagious.
He's enjoying the moments.
And if you feel good, you play good.
It's no coincidence.
He's making it all look like it's intertwined,
fated and we'll credit to him.
But in the meantime, his biggest rival in this tournament
has so far been Fabiana Caruana.
And Tanya, it doesn't look like good news for Fabi fans.
He's a pawn up, but the White Rook
is so passive that it feels like winning chances here
are minimal.
If you have to win this game as White,
the one thing that you need to do
is free up your Rook, right, without losing a pawn.
And the only way to do that would
B to try to push that A pawn forward either to A3 or A4,
but with the black bishop in the pawn lined up
and a strong hold on that square.
The only way to achieve that for Fabi
would be a very ugly bishop C1.
And to me, David, that doesn't even
solve your problems because there'll be check
on the third rank.
It's also just unimaginable that it
could be a winning attempt.
Black already has lined up an idea of F5
to try to completely neutralize the right side
or at least get rid of as many pawns as he can
on the board.
This is inching very close towards a draw, which
actually mean that Cinderob very likely to have a one and a half point lead going into the halfway
mark of the candidates. Exactly, one and a half points if you can maintain that after tomorrow
and the tournament almost starts afresh everyone has to face each other again one and a half points
that's not an easy one to not an easy bridge to gap but gap to bridge even but Fabiano
Caruana will get a shot at Cinderob in the second half so that's going to be at the back
of their minds. Like I think at some point Fabby will accept that this is likely to be a draw.
He's got to make six moves. He's got two and a half minutes, so he needs to speed up. But yeah,
a draw, he's not out of it, but he will need someone to stop Cinderov.
Yeah, it was actually amazing to watch that interview with Mike, where Cinderov also mentioned
right that I am just really enjoying playing here. Candidates is not a tournament that everyone
who qualifies enjoys. Not everyone, most people don't. And the closer you are to the
the lead, the more you feel you're getting towards that ultimate goal of fighting for
the world championship ground, the pressure rises, the stakes rise, you kind of want to
hide away, run away from the media, from the crowd, stay focused. But Javakir Sindarov
is just so cool and chill and he's having a good time, he knows that at 20 he's got
many candidates ahead of him, but maybe who knows, he might just need one to make
it to the world championship.
Yeah, incredible. Shades of Magnus 2013 and others. We were talking about that yesterday.
Tanya, first-timers who come in, they're not jaded, they're not scarred by past defeats,
past results. And it has been a case that several first-timers, I believe, have gone
on to win the candidates. He could just be the latest. I don't know if we ever
found out exactly the number. Tanya, you're the historian here. You're the resident
statistician, do you know how many first-timers have gone on to win the
candidates since 2013? I am not sure about this and Shaq will correct me, but in
my head I have to say with the current format of the candidates as it exists,
eight players in a section and a double round Robin, it started in 2013 before
that it was different and ever since then it has remained as is by the way
I'm a fan of this format I'm gonna say that. I believe it was Magnus in 2013
and Gukesh in 2024. Two players who made their debut and needed only one candidate to go through
and play for the world championship title. But chat will correct me, David. I am just confused about
one other name on that, which is Fabiano. Sorry, even Sergey Karyakin. I don't know if the 2016
world championship match was not his first candidates tournament or not where he qualified from.
So chat, help me out here. Speaking of stats, here are some other fun things that are actually
aligning for Javakir Sindarov, apart from that, the whole debut scenario is the fact that David,
in this format, since 2013, everyone who's gone on to eventually be the winner of the candidates,
at the halfway mark, there are two things that have been common for them. One is they haven't
lost a single game till game seven. Game seven has been the earliest that they've lost the
game at the candidates and the name that I think comes to everyone's mind, Gukesh 2024,
losing round 7 to Ali Reza. And the second fun factor is that everyone who's gone on
to win, be the eventual winner of the candidates, has been in the top two spots at the halfway
mark and not below that. And guess what, Cinderov kind of checks up all those, is a
take on all that checklist, not just that, the other stat David. Every candidate winner,
apart from one, has won their first game in the first two rounds. And Cinderov checked
that one out as well.
Wow, that was where I guessed Magnus.
I never actually researched, but I
don't know if I was right there.
David, you were right there.
Magnus Carlson is the only candidate,
eventile candidate, winner.
He did make his debut in 2013, and his first win in 2013
came in round three against Boris Gelfin.
Everyone after Magnus Carlson won a game
in the first two rounds.
Oh, big news.
and it does feel like the stars are aligning.
In the meantime, back to this game,
because Fabi has one minute, Tanja,
but he's only one move away now.
So anyone at home panicking,
looking at Fabi on his clock,
needs to trust him.
He knows how to handle time scramble.
And just to show the last few moves again in slow motion,
h3 was a very kind of neutral move.
I don't think here,
Yesapenko actually had calculated all of this,
but f5 is so tempting, why not?
try to force the draw immediately get everything off the board. The black king would be too strong
on f5 if there were a capture. So rook to c1, Fabi gives back his extra pawn, but now he's forcing
yesapenko to calculate. It's still dead drawn, but after rook check, the path narrows. This is
something the best end game players do, like king d7 the only move. I think quite clear not
to go in the other direction since f5 drops hits the rook, rook c4, and this is curious
because like the most obvious moves to my eyes is f4 but suddenly it becomes quite sharp Tanya,
like f4 hits the bishop and black is actually threatening to go win the b-pawn which can't
run away so bishop c5 is pretty much forced and now immediately I was thinking okay trade the
bishops and go for the b-pawn but I'm not sure which order maybe going for the b-pawn immediately
but suddenly firstly white can keep bishops on the board and I'm not sure how to evaluate this
But if white doesn't want that, if white wants to go for a pure race, then also takes, check,
King forward takes, and we could see a race where white's king comes in and tries to go
blot some pawns. Fabi's taking a few risks here. Oh wow. Oh, and I see we've got a someone very
special in our future chat. It's none other than Anna Rudolph joining us. Hey Anna. She's
saying David, Daniel Triventa, or some of my favorite broadcasts. We miss you on the
broadcast Anna and hope you're joining us soon. David it was so much fun calling the action with Anna
for a couple of rounds before you joined in and just her energy you know the hype that she brings on
unmatched. Oh you can trade me in for Anna anytime. I won't be offended. Anna's a lot of fun to work
with and I love the insights the energy as well. I've almost got the same birthday as Anna,
We're almost birthday twins, fellow Scorpios, so we've was uh...
Ooh! I think you're a birthday twin with several chess players, no David Howell?
Uh, who's that myself for?
Oh, sorry I have somebody else, very close to you in mind, who's a birthday twin with somebody else.
I feel free to reveal it if you'd like to.
Um, but I'm a birthday twin with, I'm a birthday twin with Robin van Kampen.
I'm talking, okay, let me and quick riddle here. Somebody very close to you is a birthday
twin with somebody who... Oh, yes. Magnus may or may not have the exact same birthday,
same day, month, year as someone else special in my life. Anyway, let's keep going.
I won't push you more on that.
All right, so Rook B2 played instead.
By the way, we did have a different decision for Massick Anko.
He didn't push the pawn.
He decided to instead trade off, you know, they say when you're playing for a draw,
you want lesser pawns on the board.
That's how you get closer to that draw.
Also makes sense because at some point you can eventually sacrifice your bishop if
there's a last eventual pawn remaining for your opponent and then try to hold a Rook
Bishop versus Rook Endgame.
It will be a lot of fun if that was to happen in this one.
But after pawn takes pawn, king takes pawn, Asipenko calmly lines up his rook against b3.
And not so easy to pick up the e5 pawn right now and equally hard to defend the b3 pawn.
I kind of like this approach more than the other line you were showing, which still felt
like Asipenko would have some work to do.
Exactly.
Somehow the black king is passive, so I think in all of those rook and pawn end
games, the active white king more than compensates for any material imbalance and
only Fabiana could win, but here, actually Fabby might be the one who has to be slightly
careful since the black b-pawn is by far the most dangerous of the bunch and he doesn't
look too happy. He has passed move 40 though, so running out of time there only gave him
extra 30 minutes. King takes e5, what takes b3? I don't know how he pulls the break immediately.
Maybe you try and get the bishops off in the near future, but I could imagine the
black rook just moving and the b-pawn running and I don't know, Fabby, there's not
much to play for here like with the black bishop controlling everything whites never winning this ever
I mean the black b4 pawn is the closest to the Queenings square right and it starts becoming a
little bit worrisome right now a bishop trade feels like the correct bailout here a rook pawn
ending with the material remaining the piece activity should be an easy hold but it's not
the result that Fabi wanted you know David looking over looking across at at the speed run the
Jabakir Sundarov is putting out a draw against Asipenko
with the white pieces.
And I think it's also resigning yourself to that fact
that you've taken up all your chances,
you've tried all the tricks in the book,
but Asipenko has held his solid.
And maybe another day, another time, but not today, Fabi.
Exactly, not today.
And I'm just wondering the quickest way
to force a draw now.
Maybe take this pawn, or it takes pawn,
maybe give a check.
I don't think the Black King
wants to step to the back rank,
where maybe there would be some mating
that constructions with the white king going forward later,
but I don't know if you can force a draw like this at all.
I'm slightly scared.
I'm chasing the black king where it wants to go,
but maybe here the white rook
would be able to get behind, take a pawn.
So, okay, Tanya, my prediction is
that we'll see you some check here on a draw.
Oh, a repetition like that.
Very likely.
I have a question for you,
and I think this is more for my understanding
than anything else.
Why do you not like a bishop trade? Can white just go for me bishop c5 even to just start within this position?
Feels like the move that I would be very tempted to make if I wanted to shut down
Yeah, I think this is also a draw
I was just reluctant to calculate because black's gonna be a pawn up at least temporarily
but that's probably something like this is just a
very quick draw for him to be three and I think actually you're right just immediately
the door is going to be shut and black won't be able to cling on to the extra pawn.
So yeah, this is also a very likely scenario.
Bishop c5 here or next move.
And I'm going to add one more detail to that line that you just had.
If black tries to defend that b pawn at the end of winning a pawn with sliding his
rook back to b3, suddenly white can start targeting.
Let's see you take it with the rook even, was what I was, ooh, rook h5 check David.
Oh, it's that time of day, Sonia.
I'll be a howler and a half. That's my nickname at school by the way, but not root b5. I mean,
is it even a broadcast if we haven't had a howler at least once, David?
Exactly. Now root b5 Tanya, go on. So yeah, just coming to this position,
I was thinking if you go rook to b3, then you know, the idea of just transferring your rook,
rook h5, now you start targeting h7 and win that pawn instead. It just feels pretty clean
to shut down the game like this, to my eyes at least.
Yeah, fully agree. And I think the white king is so close that you never have to worry about
the b-pawn. And this I think is what Fabi needs to accept. Both players have 30 minutes.
I don't think Yesapinka is ever going to blunder this. He's so convincing in general
in end games, but he's quite a good technical player. Yes, I think so. So, Fabi, it's time to bail out and
accept that tournament situation is not in his favor yet. But it's always frustrating, right, Tanya,
when you've got a white, when you feel like you need to win, you're playing one of the tail enders,
one of the underdogs. It's always frustrating feeling like it's half point lost rather
than half a point gained. But sometimes that's the reality at the top level.
And actually looking at the pairings at the start of the event, Fabi would have wanted
this particular segment with round five and round six, he knows he's got white
pieces, he knows he's playing against the two bottom-seeds Mathias and Esipenko in
your head. You're counting that as your big chances to
wake up the points. And then you know you've got this guy, Javakir, who's
running, who looks like he's running away with it and I want to talk a little bit
about that right now. From Fabi's perspective, this is so close to
chasing Cinderov with a one and a half point margin now, right? I don't
really see Fabi getting winning chances in this end game and that's not easy to deal with
because going into that halfway mark, he's got Prakrananda coming up tomorrow with a rest day,
which with the black pieces as well. So you know you're going to be sort of the one who'll try to
keep things under control. It almost starts feeling that when somebody has a five and a half out of
six, you don't have the whole tournament anymore. You need to try to win as quickly as possible.
This is no traditional candidates because we haven't seen this happen in the candidates before.
Exactly. And I mean, we were talking about first timers and Cinder off being fresh, being confident, first time, no kind of no trauma from the past, but Fabiano, he is the definition of the nearly man like across so many different time formats across.
I mean freestyle recently nearly became world champion there classical nearly became world champion 2018 candidates he's had a great track record but also some near misses.
I wonder whether in the back of his mind, he's like, oh no, not again.
I'm actually playing quite well, I'm in good shape, but suddenly someone's having a tournament
of their life.
How is this fair?
And then you start to spiral.
And I could see all of this going through his mind now, rather than the actual moves,
because he knows the position is drawn, like for sure, but it's just that emotion
attached to the tournament situation.
We've spoken about the score requirements to get to that spot of the world championship,
right?
Usually it's at 9 out of 14.
is the plus four that gets you there.
Cinderella with five and a half out of six
needs three and a half points from the remaining rounds.
Three and a half points, and how many rounds is that?
David Howell helped me out to do the maths here.
Eight rounds to go.
Eight rounds to go.
He needs three and a half points
to what would almost save the deal for him.
Yeah, statistically, he is a huge favorite of Cinderella.
He can afford to lose a game and draw the rest
still be a big favorite that would require Fabby to go on a winning streak and win a couple of games towards the end
I think it will come down to that head-to-head in
Football soccer like it's three points for a win
They say it's a six-pointer when the two two direct rivals go head-to-head because it's either going to be
Kind of six points in that direction or six points in the other it could be a huge swing and when these two meet
When it's going to be Cinder off against Karawana, it's going to be almost that two-point difference
It could be Cinder off with an insurmountable lead it could be Fabby back within half a point
So, yeah, there's still plenty of time, but yeah, this game should be a draw.
Fabi just needs to end it here and now before he takes any more risk.
Well, syndrome has been pretty much leading from the start.
The candidates in fact, leading almost seems like an understatement when we speak
of Javakir in the women's section.
It's been Anna Muzichuk who's been putting on quite a show.
Don't forget, she's been the last minute replacement for Humphie knowing
a week before the candidate starting that you're going to play there.
Then coming into it with four draws and two wins and a big one today taking down the world number two
Anna music on fire as well in Cyprus and she joined by Mike Klein
Thanks, everybody. We're here with the leader of the women's section grandmaster on the music
It took it took down one of the pre-round co-leaders zushi Nerchan a now in the game
You played this really nice night maneuver you remanoovered your night from f6 to d4
Do you think that was one of the key ideas of the game?
Now that you said I started to thank her, because I played, I made many moves with my
eyes.
It was just a slow game and we were trying to somehow regroup our pieces in the best
possible way and I thought about doing that.
I feel like your opponents are a little bit afraid of you.
Goriachkin did his trade all the pieces off and Zushina didn't go for very much
Are you getting the feeling that they're not really trying for much against you?
They're maybe fearful of you?
Oh, I think it just how the game goes because yesterday I think I surprised Korachkina
and she didn't know the line and then she decided to opt for a safer option.
Well, today she's in there actually.
I think her position was slightly better because I think it's easier to play with White,
but when she started this H4 knight, H2, I think this was the moment when she misplaced.
and finally I did some research before your game today. I could not find any positions
if the candidates were you were worse. Do you feel like you've been worse all week?
Okay, I guess the very first game was worse I think.
Okay, I guess I gotta go back and look at that game. Anyway, congratulations on leading the
event. You're plus two and good luck going forward. Thank you very much. Back to you.
Thanks, Mike. On that one, a big win by Anna Mizzicci. Again, Juhjina with a long tournament
ahead of her. David, you've got two more games remaining in the women's section. And I don't
believe they're going to be long games because look at that. It is Lagnaw's team that is
an absolute fire right there with the Queen and the Rook lined up. And next to that
as well, Divya Deshmukh on the win, on the hunt for a win in this one. She's,
I believe she's up material, a couple of pawns right there,
but let's jump over to Lagnaud.
I don't see her surviving this over the next few moves.
Her piece is still offside,
and Queen coming in with a big check on F3.
How are you fighting that?
Yeah, I think unfortunately she's not fighting that.
It's mate almost guaranteed.
Evaaba says plus seven for black.
I'm surprised it doesn't say mate already.
Like how on earth is she keeping this game going?
But maybe there's a way to flog the Queen
for one of the Blacks pieces, maybe for the Rook and to drag out the Agony.
But yeah, this is over and Tanya, it looks like it's a good round for your teammates.
Divya by Charlie, the Indian duo, they're going to get the wins.
And a much needed bounce back.
Both of them lost their games yesterday.
Very tough battles it was.
And for where Charlie, she is winless in the tournament so far.
So taking down Katrina Lagnau has had quite a good run in this.
exactly the confidence boost that she needs and for Divya to take down Vivisara Asobaiva will be a
great, will be a great win not just for her but for the tournament itself as well. Divya the one
thing I've noticed in the women's candidate is that it's such a tight battle. Nobody's running away
win after win. It's a half point margin that's separating everyone and I think with these two
wins that storyline will continue a lot more of a closer fight than what we're seeing on the
the other side.
Definitely.
That means it's super exciting.
And Tanya, I have checked.
The only way the computer sees this game continuing is,
well, there's two ways.
One is Queen to E4.
This was actually my first instinct,
but I kind of stopped here due to, firstly, a check.
I just assumed this was made.
But the computer points out that maybe Queen to F2
is even stronger just setting up the mate.
And now it really cannot be stopped.
It's going to be made in one of these squares.
The reason it's not game over instantly is because white can give up the queen for the rook,
but I think this is tantamount to a resignation. Yeah, I don't think this is going to happen and
the only other option bishop to e4 also feels matey. Apparently there's no immediate knockout,
so I think this is going to be going to be the way forward, but black can, for example,
give a check, black can do multiple things. Again, Qf2 just like we saw, and the end is
Ni, as they say. Rg5, another nice one to just shut this diagonal, stop the white queen defending
h4 and white is forced to part with material. And Lagnar's fighting it, she did go for the
bishop option, trying to keep the queen free. Rg5 looks exceptionally strong. I think the
point of bishop e4 is that if you do move in with your queen, in the other line as you
mentioned there was no escape after queen 2f2, here at least you can play queen 2e6 and
and say, I'm stopping the Rook check on H3 for the time being.
So trying to hang on with the thread,
but the thread I think is about to be broken
with either Rook G5, but even this looks completely winning.
David, a move like Rook G4 comes to mind here
with the idea of Queen H4 check now.
The White King completely boxed up checkmate,
inevitable I think.
Yeah, not surprising with such a bare King.
Forgot to get dressed this morning about White King.
And, yeah, Lagnos had an up and down tournament.
Like it feels like either she's playing genius tactics
or she's on the other end of genius tactics.
It feels like someone's getting attacked in her games
and the attacker always seems to win.
So she just needs to stop trying to defend
and just go for the opponents.
But yeah, lots of decisive action
in the women's tournament by Charlie's gonna catch her up.
Interestingly, her tournament so far,
and this is me spec of just feeling
like this one she doesn't save,
is very, very similar to how Zyugina's road has been
with four decisive games and two draws.
Of course, that is counting that Vashali
converts this one into a full point
and ending up at 50% going into that halfway mark.
But because the battle is so close and so neck to neck,
I think everyone has a shot.
The women's candidate is not going to be
about trying to create brass chances
because somebody's running away.
I think it's the long game here.
It is truly a marathon for every player.
They have to pace it out.
Yeah, on that note, Tanya, like assuming that Vaishali wins now and that Divya wins,
yeah, they'll both be within one point of the leader still, even though they started today
as the tail enders at the bottom of the standings. It's just incredible. Like,
you would think that one of the co-leaders winning would separate the,
separate herself from the rest of the bunch, but no, it's still super tight at the top.
and Ruchi 5 played by Shaly on form. No checks for whites and unstoppable checkmate threat unless she gives up the queen now.
It might be the moment, it might be the moment that Katrina Lagno puts a hand forward in resignation
or she might give up the queen. I don't see a fighting chance there. David Queen takes
rook just doesn't feel like any fortress possible where the king completely opened the two pawns moving up the board.
Bishop g2 could be another trying to survive a couple of moves of attempt
Yeah, you're right. Actually, I missed bishop g2 originally, but luckily the white queen on e7 is
undefended so after this check black can throw in one last brilliant move. She's already racked up a
couple this this game so far. Rook takes g2 giving up the rook but the white queen would fall off
the board at the end. So queen versus rook advantage. Maybe she'll try one last move
flag now but if it is anything then it's probably Bishop G2.
Yeah this is it's too long on it's too far gone this this defensive attempt
by Charlie like you said it's placed at all her strengths this position so she's not going to miss
a beat. Well this particular position I think a lot of people would be able to play it out to
the win but I think the whole sequence from where you started David with the peace sacrifice
finding that whole idea and then executing the attack up until now is really our Parali.
And we do see the move that we were discussing Bishop g2 trying to create a square for the
king but the simplest path forward and Vishali doesn't even stop expecting resignation
any moment now. King h, king g1 amongst other things runs into rook takes bishop. I think
the cleanest and the fastest way because there is a queen f8 check being threatened.
She's played Qh4, she's definitely going to play Rxg2, so Lagnar I think not even checking
out the board right now.
She's just plucking up that courage to resign.
It's always the most devastating moment when you know it's too far gone and there we
go.
By Shali gets the win, she moves up to 50% and joins Lagnar.
There are lots of wins for black in the women's candidates today.
I am one happy for my teammates.
I'm sorry to report that I've already lost my prediction game right now.
Two out of eight was my number for decisive results.
We're sitting on three.
John is the one who suggested four.
David, you suggested three.
We'll see how that one plays out.
But this game played out the perfection for Weishali.
She moves on to 50%.
Katrina Lagna dropped down to 50% now at three out of six,
going into that halfway mark.
But the tournament's far from over for anyone in the women's candidate.
but this game isn't far gone right now.
It isn't far from over.
I think this one ends soon as well, David.
Divya Deshmukh on the hunt,
the her first win right now.
She's up and I'm trying to do the math really quickly.
It's six versus four, two extra pawns.
The black king looking far safer than the white king.
Is it too soon or do you think it's not overestimating
when I say that Divya gets this in the bag?
I think you're right, Divya gets it in the bag.
Two pawns is a big advantage.
I would say the black's king, yes, it's vulnerable to backrankers, but in general it's quite safe,
especially with the black rook sitting next to it on g8. White's king is going to be the real target,
so attack, plus two pawn advantage. Hard to see anything going wrong. I think the one thing maybe
Divya needs to avoid count intuitively is the queen exchange, especially if the white rook ever
gets active, because you could see the white f-pawn becoming quite a strong trump card,
But yeah, overall Divya, she's got loads of time on the clock.
Could be a second defeat for Bibisara. We were praising her yesterday,
but falling in this one as well would be tough, and Divya looks on.
But Tanya, I just want whatever Jon's having for breakfast, I want it,
because his prediction game, like, it's just on point.
Maybe we need to be, we need to show more faith on the players.
We've predicted maybe only one or two decisive results.
of results. We were thinking lots of draws but blood has been spilled all over the place.
It just started so slow with the openings today. It just felt like it was in the balance and
level for such a long time and you know had that amazing breakdown. I was very proud of my
number to be honest David when I said two decisive games. I was very confident of my victory there
today and I'm nowhere in the competition anymore and that's heartbreaking for me and my
I appreciate that, YouTube.
Thank you for those who supported me on that one.
But we're not winning this competition.
How are you feeling about your prediction?
Because you're the one who's still in the race,
but looking at what's happening on Divya's board,
I'm gonna say John, most likely to get that
at four decisive results.
Yeah, I would love to say that I have faith
in Bibasara to hold this and make the draw
and make my prediction seem slightly more realistic.
But unfortunately, I think this last move is the key.
Divya has found the best setup, like a pure pin now on the G-file, how to hold that, like,
I don't think it's possible because after the inevitable H6G3, White cannot go to a
king and pawn-end game, White has two pawns down. So, just for example, this Tanya, she
cannot ever dream of taking back this pawn. This is just way too simple, and Black will
start mobilizing the A, B pawns and the H pawn game over. It's going to be a three-pawn
advantage guaranteed. In that king pawn ending you might not even need your king is black to win
the whole game. You just keep pushing one then the other and make your opponent suffer in that as
you're putting this on and in this position all you got to do is touch your pawns and not make any
other move at all. White goes on one side black pushes on the other and just like that it
would be a lost end game. I really like how Divya set this up with Rukchi. She is
threatening to take the pawn, no really good square to defend that form and if
you don't go into this end game then you're just down three pawns. The H
pawn will join the battle after pawn takes pawn regardless of what White does.
I actually don't even see Pivisara being able to fight this for too long David.
I think this might be our next result. I do have my eye on the other
boards as well. We're not missing any hot action there chat. We will bring
that up for you. The top two boards, the remaining boards of our open right
now Fabi versus Esip Genko still fighting the equal number of pawns and getting closer to that
draw meanwhile David has a single move been made in the last four hours between Anish Kiri and
Mathias Blubom. They literally I think they were going to get close to the 50 move rule like
without any progress the same exact pawn structure for three plus hours between Girian Blubom
until the last few moves where a set of bishops have been exchanged I think Girie finally
got a bit impatient he was like okay a draw is fine but not like this not like this and still
dead level um yeah I think this is why maybe Geary has this slightly drawish reputation he plays
positions like this uh where it's minimal gains it's marginal stuff very hard to find plans for
both sides but um yeah I do feel a bit guilty Tanya that we haven't carried Geary covered
with Giri Bluebalm more, but it's maybe not the position
that the crowd have been crying out for.
It's definitely not.
I don't think you have anything to feel guilty about
in this and I think when we join in to this game,
eventually we'll still be at the exact same position
that we are.
So David, nothing to worry there.
But Divya versus Bivisara, I have a feeling
might be finishing anytime soon.
It just feels like Bivisara is on the think,
unable to make a move.
That's the only remaining game on our bottom board there.
three decisive results so far and all wins by the black pieces.
And it's about to be a fourth win by the black pieces.
All four with black is a good day to be counterattacking.
Divya, I think she's got multiple paths to victory now.
If she wants to play it super safe and defend her f7 pawn,
then she can do just that.
She can sneak back with the queen and just cover that pawn.
But Tanya, maybe she's got more on her mind here.
I think she can go for mate.
Can she take two, three Queen takes and just go for it.
No checks.
It's like a very devia way to play.
She's always looking for ways to finish it off as quickly as possible
and in the most powerful way as possible.
So if she does feel her King is safe, I don't even see a single check possible on the board.
I think very likely you might be seeing this line.
I don't think you're worried about Queen takes her, King takes her,
group takes on that's just one check but King can slide over to F it and be
completely safe chilling right there so Divya all happy choices in this moment
for her all happy choices and yeah you know her you know her best I think she
will take this born Tanya multiple other ways of course but why not go for it
if you see it she's about to about to make a decision and she does that I'm
I'm just wondering about our score line
that we're talking about, right?
Potentially four black wins today.
David, classical chess we consider it as one
where white does have that upper hand traditionally.
And of course we talk about how much,
how openings have advanced.
What's making you smile, David Howard?
No, just you're 100% right.
Tanya, I'm just enjoying story time.
I do this every time.
It's a good thing when I'm smiling, Thomas.
I feel like I'm making, I'm trying to say something
and then you've got this, you know,
got this smirk or this smile on your face and I'm like oh my god have I said something silly again
and then I'm like what's going on I know something's going on who are you texting?
I'm not texting anyone I'm just saying that Fabiano might finish soon as well but
Tanya you did remind me however of one of my first coaches saying that
ah chess is just a draw you know the game's gonna die it's uh you know it's all been solved
and that was already what 30 years ago and here we go we're going to see a
resignation this game has been solved in Divya's favor,
Quinn F4 is a really stylish touch making use of the G-file pin
and now Vivisara have nothing to do but resign.
Very very impressive win by the Indian Grandmaster.
Yeah beautifully finished off in that last position attacking the rook hitting
the ball not even giving any chances at all. Divya Deshmukh scores her first
win of the candidate and just like that I believe you have another result
coming in David with Fabiano Caruana having to make do with a draw. It was the maximum that he
could get against Asipenko. He did try but it was just never enough. Asipenko always in control
even in the end game. Very impressive defensive skills by Asipenko. Had to come up with some
clever answers to Fabiano's questions but he was always always in control it felt like and
Faby slight frustration for him. That is going to be the feeling he's left with
but not much he can do if your opponent defends perfectly. And finally we're left with one
game Tanya. We're forced to address the Geary bluebound board. Yeah the most exciting saving the
best for for the last are we chat. The most fun position on the board has been pretty much the
same for the last four hours as we arrived at this one. I think for Faby the frustration is
almost double fold. He's having a great run at the candidates if you just look at the scoreline.
Yes, he had a blip. You know, he did falter. He did stumble to center off, but apart from that,
you're in the race. You have a very reasonable score going into that halfway mark as well.
I think the frustration for Fabi is not just the fact that he's drawn today against
Esipenko on its own, not a bad result at all. In fact, he's had three wins so far, only
once in the last, but the frustration more is just the run that Jrabukir is having. And then you
just start feeling that a lot of it will come down to my head-to-head clash against him, our
second match, you know, in the double round robin when they face each other for the second time.
And I'm going to add to that that Fabi will be white, but he needs to narrow the margin until
then. So he kind of needs to rely on the others somewhere to score against Jrabukir
send it all because a one and a half point margin it's not enough on their head to head to just count
on that one. No exactly um the he knows that Javakir can also kind of push him into a corner play
really solid and say you have to take big big chances you have to do something a bit unorthodox
in order to beat me and um yeah it's not going to be easy for Fabi but uh we'll see I think we
should all also be talking about the fact that some players might already be out of it Hikaru
I mean he's now three and a half points off the lead.
Can anyone imagine Hikaru making up a three and a half point gap
on Cinder off right now? Can anyone imagine Yesipenko
making up that three and a half point gap? He might also be out of the race
very very soon and yeah of course Giri still looking solid he's far from out
of it same with Bluebound but yeah draw is I mean we're talking
about Fabi the consequences for him but these guys as well like a draw
doesn't really suit either of them it's frustrating when you see someone
running away and you're being held there locked in equality. It's tough, it's a tough situation.
And we talk about the uniqueness of candidates as a tournament, right, where once again the
difference between first and second is far more than the difference between second and eight.
I mean if you think about the history of candidates, very few you can even remember
who finished second. You know, it can be called a podium finish, but apart from the one,
and I'll be honest where Ding came second only because he qualified for the world championship and then went on to actually win it
It's hard for me to really remember in Toronto
Who was okay?
Maybe yes, I can because of what happened in the final game there
You know with Hikaru playing against location Jan versus Fabi, but most of us second place doesn't matter in the candidates
You can't make peace with it. It's not like other tournaments where you say I had a great run and I'm happy
I didn't win it but I'm second the good finish. No, the only one that matters is winning the whole thing
So, for all these players who sort of fight this two-year cycle to make it to the candidates
and to see somebody have the performance, the depth, the level of it that Sinderov is
having, it just starts feeling really unfair and I'll add to that for especially players
who are sort of in the senior category of the candidates, players like Anish, like
Hikaru and Fabiano Caruano, if you may, it almost seems like they've had a resurgence
over the last few years when Magnus has walked away from the title, this urge,
desire, there's motivation to fight for the crown one more time, you know it's almost like you buy
the dip, you invest in it even more when you feel like you have a real shot at the world championship
but then you see this storyline being played out. You see Sinderov arrive with this main
character energy and just stealing the show right now. It's really hard to deal with that
in your mind going into this round seven. Yeah I could just hear the anguish of all those
31 year olds like Anish Geary who being called senior I mean I mean it's breaking their hearts
Tanya but I think we all know what you mean it's all relative right and when you've got someone
that young and full of vigor like singer of it's yeah it's all tough but I mean you remember you
reminded me of Toronto Fabiano in that last round totally winning against Jan I couldn't get it
across the finishing line, heartbreak again. It feels like a case of, you know, always the
bridesmaid, never the bride. It's tough and I mean it will be the same for all of these players,
golden opportunity, like he said, two years of hard work, sweat, blood, tears, everything,
and to see it extinguish just because someone else is just on fire, it's incredible. It's
the heartbreak of sport. And there's someone else in everyone's mind, it's obviously clear that
this is going to be one of the many candidates that Cinderol will be a part of and will be
motivated to play and hungry to play in. But how much of that can be said for a great player like
Hikaru, for a great player like Sabi, sure it would be amazing to see them back at the board.
But you know that level of hunger, that level of motivation, that does go down,
nobody is getting younger. And I'll add the, you know, I'll just add to that that
that it almost feels for the likes of Hikaru and Fabian
with the phenomenal chest depth that they've
had at their peak and just the players they've been,
just incredible Chakranala Anish to that group
as well from this candidate.
You know, they were in the Magnus era.
Most of their chess life was spent in the Magnus era.
So becoming a world champion was just incredibly difficult.
Getting that title, every time Magnus played,
is a massive favorite. And then now you feel like you have your chance and then this is what plays out.
It's hard to be a Fabi fan. It's hard to be a Hikaru fan right now. I'll tell you that David.
Yeah, and it goes in cycles. It's like, I remember back in the day when people were talking about
Shirov, Ivanshik, I mean, Gelfand, some legends and they were in the Kasparov era.
And yes, Anand rose up kind of from that when Kasparov stepped away. But there's so many
case of what could have been. What could have been. It's tough. I think for Hikaru, maybe the last
chance was that time when he could have banked second with a draw against Ding, but couldn't
hold. And he said he didn't really care. He didn't believe Magnus was walking away. But
Magnus was quite open about it. Magnus, he was not hiding the fact that he was going to walk
away from the World Championship. So I think that was maybe the one moment Hikaru would
look back on with regret. This tournament, he's never really been in it, at least so far.
And so we'll see that's in the meantime, Tanya, we're talking about anything other than the chest because it looks like the people is finally starting to repeat the moves doing a bit of a night dance.
And I featured chat pointing out that about the last 100 moves have been moves by the horsey death. So we haven't missed out on much. It's just been a shuffling around game. I see the notation in front of me just 9999999999 all the way.
And finally it is the king that's seeing the day of lights.
I did that earlier, Tanya, it's, I mean, it's no surprise the players sometimes make mistakes
in the fifth, sixth hours because it's hard for us as well to keep our, keep our minds
about us. But I mean, this is not part of a major plan. I thought actually maybe the
white king after defending f2 on the second rank, moving the e2 knight out the way might
just kind of journey on over. But I think b4 is so unrealistic that pawn breaks won't
happen. And just to point out, like you said, nothing's really
been happening, Tania, but I want to take us back to move
number 54. This is this move 61. Wow. I want to take us back to
move 16. And this is the structure. This was the pawn
structure from move 16 till move 50. When in this position,
same pawn structure, but black finally pushed upon. So pretty
much 34 moves, getting close to the 50 move rule. I was kind of joking earlier
but they actually came close to it and from move 50 to move 61, same pawn
structure. So 11 moves in, 39 to go before this game is declared drawn. I
think Geary is just playing for the sake of playing now. Can you do me
one more favor and can you back up to move 54 and just do a fast forward
play of what we're seeing because all one needs to do is focus on the
nights. So watch this happen.
Let's do it. Night jump, night retreat, night retreat, night
retreat, night jump, night retreat, night jump, night
retreat, etc. It reminds me of a very famous game between who
was it Yand upon Nishi and what's it?
Oh, Dubov. Yes, from the world blitz championship. I want
to say David.
Maybe the less said about it the better, but lots of night moves in this one.
You know the world's best championship, they're just always full of drama and somehow Jan
Apomne she's on the side of them.
Yeah, it's strange seeing a candidate without Jan, like it's been a while.
He nearly won three candidates back to back, Tanya, like he was one game away last time
as well. He's a big game player, big match player.
I mean a player to have won two candidates. I'm again trying to think
who did that. I can't think of any other name except
Jan Nepomnesi. I'll also I'll also add to that you know we've been talking
about the score generally traditionally needed and I have a
feeling maybe we're setting a new record in this candidates with the
way it's going but so far it's been a plus four nine out of 14.
Jan Napalmnasheed, Madrid 2022, won it with 10 out of 14. I want to say he had a plus
or nine and a half out of 14. He won it with a plus five score, David. One round to spare.
He just crushed and crushed the field and there was just no competition left.
And it was the one time that a player won with plus five. And that was Jan Napalmnasheed.
And there were actually some shades of what Cinderov's doing now.
Like Jan Napalmnasheed in that tournament, players were so scared of him at some point
but they were self-destructing. He was winning multiple games on the black side of a Petroff,
and across a couple of candidates he was doing it to Richard Rapport, he was doing it to Wang Hao.
It's as if players, they came to the board and they just felt like his energy was too much,
and it feels the same with Zindorov. Wei Yi is such a solid player, nearly never loses.
Okay, he blundered against Fabi early in the tournament. Occasionally that happens, but
it just felt like Wei Yi, as soon as Black's Bishop landed on D4 today,
he gave up hope. He just felt Syndrov's energy was too forceful and powerful.
And yeah, again, trying to dodge this game, but Tanya, I think that this is gonna go on
for a while. I think we have taken a bit deeper, but nothing has changed so far.
Well, I think I'm gonna see some more night jumps and one plan can be to try to bring the
night to D3 one with things. But wait a second, it's been there done that before
when you're white here, either YF4 or YSE1. The other Knight to A4, well that's been there as well.
David, I think Anish might play on but I'm not really seeing a breakthrough and I'll just want to
add a little bit to what we were talking about. You said that missing young Apoam Nushi here,
it's kind of strange to have a candidate without him. We weren't grown so used to it. I think
one other player who I really thought would be incredible and who I was really expecting
to find out the candidates and I think it would have been amazing as Alireza
Ferozha, I think without Alireza and Yannep Omnishy, there is something about
the field while exciting, it does feel like we're missing these two players.
Yeah, Alireza has contributed to a lot of drama over the
over a couple of candidates tournaments. His two appearances didn't go his way
surprisingly. I think just bad starts contributed
towards a bit of tilt and he played spoiler against Goukesh for one game
last time, but other than that, had a bit of a tournament to forget. But yeah, I agree.
He would contribute to even more decisive games. I think John would probably be predicting
five, six, maybe even seven decisive games if Alarosa was in the field.
Also, on that note, I'm just going to add, currently, David, you and I are out of the
race, by the way. It's John's prediction with four decisive results. He's going to
get this cake and eat it too. I mean, oh my God, we're not going to stop listening
about this once he joins us again because there's only one remaining game right now
and I don't think Anish is making much progress on it.
Sat, John's going to have a feed day with this.
I can see him in our cool nodding away. Oh, he's so smug. Look at him. He's always right.
He's always right. That man, John Sargent, the quiz master.
Oh my goodness. All right, one remaining game.
The fact that again, we've got more night shuffling around.
Anish wants to play this on.
And I do see the evaluation bar doesn't sit exactly on 0.0.
It gives an edge to white.
So yeah, I'm going to ask you why.
Quick attack to us.
You're asking me to have a deep kind of a horizon
further than any computer, Tanya.
Thank you.
just put your deep blue bomb on and tell us why is this better for white and where is Anish Giri's
opae for all. You've written a book called Grind Like a Grandmaster. I know and yes thank you for
the plug Tanya it's somewhere behind me, somewhere there but even I someone renowned for being a
grindmaster would probably give up hopes in. I think the only plan is to push through with B4
and he's got to do that before the 50 move rule kicks in.
So to organize it, okay, I'm going to make the magic work here.
I don't know what to do with the e2 knight.
I don't know whether to leave it on f4.
Maybe we just bring the king round slowly and then push the b-pawn.
And then I'll say progress, Tanya, but a winning plan,
I'm still far away from that one.
Well, Anish might be far away from getting a win here,
but one person has already got a win on this bro...
Wow really guys is it is it that bad that you have to disconnect the moment you bring me on is that how we're playing this now whatever Tanya okay I see I see how we're doing things yeah welcome back everyone
David if this game somehow ends in a decisive result strictly speaking I'm wrong as well
Yeah, she's gone. She's had enough. Those night moves. It was too much for her. I think I would be pretty confident in your shoes, John, like a drawer is such a likely result here.
out here. Tanya does have a really good point with grand like a grandmaster though David,
because there are some sorts of positions and I'm not saying this is one of them, but there are
some sorts of positions where when you see the principles of what you have to prepare and why
you can actually see beyond the horizon of the strongest engines because you know you're
setting something up that in 10 or 15 moves that enables you to do something even further
down the line. And okay, you're not accurately analyzing 45 moves ahead. That's not the sort
of thing you need to do. But the point is, if you see there are two or three things you need to
do in principle, and each of those things takes five to six moves of maneuvering, you suddenly
start looking like you can amazingly see 20 moves deep. This could be, well, these sort of
closed positions can be those sorts of moves. And I appreciate, it sounds like you don't
don't think this is one of those situations but maybe give us some insight into when you
can have those sorts of situations where it does feel like you're a genius compared to
a computer evil.
Yeah, that's that's the key theme here the key, the key trick John to make it look like
you're doing something to scare the opponent to get them maybe to break the tension
first to get them to flinch first.
I think ultimately it is those kind of three, four move plans, improve the king, improve
the night ideally with some threats along the way some traps that you set but
ultimately chess is all about pawn breaks it's all about open lines it's all
about creating tactics sooner or later so if Geary is able to do that with pawn
to b4 at the right moment yes this game will continue maybe we'll put some
moves on the board later but I think we can predict blue bombs moves in the
meantime because knight f6 knight e4 has been almost a pre-move for him in
in the last 20 minutes.
It does feel a bit that way.
Some interesting body language as well.
Just before 94 was played,
you could see Anish look up to Matthias Blubowm,
give him maybe two or three sort of glancing looks
with his eyes.
And I don't actually know if that's Anish saying,
yeah, okay, maybe there's not much life left
in this position, or if he's saying,
you really wanna go for this.
I can't quite tell based on the body language,
but luckily for us,
We have an expert in comparative body language
joining us on the broadcast again.
So welcome back Tanya.
You didn't have to leave
as soon as we talked about my predictions.
I mean, I wouldn't have taken any offense.
You can lose gracefully as well as win.
I know you're used to winning all the time, Tanya,
but it's okay, honestly.
I'm too competitive.
I couldn't handle it, you know, John.
I knew you'd come in all smug
and you wouldn't let it down.
And I knew with my moment,
it was to sign off perfect.
It wasn't you, John.
was the position on the board? Well the position on the board might not change very much in
the next couple of minutes so we'll take this opportunity to head to a break. Now will this
be the last, will this be the last break of the broadcast as night E4, night E1 is
played on the board? We don't know. It depends on how long the players want to keep pressing
but we will catch you after a couple of minutes and we'll see if this game is
very closer to conclusion.
I
We are back at the Fide candidates 2026 one game remaining out of the seven four decisive
results just because I see Tanya next to me on the screen four decisive results but in
theory it could still end up being five we'll have to wait and see we have an
e-skeery and Matthias Bluband still continuing to fight over the position
and I am going to be unfortunately bowing out early today I promise I'm not dodging
the last game this was actually pre-planned but hopefully we get some interesting moves soon
and I want to leave you with one interesting tidbit uh David I believe you said there's a chance
we're getting some messages in about a potential plan for white. Obviously, we're not here claiming
it's going to be a winning plan or anything like that, but this would be a good opportunity
to segue into, well, what could a potential winning plan look like? With that, I'll leave you folks
to today's final game. And John, thank you for that, throwing me into a position where even the
the great Anishgiri, a grinder in his own right, is struggling to come up with the most
constructive plan here. I have been getting messages from multiple people, but shout out
to Malcolm Payne, the English chess international director, who believes that B4 is probably
the only way I would agree with that, to make progress. He thinks that putting both
Rooks on the back rank. So for example, one rook on c1, one rook on b1. I'm not sure where
the white king should go, maybe on e1. And then pushing with b4, b5 is the way to create
headroom or headway here. And white's 2 versus blacks 3, that's a minority attack in the
making. But Tanya, it feels like that comes with some risk. Opening up these two black
rooks for the first time in the game. And if white ever plays b4, maybe after
some exchanges, black just blocks with b5, still a fortress, or black gets the knight
round to even ducie outposts. I did count in that break because maybe boredom was a slight factor,
but I did count that this knight has moved 29 times out of 71 moves the same knight for black.
So he's been doing a lot of exercise for the same piece here. What do you think Tanya?
Should we jump in with some variations or should we chat again about Hikaru's chances in the tournament?
always take our chances in the tournament. You know that's my pick every single time.
We'll hold on with that thought just yet. David, because you did mention a really interesting idea
and I think in Anisha's radar that's exactly what this is about. It's going to be a long grind.
He knows that this is a risk-free position that he can pretty much play on forever.
I wonder how much of it is that he wants to also get Mathias low on the clock as
low as possible and then try to go for that plan of B4, B5 and perhaps Black will not have
enough time on the clock to handle those questions. I think with the way he's regrouped the knights,
he is looking at that b4, b5 advance, you know, also the rook's really nicely placed and ready
to jump onto the open either b-line or c-line once you're able to achieve that minority attack
that you mentioned, but he's only delaying it. This is not a niche settling for a draw,
this is a niche just playing the waiting game. I do believe that we will see b4 in this game.
My question to you, before we go back to our favorite topic of Hikaru's chances at the candidates,
is that we're on move 72. Do you think we hit 100 moves in this game, David Howell?
Yes, I predict yes. And maybe only because Black's last pawn push, the last time Ed Everside
has made progress, was on move 50. So move 100 is the magical number this time, Tanja. That
That would be the 50 move rule.
No captures, no pawn pushes.
So I'm gonna say either move 100 is the last one
or maybe that's when finally Geary or move 99
plays B4 or A4 and keeps the game going.
How about yourself?
Is this gonna be the longest game of the event so far?
What do you think?
I'd love to see that happen.
And I just don't think I've ever,
what I've not seen ever happen
is that a trade being played on move 50
with so many pawns and pieces on the board
and nothing changes and we reach move 100
and they claim a draw on that factor.
The 50 move rule comes into play.
I don't think I've ever seen that happen.
Usually it happens when there's one piece remaining,
one or two pawns remaining,
but that would be quite a historic achievement
in its own set.
I wonder if the Mima and Anish Giri
is playing for that.
It's quite possible.
Maybe he wants a new record.
I'm not sure what the longest game
the candidates is, but yeah, I think the longest game in chess history is 269 moves, although
I heard rumors that that might have been broken in a league game recently in England, so we'll
see. But okay, let's put some moves on the board, Tanya, because I can't think of any
reason to delay. Okay, let's say White, it's too early, I think, but let's say White
plays b4. What do you make of this? So we have to check out capture first. I think
it's the most human response. The two rooks have been set up on the open line.
So pawn takes pawn, needs to be looked at. And let's say I play the waiting game
account. By the way, Anishin is reaching for his rook. He does delay b4. It
doesn't change the nature of the game. He plays rook a2. I'd be surprised,
that move surprises me because he sort of just made it clear that the
next move will not be B4 with all the pins lined up on the a line I mean I
don't understand what the Rook's doing on D3 I thought he wanted to use his King
to come across but now the King is tied down defending a pawn I thought a knight
maybe on D3 but okay that Knight has now moved 31 times I believe
soon to be 32 maybe notes the Rook that goes back but just to finish the
point B4 if it ever happens I mean at the very least Black can jump in but
but also b5. I don't really understand how this helps with chances.
Well, at least we'll see a game where then we can try to create something along the
c-line. Hard to imagine working out, but just to show ideas like 91, Rc3,
Knight d3, defend the b4 pawn, then bring the rook back, double up on the c-line.
Yeah, let's just have that Rc3, let's say Knight, okay, I was going to go
Knight d4, but even if you were to play Knight d4, it doesn't change anything
Rook c1, Rook c2. At least you've got something to shift around and dance around with, right David?
Exactly. I've got to build up towards this surely. They're playing really quickly. The moves
are coming in fast and quick now. Nf6 happened. The rooks led to a2. Mysterious move by Anish.
Then the king went back exactly where it came from a few moves ago. Mathias is doing blue
bomb things. He's just shuffling with the knight and the rook. He's keeping it solid.
He's keeping a deep blue bomb. Knight went back to e1, David. Knight goes back to f6.
the knight keeps jumping around. It's a lot of horsing around here and then finally offering a trade
that was denied and the knight lands back to the square where it starts the game from. Well done.
I mean the rook's been on b2 before, the rook's been on d3 before, the knight's also been on b1 before.
He's not trying anything new here, Anishgiri, but the value has moved up to 0.4 so I do wonder
whether finally the moment might have come. I quite like the knight in b1 defending a3 but also
taking away squares from the black rooks if the a line ever does open up. So maybe
now it will be time to rearrange this piece maybe put a knight around on d3.
Come on Anish, b4 before it's too late before the 50 move rule.
He's got about 21 moves to go before we hit the move 100 mark and the 50 move rule can be
claimed from right now. He's shuffling around, he's hinting at B4 but not
executing it so far. Meanwhile the Knights, they've had quite a journey on the
board. They'd like to mention more than 30 moves being played. A lot of Knights on
that notation board right now in front of me as well as Anish gets ready. More
Rukmu shuffling around, speaking of journeys. You know he's spoken about
how the players have gotten here now for both Anish and Matya's candidates
happen with their performance at the Grand Swiss. And here's a little bit
more about how Anish made it to Cyprus. Take a look.
headache others faced of meeting tie breaks to work in their favor.
This is Geary's third candidates.
At his first, he made only draws, but
he's not that kind of player anymore.
Just me or was that video hilarious?
I mean, everything's hilarious compared to the position in front of us.
I mean, Anish, I've known him since he was so young.
and I've witnessed him in so many different situations.
I mean, here, this is like his dream normally,
this type of grindy position,
but he also had a dream run at the Grand Swiss,
and it was nice to see him make a comeback here
of the candidates.
Yeah, his third candidate, as we heard over there,
and Anish, he's sort of in the mix somewhere.
And the thing is, had the tournament gone
any differently for Javakir's syndrome,
we'd be talking about Anish as one of the players
who's definitely going to be in the race
the second half of the candidates approaching. In this position, yes, he's lost one game
so far in the tournament. It happened in the very first round against Praveen Nanda, which
was followed up with two draws and then he finally did get a win against Asip Yankul.
A draw with Vei and today playing a game against Mathias Bluebaum, the unbreakable
Mathias Bluebaum looking for his streak right now. One loss for Mathias so far in the
tournament but I think he'll get back to his Bluebaum streak ways with draw
the most likely outcome in this one. David, how much of a contender do you see Aneesh at the
candidates right now? Not looking at Jabal Kheer's run here, but just with the performance that we've
had because I look at 2025 and to me it looks like a fantastic year for Aneesh Kheer. I think he
really went up the rankings. He gained about a 20 points through the course of the year and
And it just felt like a different, more combative chess
he started playing, felt like an Aneesh 2.0 to me
the year 2025.
I agree, Tanya.
And I want to take some personal credit for that
because I played Aneesh,
I think it was January or February 2025
and his rating had been dropping.
He was, I think around 27-20,
which was the lowest it had been in ages, his rating.
And he made, he had white against me
in the Bundesliga.
He made a really quick draw.
Well, at least he offered me a draw after 20 something moves.
I actually had a better position, but I was like,
okay, it's Anish, it's gonna be a draw anyway.
Let's just make it quick.
And then as soon as that game was over,
he started crushing everyone, winning games,
started taking big risks.
And in my mind, it was because
it couldn't have got any lower than that.
A draw with white against me, he was like,
oh, I can't let that happen again.
And suddenly he started going into overdrive.
So yeah, Anish,
I know there've been a lot of draw jokes
throughout his career, but he did show
that kind of 2.0 side of him.
And I think he's just really nicely settled in life.
He seems very confident about where he is.
He knows anything that comes now is just a bonus.
Like you said, the senior group,
I think they will see this as a big push
and an opportunity for them.
But yeah, I guess it's always gonna be
a source of frustration if he's never able
to make that next big step.
but the fact that he won some big tournaments in 2025,
of course, is something that he should look back on
very, very proudly.
I strongly disagree with your theory
about your game being the moment changer
for Anish Giri and his approach to chess.
I think a draw against you is, for most people,
a lifetime achievement, David Howell.
Meanwhile, the nightmare keeps jumping up,
and I saw you had a little bit of a reaction
to this move.
has been a shift in Matias now shuffling with his rook only square left on a6
why is he not playing it? Oh does he want to go b5?
Yeah I think he's not moving Matias because he's not at the board right now but
I'm very confident he'll play Rook a6 Tanya the blue ball of effect is a known phenomenon
but Rook a6 is going to be played maybe the reaction you mentioned it Tanya
And now Geary's body language, does this mean he's finally reconciled himself with the fact
that it's going to be a draw. He's only got 17 moves. It's move 83 now before the 50 move rule
kicks in. So maybe he realizes he's not pushing a pawn. He's not playing b4 in the next 17 moves.
Maybe this is it. Maybe this is where things end.
Okay, and just as I say that, Tanya, can I suggest one final plan while blue bombs away
from the board?
Yes.
For white or for black?
I mean, for black, I think it's hard to come up with plans.
For black, the plan is to play knight f6 for the billionth time, knight e4 for the
trillionth time and make a draw and repeat.
I don't think he's going towards it because this night's going offside, but a few moves ago in this position
How about if white had just moved let's say black?
Keeps doing what he's been doing forever night of six nights you on night you for night D3. Is this the optimal setup?
before let's go
Very interesting and let's see what happened point to spawn point to spawn
Jump in with the rook and I like that the two rooks are on the second rank. So I don't have a rookie a two so easily
Mm-hmm.
I'd quite like to say 94, jumping in with a knight to e4.
Well, but now I get b5 minority attack.
I'm going to make a backward pawn or an isolated pawn.
And this is the dream, right?
This is real progress for Anishgiri if he's able to achieve that.
Mm-hmm.
A position like this, like, oh, I just realized I could take with a knight, but I, okay,
for argument's sake, I'll take with a rook.
Like here, suddenly the advantage changes.
There's actually a second weakness.
I'm going to say that the other side is a weakness as well,
the isolated double pawns.
I think this is his best bet Anish,
but he's moved his knight back and forward.
He's repeating the position.
Is this it?
This is twice now we've seen the knight go back
to a4 and c3.
I feel like I've seen this position
about 500 times already.
I don't even know if a draw can be claimed
at some moment.
It just feels like because that white knight isn't b1,
maybe that's the one differentiator that we have from this exact moment.
That's the new move there.
And look at that, just like that, a draw for even before he decides to make a move.
I think it was Matias who offered a draw and Anish almost making a move there,
but changes his mind, says, decides to call it a day in office.
And this one ends peacefully exactly how it started, David.
How a very even balanced game.
Yeah, tough to say that either player deserve to win that game.
It felt like Anish was the one pressing.
It was only white who was really trying to make progress,
but I think a draw, a very fair result.
And I can confirm that 97% accuracy for both players
meant a pretty level game.
But the players discussing plans or discussing something,
maybe that's the biggest shock of the day, Tanya,
that the players have something to analyze from this game.
I don't know what you mean, David,
because this was such an exciting fireworks-filled game
that we just witnessed right now.
But they are going through ideas in this.
It just felt like nothing ever moved here.
The pawns remained the same as Anish and Mathias discussed ideas in this one.
This was our score line in the open, around six of the candidates right here.
Only one decisive game in a game from the front runner, the headliner,
getting a win with the black pieces.
His fourth, he goes into his fifth win even, goes to five and a half out of six,
taking down Wei Yi right there and then the other three boards ending in a draw.
The results, while they look peaceful, David I have to say that the games
themselves had a lot of meat. Exactly, it could have been very very different. We
could have seen blood spilled on other boards. Pregnananda against Nakamura
that could have continued but both sides would have been taking risks. Fabiano
almost made something of an extra pawn, couldn't quite get there. I think
that last game that we saw a draw a fair result, but things are opening up. At least the gap
at the top is, and one and a half point lead is huge now over Karawana, but the lead that
he has now, Cinderov, over the likes of Wei Yi, Nakamura, Yesapenko, means that likely
barring miraculous run in the second half, those three are going to be out of it.
Bluebound as well. He's going to be looking up and thinking, how am I ever going to
catch. How are we ever going to catch the magical Cyndorov exactly? And even for
a nation prog I mean a two and a half point margin going into round seven
that is massive five and a half out of six let alone five and a half out of six
even four and a half out of five is something that was never seen in the
candidates before. So already a historic score so far by Javakir Cyndorov in
the women's section a completely different narrative a totally different
sorry line where it is in fact a neck to neck battle right now today we did have
three decisive results again all wins with the black pieces all the four
decisive games across the eight boards that we had all wins with black hair in
the women's section it was Divya Vaishali scoring their first wins and as
well Anna Muzichir getting the job done in a very critical critical game
against the Jiu Jitsu in this one she's happy at the top a point
difference feels like she's starting to break away to run away but a point is not enough and there are
a bunch of players on three as well it's a different storyline David where there's only one Fabiano
Caruana following Jabba Kirsten D'Rov. Exactly and we talked about it yesterday but Anima Zitruc's
last minute ticket to the candidates that's a golden opportunity that never really comes along
in a career so the fact that she was gifted this opportunity the fact that she's now taking
it. That is a fantastic story in itself but the five players in joint second they're snapping
in their heels and yeah it feels like anyone can still win even the likes of Tan Chong Yi who's
on minus one hasn't won a game yet even the likes of Bibisara who's lost two in a row
they're not out of it and I have a feeling that the women's candidates is going to go down to
the wire might even be decided in the last few minutes of the last round. It's going to be a
lot of fun. I will say one thing though David, I really hope that the Oakland as well gets
into that sort of fight where we've got a lot of players vying for that top spot by the end of it
and it does somehow end up becoming a close race. Right now it feels like a one man race,
it just feels like Shabu Keri Senderov is running away with everything. Is there any one, David?
Any final thoughts from you before we wrap up the show because there is a big round seven
I mean, my thoughts have to be
with the man of the moment,
Sildarov. I have rarely seen
this energetic a player, this
confident a player in my entire
career. Just everything seems to
be falling into place for him. But
you also mentioned that senior
group, the older players. I
believe in them. That's my
generation, Tanya. I still
believe that someone's going to
rise up. It's probably on paper
going to be fabby, but there
might be some players now with
players now with the pressure off feeling they can no longer win the tournament. We played the role of
spoiler so I still think a lot to play for in the second half but first tomorrow he still needs to
yeah still needs to play his best in order to keep that lead. Well the players need to do it soon
we'll only eight games remaining and tomorrow being the halfway mark time is running out especially
when you've got a headline like Zabaker-Centerov taking all the points taking all of them down
one by one. A big day of chess coming up in the women's. It is a close, close fight to the top
with Anand Muzichit leading by a point. I'll leave you with something to think about it.
Jabba Kirchendra playing with the white pieces again. Anish Kiri. Does he take Anish down the
giant slayer? We will come back with round seven action tomorrow check. See you then.
You