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FIDE Candidates 2026: Anish v. Fabiano In A Race To Catch Sindarov! Who'll Come On Top! Rd 9
04-08-2026 · 6h 15m
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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 at 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.
What a moment!
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.
We are the youngest lore champion.
World champions Bukesh and Zhu Wenjun await their challenges and we wait with them.
It's time to let the games begin.
Round 8 did not just give us results, it re-drew the candidates entirely.
In the open, Nakamura struck back, Geary beat Prague, and while the chasing pack traded
blows behind him, Sinderov held firm with Black to stretch his lead to two full points,
only six rounds left to play. So today the pressure falls in different places. For
Cinderov it's about control, turning a brilliant first half into a winning
campaign. But for everyone behind him it's a lot simpler than that. The margin for
patience is over and the fight back has to begin now. And in the women's
candidates the calm has vanished completely. Divya's comeback win over
Muziecuk blew the standings wide open. Zhu and Lago both struck and
and suddenly five players share the lead.
Welcome to round nine of the FIDE Candidates.
I am John Sargent joined by the effervescent
Grandmaster Judith Polgar
and the always insightful Grandmaster David Howell.
Judith, welcome back to the show.
Sure, candidates are heating up.
There's absolutely no room to hide now, Judith.
Like if you are going to be chasing in the open,
you have to strike now.
Absolutely. There is nothing to wait for and it's clear that for Geary and Fabiano, the only result is the victory.
Even then, they need luck also how Sindaro is going to be playing out.
And David, equally exciting, but for very different reasons in the women's candidates, there might still be patience.
it's not necessarily now and no one can read this. It's a five way tie for the lead.
We'll get some more twists and twists, turns, surprises along the way. And the women's
candidates, it always seems to be around move 40, but the mistakes start to happen.
Maybe the emotions kick in and five way tie. Who would have thought this?
It's just how long that continues. I think at this point, it's a total lottery.
It's just about who stays focused, who can lock in as we head into the second
half now. So we'll see if anybody is able to lock in like you say and break ahead
of the pack there. In the meantime, before we start the games today, we're going to
check in with our resident reporter on the ground. It is Mike Klein with his
daily start to our games. You'll be doing a roundup for us later as well. I am
sure. Oh, hey guys, I'm just outside the new top golf facility being built
just outside the Cap St. George Hotel. But until it's done, all we have is
chess. It did remind me though this tournament is a bit like the 1997 Masters
where the entire world got to know Tiger Woods and it wasn't about whether or not
he would win the tournament it was about his margin of victory. It ended up being
a historic win and we're witnessing the same thing here with Cindarov. It's
probably not going to be about whether he wins the tournament but by how
many points he wins by and you know what he's made a whole bunch of birdies
in the first half. He could just par his way to the victory but I kind of
feel like getting to know the young man that he's going to go for more.
He's going to try to set the all-time record.
He just needs one more win to break Napalminshi's record from 2022.
As for the games today, the most consequential game is probably not his.
It's actually Fabiano's game with Anish, because they're the two people trailing.
Now remember in round 14 in Toronto, when Fabiano played Napalminshi,
the draw was the worst result.
And this kind of has shades of that.
A draw would be a terrible result for either of them.
But with one of them wins, there's still be a little bit of pressure
on Sandarov to perform.
Over in the women's section, we have no less than five women tied for first. It's not match play. It's a scramble.
Every woman is going to be trying to get more points because probably the winning score is going to need two or three more.
Nearly every game matters in this round and will matter for the rest of the tournament as one of those women tries to separate themselves from the pack.
I'm going to go see if I can hit some balls. Let's get back to round nine in Cyprus.
Thank you very much for that, Mike. I have a couple of questions about that. Namely, he
knew to pack the golf glove. So quite clearly there's been a bit of foresight, or maybe
he was planning on some time off, I don't know, while we were between breaks or something
like that. There's a few questions that need to be asked there, but regardless, these
are the standings in the women's after round eight. David, let's go to you first
this time around as Mike said it is just a scramble but whoever starts building a
little bit of momentum now maybe that's all they need to pick them over the line
exactly and momentum is on the side of the two Indian grandmasters by Charlie
and Divya who meets today they've scored quite heavily in the last three four
rounds and it feels like they've just been accelerating they've just been
improving as the tournament's gone on so big big clash there the number one
matchup. For others it might feel like it's been a bit up and down the likes of
Lagnos, Zuzinaire, they've had wins followed by losses struggling to build
that form yet. But I think Anna Muzitruk, after what we saw yesterday, all eyes
will be on her. Okay now we take a look at the open. This is going to be very
interesting indeed Judith because not only does Sinderov enjoy a two-point
lead but Fabiano and Anisha playing each other. Yeah, this is going to be the the
big hot game of the day I believe that both of them know that they don't want
to make a draw. They have to win to try to clinch get closer to Sindarova. At the
same time of course, Sindarova is playing with Matias who is who has only
three and a half points and they made a draw in the first round of this
event in round two. But we'll see. I mean, he should give a hard time for Sindarov. It would be so
nice to get back that the whole event is is still exciting, right? Can you imagine one of them,
Anisha Fabi wins. This is a decisive game and let's say Matias wins. I mean, then he can be
open again, right? But of course, Sindarov did not lose the single game so far. So there is
great chance that he won because he's extremely stable that's what he shows in
his game but let's see so those games are the whole world's eye on those games I
think today. Well he'll need to break through with the black pieces against
captain stable himself some people might say in Matthias Blubowm it'll be
interesting to see whether he'll be able to do that and certainly that determined look on his face
suggest that they might be able to do just that today. Wouldn't that be
incredible for the Young Grand Master? Playing in his first candidates, we'll
wait and see what ends up happening there. In the meantime, so many eyes are on
this board. Fabi and Geary look locked in. They are here for the long run today.
David, do we think this is the board that's most likely to go to a long
grind? Oh I think quite possibly as Judith mentioned earlier neither will be
satisfied with the draw especially Fabiano who lost yesterday who will want
to bounce back want to make use of the white pieces I was looking ahead to the
final few rounds that final stretch and I mean Cinderov after today only has two
more blacks that is against Fabiano and against Anish so both of these players
know that they will have a say on Cinderov's fate in the rest of the
tournament but first they need to get their act together here and start
that streak. Well, the clocks have started, the opening moves are on the board, and I'm
sure this is the news chat have all been waiting for. I can categorically confirm that Mike
Klein flew to the candidates with his golf clubs. Judith, David, over to you. John,
we see Italian opening. It means that Fabiano wants to have a long game. Don't you think
So David yeah, I mean, he's got Italian roots right Fabiano
So why not go back to go back to his origins go back to basics as he aims to get things together here
But interesting to see him pause Judith after blacks most natural move Bishop c5
Knight f6 is another big main line, but Bishop c5
I'm expecting Fabiano to have some ideas at least even if it's nothing too incredible
Everything seems to be analyzed everything under the sun in the Italian these days
But Fabi, choosing this opening.
Well, absolutely, but I think there is suddenly a lot of psychology already at this early stage of the game.
Of course, Fabi knows what he wants to play against it, but still trying to get the grips, trying to fill Anish.
What does he expect him to do?
You see a very self-confident Anish, and his game yesterday was quite impressive
against Progno Manda, so it's nice to play the next day after winning such a
game, right? Contrary to Fabiano, who had his chance, I mean, in principle, he had
his chance to potentially win against his countryman Nakamura, and probably he
regrets his opening choice, what he made against him, because it was too
solid and actually it was a grinding game which was quite painful for Abiano.
But of course today is a new day and he had to collect all his energy and still
push himself to fight, right? Because it's also very hard. He's a very experienced
player in the candidates. This is his third, right? Or fourth candidates. I don't
remember exactly, but he was also playing World Championship match as a
challenger so he has so much experience but sometimes I have the feeling that in
some cases maybe he has too much. Some things he should be forgetting. It will
be better from his experiences. This is the trauma, the scar tissue I think due
to that we've all been there where we've we play certain tournaments and
you know we've had setbacks or we place in opponents we've had setbacks
it's hard to create new memories and totally forget. I think this might
his fifth or sixth even candidate so he's been there many many times Fabiano and I think
maybe the first big shock of this game due to the reason Fabi's thinking is because
Anish, he has been playing the Sicilian, he has been playing the Nidorf as his main
weapon over the last few months but in this tournament as well with that great win earlier
in the event against Yesapenko I think, Anish winning that game. So maybe Fabi
not expecting e4 e5 today but I think we'll learn a lot now whether he puts his bishop
on e5 or not that turns to be the most ambitious these days.
And it's also interesting the opening choices because as yesterday it was also like it was
clear that for Fabiano it's a game which he should win right but of course against Nakamura
playing with the black pieces it's not necessarily that you want to go so sharp.
But here also, like in this situation for both players, there is no other way than to
win this game, isn't it?
I mean, if it's not going to be the science game, there is almost no chance that they
can catch up with Sindarov, unless if Sindarov starts losing some games.
Even one game is not going to be enough in that case.
And it's a very solid game, right?
So is it this strategy from Geary that I'm playing solid and then I provoke Geary, it
provokes Fabi because he knows that he has to burn bridges because this is the game which
he has to win.
Yeah, we'll find out soon.
First big decision for Anish is whether to push the pawn to a6 or a5.
these days I was going to say a5 is the choice if white isn't able to play
bishop to g5 sometimes even with bishop g5 lines a5 is a good way to stop white
from gaining space the black bishop has a square to drop back to the downside
Judith is that white often gets a bishop on b5 that's slightly hard to kick
out and yeah these Italians they're gonna give me a headache later I have
such a bad score in these lines Judith because I always get confused about
move orders, everyone seems so well prepared. It only begins here where it
moves seven, but this is just the beginning of the theory battle. Yeah,
absolutely. It's interesting that I was not playing Italian myself in my career.
I was always playing the Swedish B5 and taking the risk that Berlin will show
up on the board and all kind of different kind of Rai Lopez systems,
which was working pretty well in the 90s and even later, but I fully understand why people
started to play B4 and then they just want to play a long game, trying to get out from
some concrete and longer engine preparation, but engines are telling their views and ideas
and suggestion everywhere, right? I mean we see all kind of crazy moves happening on the board
in tactical positions and also non-tactical but very positional ones.
And Jinsa kind of teaching us back to front, often they suggest these weird moves like even
in this opening some weird move order that doesn't really look logical but then we only
realize a bit later according to the engine lines and I'm actually kind of, I've got
got similar experiences. I mostly played Roy Lopez or Scotch or other things when I was
young. I only played E4 until I was 23, 24. At some point I switched to the Italian and
I was playing it as the only thing with white. I got criticised in England. Everyone called
me lazy. The most respected journalist in England, Leonard Barden, who's still going
strong, 95, 96 years old. He was like, ah, you'll never get anywhere with a terrible
opening like this lazy opening and then like two years later everyone in the
world was playing the Italian as their main weapon and then I had enough time
exactly that's my claim but I'm just scared of it now to be honest is so much
theory in Bishop e6 and you know I'm expecting Fabiano to dodge the exchange
with Bishop to b5 here otherwise yeah maybe we see this pawn structure but
less scary for black with the pawn in a5 since white can't expand on the
queen side. I was always very curious about to understand that pawn structure
you know after capturing on e6. Takes, takes like who does it benefit really
because in there are some openings where even the bishop is on e7 and they are
still playing it right but now when the bishop is on c5 I would think that
But it benefits black more because black's idea could be queen e8, knight h5, playing
on the f-line, the bishop on c5 on that diagonal is very strong.
I mean somehow I have the feeling that it would fit much more to my style to play it
from the black side.
But I never did have this position in black.
Wow.
Because you weren't playing e5 so much or just because the Italian wasn't so trendy?
I played very little, E5, and actually once I prepared to play E5, but you will not believe
it what I prepared, the Petrov, the Russian.
Oh no!
Can you imagine?
And that was not the first thing, but I did it against Vichy when I was playing with
him in 2003, a rapid match.
And the first game I played, it was a fantastic match because every day we had
two games.
I won the first game with white, and then I lost with black, and then next day again I won the first game with white,
the first game, and then I lost with the other, and this was going on in the first three days, but unfortunately the last,
the fourth day I lost both of them, but the first day I played with black the Petrov, and I just got crushed.
And it was such a bad memory that I think after that I played one more game later on,
which was also a disaster from my end.
And then I said, okay, it was worth spending so many hours on preparation from Blackside,
you know, to play.
Instead of playing the Nite C6 and play against Italian or Spanish, but the problem
means that you have to learn so many things with black also not as coach the
four nights the Italian through the three we should be five aces then it's the
exchange variations that are so many things to study and also a lot of
different structures which makes it harder because it's not only about
concrete lines and moves but you have to understand the structures which is
of course is more difficult. At least you learned Judith, you learned never to play the
Petrov again which is a good thing. I think especially with your style probably not the
not the number one choice in opening. Yes, but you know in the Petrov there are some
sharp lines also. Not too many but still. And you know how it is you suffer with
the right side so you say you know what I'm going to go and sit from the other side and
show me what you have maybe I'm learning from my opponent for next time to play with the
right side.
This is what I did against Gary in the Nidor with 6-9 G4.
He will show you to the world that against Nidor with 6-3 G4 you remember in the 90s
mid 90s and late 90s and then at some point I understood you know what I'm going to
play this against you and then your turn to show to the world what to play with
white. And actually he didn't show it what to play with white. I had a very balanced
game with him with black. So sometimes it can work.
MvL I think is the only one who still plays that these days from the black side.
In the meantime Judith, a couple of moves, Bb5 and Ba7.
And here white usually tries to play Rf1, Nf1, continue the plan.
put the knight in g3 play for d4. Black is going to do the same. Knight e7, knight
round to g6. Yeah typical plans.
This will be a long game.
Let's go out of this one. We'll come back.
Yeah. I just wanted to suggest let's go out, zoom out and hand the board to the
view and maybe they can look what the leader is doing because it's starting to be very
interesting there. Here we see all eight boards and the open are the brown boards
the women's are the red boards it does look like the most action is with the
leader you're right Judith so we will delve into all of the boards at some
point in greater detail but let's start by going to Mattias Bluebaum against
Javukyat-Cinderov and it is the Queen's Gambit maybe we'll do a quick
action replay, just from the beginning. Absolutely.
Okay, so d4, d5, c4, e6, knight f3, and okay, bishop to e7 normally leads to quieter lines
or more fixed structures, bishop f4. Okay, and in this position, I must admit, like
I've always casted this black just automatically and after e3 then this choice black plays
either knight d7 or c5 and lots of theory there, but Sinderov keeps surprising his
opponent's early. He's spent only 42 seconds so far in this game on the first
seven moves. Dxc4 allowing white to occupy the center. B5 saying take me
please. I guess white has to. Otherwise just to pawn down and now B4
check. I must admit I'm out of book and looks like Matias Bluebaum is as well.
surprise surprise. Well, what are the questions right? There is a question.
Why can't go knight c3 black back? This is one of the ideas threatening with
Qa4 check. The other one is Bishop d2 so probably these are the two moves.
Knight d2 feels wrong I guess but maybe worth calculating just to keep
both pieces lined up on c7. But you know for example of the knight d2 I
wouldn't be surprised if e5 would be a move. I was also gonna say maybe
castles and just try to take here. But e5 let's say white, oh yeah maybe not
which it takes. And then knight e4 was my plan. Super messy. Of course the
buster zero point zero but uh... maybe
they can perform
you know i think you want to take
maximum pressure on the two
which is simply should see for
everything's protected
it's what's the point up
that uh...
these days at home
you can do that doesn't come
if someone's blitzing in their poor down you know that it's uh... deep
the preparation. Normally the idea is just to win the pawn back and equalize.
20 moves down the line. Okay, if we go back and your suggestion to go castle
left, but knight d2 looks the most unnatural out of these three moves.
Feels wrong. He drops his bishop back. We'll show this in a second but knight d2
I think black will just castle and if white gets super greedy then okay we
see the Valbar crash. Probably multiple reasons but knight takes e4, knight
takes for a queen d4 I'm assuming and just too much too much to ask for
white's position. Looks scary for sure. Yeah we see Bishop d2 instead and of
course he keeps blitzing syndrome. Bishop d2 he takes and okay now the
question is queen d2 or knight d2 looks like this isn't quite new Judith but
only one game I can find in the database in this position so far. It
It seems like Sindharov cannot sit at the board.
It's allergic to that chair.
Yeah, he's quite excitable. Every time I've seen him at tournaments, he's always shaking his leg.
High energy. I guess everyone's high energy when they're 20 years old.
But Knight takes D2 to that, so he hangs on to e4, e4 doesn't drop with tempo.
Makes sense?
It looks like an incredibly solid game for white because soon the b5 knight comes back
to c3, white is going to be capturing the c4 pawn.
So maybe some pressure on black to equalize.
Even if c4 and d4 disappear, white's got a better structure.
from Bluebaum. He's been very solid with white especially.
What are you expecting here? This is the kind of position you dream to have with white, don't you?
That's true. I'm impressed. He spent a little bit of time
Bluebaum. He spent, what was it, in this one? On Bishop D2 he spent
8 minutes and found a very simple way to avoid any scary preparation.
Cinderoff, is he going to castle? Other moves would be maybe A6?
He'll go castle first, and then look around.
Is castles in your notes? Is the eternal question these days?
But actually after castle, White can consider to play for example e5 and win a pawn, don't
you think so?
Oh wow, okay.
Castle's e5.
So you want Black's knight to block the d-file and then...
And I just take the pawn.
Looks like Geary against Prague yesterday, just with pawns on a4 and cnd pawns cnd disappearing.
Yeah, pawn up.
Black has some squares I guess, but not really enough compensation.
Sometimes you rather have pieces and pawns then.
But now maybe knight f4?
Yeah, maybe Nf4. He does castle, so he's allowing Blue Balm to win this pawn.
I guess the difference between after castles is that if white takes, then now a6.
Yeah.
And black takes on b4.
I mean, I think it's still nice for white playing Qe2, Nx3 or Nb3 afterwards.
I mean, it is still a position. Obviously everybody would take this white side, right?
Yeah.
I just got greedy, you know? I said, okay, why not to have the same kind of position with an extra pawn as well?
Yeah, I'm impressed with you that the greedy move you spotted it before me for once.
Yeah, you like pawns!
I love pawns, I love pawns. I've corrupted you.
But okay, you don't like to give away squares, so now you have to make a decision whether
What is it really worth more for you? A pawn or the d5 square in the long diagonal which
White is giving away?
Yeah, that's always my... the three things in positional play I always get confused.
It's like do you grab pawns, do you grab squares or do you get the bishop pair?
And then I always get confused which one is the number one priority.
Like here the pawn looks quite good.
As long as there's no immediate threats like you said on the long diagonal a bit
later on.
Okay, Bb likely to think but I'm going to say it's going to be a surprise for Bb, but
Sinderov's prep, if White's slightly better everywhere, then maybe not that scary.
Not compared to previous days at least.
Okay.
Well of course after e5, White is giving away the d5 square and also this f4 square
can be unpleasant if the black knight gets there something like this I wonder
why this is so good for white feels like maybe Queen to g4 or something
provocative and maybe blacks just not quite ready to go hunting for tactics
like this so either way it's a it's a big moment for blue balm as he ponders
what to do next and that gives us a chance to bring John in and ask what he feels about
this game with the leader. It feels like Cinder of slightly provocative today.
Yeah, I'm really loving this. I mean, slightly provocative today. It definitely wouldn't be
the first time in the tournament, but it's very interesting that as early as move six,
we are wading our way into unfamiliar territory. What I find interesting though is how
calmly bluebound has been negotiating this yes he spent some time to think
but ultimately his facial expression most of the time is as if he was in move
25 of his own prep so it doesn't look like his approach to the game is
materially different in any way and maybe he'll come out of it with just a
small solid edge cinder off hoping the element of surprise of course will
give him good fortune and maybe allow him to take another full point but
bluebound right now weathering the storm very very well so the openings
have been decided, ladies and gentlemen. We'll be checking out some of our other boards as
well as we go around both sections of the tournament upon our return. But for now,
please recharge your teas, recharge your coffees, grab yourself a glass of water,
and we'll see you right after this for more action from the Fidei candidates.
Who do you think comes off as the most honest broker in this whole affair?
That's a tricky question, because as I said earlier, I believe, well, first of all, like,
who has the most to lose?
I think they all do, you know, so if you pose it from that end, it's Danny and Eric
have a business, Magnus has basically who he is, you know, like what he's created as
himself and then Hans has his future in front of him. So they all have reasons to lie. Each
one of them has a reason to lie, but I think you just have to leave it up to the viewer
on who they actually trust.
Well, thanks so much, Thomas Tancred, the director of Untold Chessmates. I appreciate
you helping the chess world understand this incident better and also, you know,
setting some light on the chess world to the non-chess players out there, so appreciate
your time.
Awesome.
Thank you, Mike.
Your brother told us a funny story that sometimes when you're at home, if one of you is studying
you might have to ask the other one not to steal your idea.
Can you verify this is a true story?
Yeah, sometimes when we are discussing something like some things you don't want to, I mean
you want to play yourself when you're finding something.
So it happens, yeah.
So we just make sure, okay, this is my idea.
You're not going to play this, yeah, like this.
So it happens, yeah.
Do you also motivate each other, like for example, if you're at home and you're
studying but Prague is on YouTube, do you ever like tell them, hey, you need to
get the chess out and work on your chess?
It doesn't usually happens like this.
It's more like, okay, I've been working long time.
Now just take a break.
This is how it is sometimes,
because we both have the tendency to work a lot
and forgetting to take a rest or take a break.
So it's actually the other way around.
Wow, so you're not telling each other,
you're not motivating each other more.
You're actually trying to have the other person
not focus so much on chess and like, you know,
do other thing.
I mean, motivation of course helps me a lot,
especially with whenever things don't go
way is someone who always pushes me. I mean he motivates me a lot and he supports me a lot but
also the it's also the other way. We sometimes have the tendency to prepare a lot so we have to
keep an eye on each other to ensure that each of us are testing enough.
What about your relationship with him at the tournament like in Toronto? Were you having
dinner with him every night and discussing your game or were you kind of doing your own thing?
Of course, we were preparing separately. We would discuss a lot about the game.
Like, lunch, it's different sometimes because both of us are in a hurry and our schedule can be a bit different.
Dinner, we made sure we have together to discuss about the games, whatever has happened,
and to discuss what the other games, some interesting moments or interesting ideas.
So, this is how it has been, at least.
And of course, the other star of your family is your mother, Nagarakshmi, and she's made the trip here in Cyprus.
Yeah. Is she kind of like your secret weapon?
Yeah, for sure. She's been traveling with us for more than 15 years now, and she ensures like all the other things are taken care so that we both only need to focus on the game.
So, yeah, it's nice to have her once again for the candidates, and it's also very nice we get to travel together for tournaments, all three of us.
Yeah.
of the game. Welcome back to
the Fide candidates. 2026 here
are eight boards in the open and
women's candidate sections live
from the Caps in George's resort.
And I'm going to do something
about four hours earlier than
David suggested we do it
yesterday, which will make things
a little bit spicier. Um we are
anything other than a draw. It doesn't matter if white or black wins.
Based on the opening choices and the stances that we see the players taking early on.
Judith, I feel like as the newest member to the broadcast, it's only polite to allow you to pick first.
The rule is that once you pick a number, we shouldn't really be able to piggyback off the back of it.
We can't just agree with you, we have to pick something else.
hmm well today i think everybody is in the mood to fight especially the ladies
i go for six decisive games whoa okay that is a great number to start us off
david are we going seven or are you gonna make me pick next
oh john i will well there's a temptation to say zero and no way give me out in round two
when we had the exact same pairings in both sections with colors reversed, it was all draws.
It was all draws. Yeah, fine. But that was round two. You're on say zero. I'll say three.
I'll say three. There's a big difference between zero and three, isn't there? Look at that.
I think two in the women's and maybe one in the open candidates. Okay. See, this is what he
does, Judith. David does this all the time. He'll like, lead me down the path by saying
something like zero and then when it when push comes to shove it's a completely different answer.
This is what I have to live with. All right so Jude it's gone with six, David's gone with three.
I'm going to split the difference. I agree that today is a critical day of fighting chess
but I also think that people are going to be awake and be able to defend reasonably well. So
we'll still get entertainment no matter what but I'm planting myself in the middle with four.
We'll see who ends up being correct as we move later into the middle games.
For now though, let's go ahead and head back and decide where we want to go next.
So Judith, I'll hand it back over to you to decide what game we want to follow now.
Well, yeah, I was brave in guessing that it's going to be a decisive game.
Maybe it was only a wish.
Let's go, what do you think, David, to Nakamura's game?
You won a game yesterday grinding Fabiano, and it was quite impressive.
Can he do it today as well?
That is the big question.
He gets a double white.
He gets the white pieces again.
We also want, of course, chat to get involved.
How many decisive games will we see today?
We want to know where those decisive games might come as well.
Judith, six is brave, especially if Hikaru can't get an opening advantage here.
And I've got half an eye on the clock, Yesapenko seems to be in theory and prep still.
And also I have looked at the position up until about two or three moves ago, and I remember
from the black side being quite confident that it was possible to equalize here.
So maybe we'd just go for a very quick action replay from the start.
Yeah, let's see because the isolated pawn sometimes it can get something really bad but it seems like Asipenko is so fast that maybe he will be able to get rid of it.
Yeah, we'll find out very shortly. So Hikaru actually started with the English. That was his recipe for success against Fabiano yesterday. That was more of a symmetrical English.
here we transpose very quickly into the queen's gambit declined and okay one of the oldest lines
in the queen's gambit e3 and often black starts with h6 before going for any of this c5 stuff but
there are always nuances so c5 first and I always remember due to that taking a c5 is maybe the
more testing of the two because if black wants total symmetry and avoiding an iqp and isolated
pawn, then black often has to go for dxc4 and white slightly ahead in development and
maybe tiny advantage. But cxd5, I remember, especially with a pawn on h6 and bx1, h4,
same theme, knight takes d5, and this has got a reputation of being very, very level.
If white isn't able to complete development fully, and Ikaru does, but here we did get a
question from our producer, Judith, about Qxd5. Maybe you can break it down for us why
White resists taking the d-pawn in return for the b-pawn.
Well, usually simply people don't like to take an exchange of a b-2 pawn.
The d-5 pawn is just great to have it as an isolated pawn for White and
blockading it, not capturing it. But after taking some d-5, I think simply Black can
take b2, attacking the e2 bishop and if White goes b5 or anywhere, b6 comes with a tempo.
So it seems like White has to lose some time in c5,
oops, c8 I think is only possible to play.
I mean the bishop in e6 is very well placed there.
And with the queens or without the queens,
Black is just going to be fine, to say the least I think.
So this was not much for White.
And anyway, you want to blockade that pawn,
that d5 pawn, but this is the big question,
Whether for Nakamura, will he be fast enough and in time?
Rd8, striking immediately with d4, right?
White goes with d1, stopping d4.
And then Black goes Bg4 to exchange an f3 and play d4.
So the only thing is the Black cares, is playing d4.
And every piece of his supports it,
the queen, the knight, the rook,
and the bishop indirectly by trying to eliminate the knight.
And yeah, I think just in time, as you say, Judith, because if black was 1-2 slow and played like, I don't know, h6, then white could plant the knight on d4.
Maybe still not a big advantage, but long term, there's always an outpost, white will start attacking that pawn later, and it's going to be a lot of suffering for black.
Some classic end game.
Classical game. I mean, this is like a nightmare for a black player, even if some drawing chances.
The white bishop will apply some pressure, rook's applying as well, and good bishop versus bad bishop.
A long way ahead, but not much fun. So, bishop g4, and my question is after h3 in this position, does black drop back or does black already try that plan you mentioned taking the knight?
the night and I think we have to try first to take on f3 and then d4 because it seems that the
bishop c6 will not work because d takes e3 so Shenzung is in there. Nothing white can do.
Yeah and this just looks two two level multiple ways. Well, takes, takes, takes. I'm not even
sure I will take on d1 you know. Yeah I was actually going to blunder another backranker
like I did yesterday. I was going to tell you.
Ah, okay, okay.
Whoops, Queen takes a 7.
That's going to be a background checkmate.
But yeah, as you said, maybe just in this position,
just take on c6, maybe with a pawn.
Probably enough.
Actually, that's also good enough.
Black has enough control play.
Just to note these a7.
We're going to find out because h3 has been played
and bishop takes f3 works like you play it right? Bishop h5 is probably fine as well but
maybe the plan later is to take anyway and then play d4 anyway so why not go immediately.
But what does Ikaru have in mind after d4 because or is he going for simplification?
how? Like, is he really going to grind out a very, very level end game? Like,
at least yesterday he was slightly better the whole time, or at least he was the one with the
pressure. And like today doesn't feel like much. Maybe the seconds will get us done talking to
Judith for not showing him for this variation. But this is quite well known stuff.
I don't see it.
I would be surprised if NC Panko would play other than Bishop F3.
Yeah. He looks like he's dead in front.
That's the only thing he cares. I mean, every move of his was in order to, in some way, to push D4.
And here's the moment. I think he's quite comfortable looking at his face and looking at his clock situation.
Do you see anything else for white after e4, black is better.
Black goes d3 maybe and then knight d4 so white cannot do that, right?
Bishop looks a bit stuck now.
I mean white can take on d4 but then also knight d4 and white has to, it doesn't have
time to move the bishop.
White has to go away with the queen.
And of course, Bishop f3 is on the board.
So this is going to be one of the games which is not supporting my prediction.
Well, you just need six out of the next seven to be decisive.
You're laughing at me, don't you?
I was hesitating to say five or six.
And, you know, before we started, I made my guesses
and then I looked at the board and said, should I really change it?
But this one is, I don't see anything white will be able to do to play for a win.
Yeah, but you will look like even more the genius than normal.
If you get it right, six, that would be a crazy, impressive thing.
Then the first thing I should do to buy my lottery ticket.
Exactly, exactly.
I haven't been right once with my predictions due to it, so I'm not confident it will
be three.
always one off so it's gonna be two or four I think John I think it will be more
than three mm-hmm okay maybe John's gonna be right and anyway you know it's
only what they play for an hour less than an hour mm-hmm true okay so d4 will
be blitzed out maybe I'm getting ahead of myself but d4 is the only logical
for black since the pawn is now hanging and yeah Judith if we could
somehow get the queens off the board and like the d and e disappear the queens
disappear but white is able to keep the pawn structure not for example except a
isolated pawn on e3 then I would say white has some chances to press just
because the bishop's better than the knight but I don't really see how he
can do that in a healthy way. Well you can press but it's I mean black
should not really have problems, right? I mean, let's say, can you imagine yourself
playing it with the black side and would it cross your mind that you can ever lose that
game?
Yeah, no. I would be too worried, safe to say.
And d4 is on the board.
d4.
And even that would be huge achievement with white, right? What you just mentioned.
Well, the Bishop versus the Knight without the Queens, which is also nothing really tiny,
tiny, pressing chances. But is this disappointing for Hikaru? Because he won yesterday, suddenly
met some momentum. Of course, he's still miles behind, uh, syndrome, but with white
now against someone who's been struggling so far, yes, a Panko. This looks like it
on paper like maybe his last chance to start going on that winning streak and he hasn't
really had a chance to keep any tension it looks like it's going to be a draw in no time.
Well I think he's not upset really about the result if it's going to be a draw soon.
But more about the fact that he was not able to bring out some game which is lasting
for hours, right? And to pose some problems and questions to the opponent, that's more
annoying than the result itself, I think.
Yeah, I think he will be a bit disappointed, Hikaru, and maybe we are expecting Bxc6, something
like this position, and maybe he has played one with Qc3 or I don't know, something
But hard to imagine.
Yes, but I think black can also take on e3 and b takes e6.
Aha, even this.
Yeah.
I mean, the wide structure is really better than bishop
c6 on the board.
Yeah, bishop c6.
Could white threaten to win a pawn?
Try and take the d-file.
getting all these moves, getting everything so far.
No, but after rook c1, like takes, takes, takes, rook c1, you play it, can get f8.
Yeah, and this is going to be a draw.
Yeah, she keeps the queens on.
I was going to say here at least white can pretend to be a pawn up.
Ah, you can go to h2.
That I forgot, sorry.
I thought I had my check and rook d2, but no, no, no, well even this is no big deal with the e3 pawn.
Yeah, even this is probably a draw.
But okay, here at least White gets a pawn up, right?
Yeah, keep that.
Which is still...
Still a draw.
A5?
Yeah, A5.
Unlikely that White can win this, but okay, he chose not to go for a rook and game.
he took immediately on c6 and just the speed and doing it Judah I think he's still in prep
I think I've seen seen basically the same thing just with a black pawn already in h6 like earlier
with h6, h4 included obviously slightly worse version but this just looks
like almost zero chances for white. Hikaru has to keep the queens on now and
there's only one weakness really. Well and also white is kind of has to lose time because
the B2 is hanging right now. Okay, we haven't seen the prognome game yet. What do you think to
zoom out a bit and just take a look around? Yeah, I'll jump straight to that board.
just since for completeness for completeness's sake we have seen all of the other games at least the
the openings this was another Queen's Gambit we've seen a lot of those today and boring structure
boring structure but Judith there was an interesting moment earlier just because it's something I
I haven't seen at least c4, e6, OK, Qgd5, c5, and this is, well, this is a kind of semi-tarrash.
It's known as the Berlin of d4, especially if white takes. Nowadays, they're all playing
this line and now white doesn't have to play e4, but if white does, then this is the
Berlin of one d4, just since the black king's on d8 and black's just trying to make
a draw after Bxe6, but normally succeeds.
Okay, instead of this, Bishop g5 immediately for white was played.
I'm not aware of this one and after cd4 and knight d4, computers point out and there's been a
quite a lot of games after e5 and this is apparently quite decent for black but Wei Yi
was not to be provoked and he went for symmetry and that's why we got this pawn structure
like you say.
But isn't so fun.
Yeah, it has such a big literature I guess, or I know without the C and the open file,
it's just such a completely different kind of position than anything else.
I've played also the Vienna variation where both of the lines are open.
And it's not so easy.
Do you believe though inherently in the solidity of black's position or you think maybe also
if we go back to the live position that white's lead in development or at least being the first
to create some mini threats like e5 do you think, Wei Yi has to be quite careful here?
Well first of all I believe that it's most of the time white is who is pressing and
And the white has to do something really bad that black is taking over.
Look, it's white who has a little space advantage with having e4 and black has the pawn on e6.
It is very rarely that e5 can work from black side, right?
Because there's too much control with the white on the diagonal and the d5 square.
So many times the question is whether can white play e5 with the circumstances that
it's really good but later on if black even if he goes back to e8 and there is
an exchange of pieces once the bishop gets to c6 from black then on that
diagonal this e5 maybe is a move that white is going to be regretting so it's
it's a sensitive thing when and why to play e5 even if it's pushing back the
pieces of black. Just trying to show. Very strong bishop. Maybe white's over
extended already. Black can go knight c7 knight d5. At the same time black's
defense on the king side is not so good. Only the e7 knight can go to g6 to
covered a diagonal b1 h7 diagonal so it's what it seems like white is active but
black is good yeah I mean e5 is definitely tempting here but I see other
natural move would be to get the queen out the way I kind of want to defend
the bishop on c4 just in case and then just bring rooks to the center yeah we
Ne2 seems to be the right move for a moment, right? And it's on the board.
Logical from Prague.
What about Ng4 here?
Ng4. Quite a typical idea, especially if the Queen is on c7, often there are
tactics with Ng4 and Qh2, mate. But also interesting here.
Maybe I... Yeah, keep piece on the board since black is a bit cramped.
Yeah, what does that gain is I guess the question if h3 is coming next?
Well, I have a question whether can I go e5 and knight d4 quickly.
Very concrete.
But of course the famous d5 square wheel might be a problem.
It's a simple d8 and knight d5.
White has a beautiful position.
Quite risky.
On g3 also stands perfectly.
Very risky for a way to ever touch his e pawn.
I quite like your idea, maybe something similar like h6, h4 and...
Knight h5.
Yeah, I was going to say knight h5. As long as it doesn't fail tactically.
It's 1 square. Just to swap pieces basically to be less cramped.
But, Judith, you're in Wei Yi's head. You're in his mind because he's played knight g4 quite quickly.
So let's see what he has in mind after bishop f4.
Yeah, I think multipurpose move, keeping pieces on, covering e5.
Maybe.
What do you think about Bishop f4, Queen a5 with the idea of knight e5?
I've seen similar ideas in some slavs, so like h3, knight e5 looks good.
Yeah, for some reason the evil bar likes my queen to get near to that.
Rd1, I thought Rd8, Rf2d8.
Yeah, I don't hate it for black.
I guess Ne5 is the threat, so maybe I can...
but maybe you can go knight b5 to stop knight e5 and also try to go knight to d6.
Yeah, that looks nice as well. Maybe this can be a refutation.
Yeah. I remember when I was playing the slav quite a lot and there were sometimes similar
structures often with pawns on a4 and a6 but queen a5 and yeah if the knight ever goes to g4
white's idea is to play e5 and this is a bit stuck now because knight h6 I guess
white's happy to take it or maybe even just play h3g4 leaves a knight silly on h6. Maybe this as well.
But okay, I think pretty confident that Pryk will play Bf4 just because it's the most
tent, kind of the most ambitious, the most natural keeps pieces on the board.
Yeah, and this is also sometimes the problem for black in this structure that simply black
has too many pieces.
So if you can exchange one already with the black square bishop, then somehow black has
this relief.
Okay, finally my queen is out, I make space for my rook on DH, right?
Because my bishops on d7, d7 and the queen, somehow I don't have enough space to have
for every piece.
Idly black, she would be going Qa5, Rd8, Bb8, opening the rook's file.
But it's also slow.
So Bb7, no.
So Bb4 is kind of the only move, isn't it?
I mean, at least if he's being ambitious, which he needs to be, Prague, I don't think he believes his tournament's over, or at least the race for first place is over, even if he's on minus one right now.
So, yeah, before keep the pieces, keep the tension.
Judith, you said six decisive results.
Where in the open section now that we've seen all four boards, where do you think you might get those wins from?
Well, of course, maybe go to the bird's eye view and then we can analyze where it can come from.
Well, Blue Bomb castled long.
See? White has a better position. That game can be decided.
Then we go Karwana. In that game we all understand that the only result can be good for either player if they win.
So they should be fighting it out and they should be pressing and somebody will win.
Well, Ragnarand again is the one which could be the third decisive, but as we've seen
where he was having a great fighting spirit yesterday, pushing it, but under control.
Still, we don't know. Of course, one, we can exclude that it can be a decisive game,
which is Nakamura's Recipenko. I mean, I would not bet on that that it's going to be a decisive game.
But you never know. But I wouldn't.
You only need you only need two in the open like ideally you would want more for this six overall
But maybe all the women's games will be decisive and
There everything can be decisive. I mean, it's very open
Okay, so maybe before we go to the women's games, maybe just to check out blue balms castle queen side because
Expected yeah. Yeah, we were kind of joking a bit earlier that well if blue balm wants to be ambitious
he'll play e5, be a pawn up. But he chose a safer looking move if we just backtrack
just to that critical moment. The computer actually gave a red cross, so he should take c4,
a pernium miss, as Judith you mentioned earlier. This was ambitiously being a pawn up but giving
some squares. Instead he chose a different ambitious approach, deceptive he took on c4.
And only here when I was expecting him to castle this side for sure, just more consistent.
he decided to be brave bold and he went long. I'm not even sure that he's really
was deciding to play long caster for tactical purposes. I think he may think
that knight on b3 can be very good and if he can exchange the queens then the
king on c1 having the rook on d1 is just incredibly beneficial.
Yeah, so maybe preparing for an endgame more than any attack, that makes sense.
This back develops, I'm not sure where the knight goes.
Maybe to d7?
Yep.
How's white going to set up his pieces in the next few moves?
Knight b3?
Mm-hmm.
Queen goes back, I guess.
d5.
Uh-huh.
But maybe knight d5 and some tactics.
Now we've seen it in prikes game.
d5 was...
Yeah, knight d5.
Yeah, the problem is that if take, take, take, queen c6, that's something I forgot at first.
So e5 is not a good move.
Yeah.
So not e5.
But maybe instead of e5, f4.
I would be playing like f3, just blunt the bishop on b7, like slow position orbits.
You want to go for it?
I didn't want to have your knight on e5.
Yeah, that's true.
That was the only reason I played f4.
I don't know if you believe me or not, but...
No, that makes sense, that makes sense.
It's a nice square to take away, both on this board and the Prague board for...
Okay, let's say black continues developing something.
In general, I do hate these split pawns. It just feels like the options are so limited.
Yeah, I mean, they are very annoying.
After rook d8, maybe I go g4.
And I'm not telling you that I do this because I want to take away the h5 square.
square. This is already for a real reason. You just want to connect for Judith with
h4 next move. Okay, now I'll try and force the issue. Yeah, maybe it's a little exaggerating.
Maybe I should have done, you know, no, I don't go to g4. I go to key one and I want
to exchange the queens by playing Qe3 maybe. That's what I'm going to exchange things.
Maybe just
Maybe White just takes and plays like King b1, just chills, a3, put the king on a2, just
argues that all end games are better for White.
Well that's a fact, right?
Yeah.
With those pawns structure.
This is interesting. It's growing on me this idea, what Bluebombs done. Initially I thought
okay that's unnecessary to put the king on the queen side but the knight on b3 is very,
very good as a protector and not obvious what black can do to get active.
Nc6 doesn't make a great impression but maybe. Yeah I'm also thinking what happens of Nc6
but also knight b3 and obviously then you don't go queen b6 but maybe you go queen e5
but that c5 square is so weak
now do you play for f4 again or do you just kind of sit and go like f3 queen maybe g3 with the
idea of f4 because the queen is standing very strange.
But knight on c6 looks very shaky don't you think so?
Yeah blocking the bishop not controlling the important c5 square.
All of black's minor pieces may struggle to really do much. I've got to admit, like,
Cinderoff, both from the clock perspective, where he's actually spent some time for once,
but also the opening prep, I really don't like this preparation for black. It feels like white
could have been better in so many different ways. Surprise value hasn't paid off.
Who knows, Bluebound might get his first win of the event, you'd it. Maybe your prediction was
right all along? Well, one decisive game is not six but this game I have a feeling
that I mean of course for Bluebaum he has a great motivation to win today. I mean
he's playing with the leader right? Potentially great chance that he's going
to be the final winner. You always have more energy to play against the top seeded player
who is the leader that, ah, it's great, I can beat him. Even if the tournament doesn't
go in the way you're expecting or the best way. To win one game which is valuable, you
can be proud of. It has a serious value.
Exactly, exactly. Okay, this is promising that we'll get a full fight and Cinder off maybe on the back foot, maybe slightly worse for black right now.
Lots of blue balm fans in the chat due to it, so I know they'll be very happy, but let's go to the birds eye view.
We'll see if anyone else is playing as confidently as blue balm right now.
Okay, we've seen some moves on some of the other boards.
Yeah, and if you look at Fabi's game, something unexpected happened, for me, unexpected.
And probably your heart is bleeding.
I mean, look at where is the bishop, pay-for-wight.
Fabi Fischer would not approve.
He loved his Leipzig-Werd bishop.
Okay, let's go back to just a few moves, because not that much was happening.
Actually, it was only six moves ago, we were last year, but B5, B7 was played,
the black knight came round and normally this is a signal for white to play d4
when the black knight retreats. Knight e6, bishop d3. Okay interesting. I've played
some very strong opponents who like to put the bishop back on f1, especially if a
knight is coming round to f4 just to keep everything safe on the king side.
But bishop d3 was Fabi's choice and he didn't move the bishop at all even
and knight came knocking. Judith, you're right, my heart has bled a bit and Black's
bishop on e6 looks quite strong. It's a bit of a bonus.
I just don't understand.
Yeah, you're just going to be happy.
I've never seen something like this that someone gives up the white square bishop, just
like this, with their own will.
Levan was playing a system in the Italian where he would just play like bishop
he's just put it back on b3 or he'd even play bishop c4, put a pawn on d3 and say okay after
knight a5 I'll just go back to b3 and you can take me but at least there are white losers
less time with the bishop here. He's moved the bishop three times just to get taken
on d3. It feels odd. Maybe he wanted to unbalance the position and play something
which is not so common. Because for me it's something that I was not analyzing thinking that
you're willingly just say okay I don't need my bishop. I guess you can try and get rid of the
bishop pair by playing bishop e3 and at some point whether it's d5 or d5, at some point the
Yeah, I would vote for d5 because I don't like that with white having the black bishop on a6 and pawn on a4.
I mean that can be very unpleasant if black can keep it.
Yeah, so bishop e3 or maybe d5 first, one or the other.
d5 maybe bishop to d7, can black play for a very quick f5 somehow or knight to f4.
And after bishop b3 you would go with knight f4?
Yeah, it's attempted but white would dodge I guess.
Oh wow.
I don't know if it's not possible to take on f4 and knight h5?
Knight h5, not knight e2 of course.
Okay that makes sense. Yeah I'm not gonna play g5 then e5. But you will not play g5.
I'd rather give up the pawn and rely on the bishops. This just looks way too scary.
And if you give up the pawn rather than to defend it, it means that you really have to give up, right?
Something's gone badly wrong if I'm giving up pawns. Yeah this is just way too strong for white.
I mean night takes or it takes, they all look good. Black's king way too open, so okay, d5, I can see Fabiano, like if he's
playing quite ambitiously and wants to create more imbalance, then why not imbalance the pawn structure? I don't know if there's a
kind of any downside to playing bishop e3 first, keeping the options open. Maybe does that give black the chance to strike with some d5 in the near
future or maybe take first?
I have a strange question. Can black go e takes d4?
makes sense and if I take with the pawn and go c5 c5 okay you want full
Bernoni I don't know it's kind of strange but I go bishop bd7 and I'm
going to be playing b5 that you will not stop but maybe I'm just having a
very bad position but you will not stop me playing b5 yeah this would get
very dynamic like white might play knight f5 in the near future and yeah
this will get very very imbalanced. This is probably what Fabiano wants for this type of position.
I think this is what shows in his play that he really wants to win and go to imbalanced position
so to have more chances today. Maybe another typical idea in these Italians that the computer
always quite likes for black is like d5, e5 and f6. Just to try and give white an isolated pawn
on d4. So I wonder whether he's looking at something like this and trying to compare it to
those d5 lines we were looking at. Now white's bishop isn't too happy on e3 anymore.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And white could maybe play bishop takes d4 or knight d4, but it's a pawn
structure question. Fabiana's well placed to know what he likes best, whether he wants
the block structure, whether he wants it to be more fluid here.
Yeah, but usually, yeah, now it's a big question whether he goes d5, bishop e3,
and develops and keeps attention still.
One of these two moves, but interesting decisions.
Fabby parting with the LightSquared Bishop.
And yeah, this game will definitely be a long one
as both players want to win.
Maybe we can very quickly check out.
I'm gonna take a straight there, but we'll go to
Prague's board and then maybe it's time to look at
the women's games, I'll treat it in more detail.
Yes.
because we've seen a couple moves since we were last here.
We did see Ng4.
As predicted, we saw Bf4 keeping the bishops on the board.
Bf6, I wanted to point out this cool tactic.
E5 now doesn't gain time against the black bishop
because black can just take.
And at the very end of the line,
the bishop on c4 is hanging.
Black would win a pawn.
Important reaction on E5.
Yeah, very cool idea.
Easy to miss from afar,
Bishop g6 and this is the life position and where he's been thinking okay seven
and a half minutes now to block or not to block. That is the question I would be
surprised if he would go bishop b7. What would white react with though we kind
of wanted the bishops off with black and other lines so I could see the
temptation even if it looks a bit odd. Oh I don't know. First I would be checking
after bishop b7 and rook d1. Which one? Which rook? Hey. I'm not sure it will
make a difference because eventually I want to double my rooks.
Six, six, something like this, I don't know if you go 95 at some point maybe 95
first before you play five yes because after data would go E5 and wait does
that tactic here it feels really shaky for black I just want to point out this
tactic again. It takes e5. Here it is. You don't want this. Again we are here. It's a back
rank business. Every round. Okay. I just wanted to show this theme again. I think you're right.
It does look a bit scary. Even if Black is able to play, like you said in that position,
If we fast forward knight e5, even a position like this, like you just bishop b3, maybe f4 comes.
Well, usually it's more dangerous to play it with black. I mean the d6 square is always there,
white is controlling, sometimes f4 e5 and knight e4 can come. I mean the queen on e7 is kind of stuck.
You don't necessarily have a good spot for your bishop from d7.
Actually, that's one of the biggest problems can be in these positions, these structures
because of the e6 pawn, that what you do with that bishop.
Most of the time you end up having it on c6, but then it's just biting into the
e4 pawn, right?
And the d5 is white.
And maybe in respect to this variation he decided that was too easy for white to build up and therefore he's played a rook to e8.
Okay, and he just really wants to put a knight in e5 next move. Almost a pre-move now.
But that's only a knight on e5.
Rook d1, I go rook a d1.
Let's... I don't know which knight. Let's say this knight to e5.
Knight takes e5.
Okay, knight takes.
Maybe bishop takes. I'm not sure. Just to get more pieces off the board again.
Actually, wait. I want to take with the bishop. I've changed my mind.
So I get this one. Get this off the board.
It's quite similar to that last variation we looked at but somehow at least White can't
double the rooks with tempo.
Yes and you take with the tempo the knight back on a5, which is important.
Black should be 5, Queen c7.
Oh yeah, it should be 5 as well.
Oh no, what do you do? It should be 5?
Maybe, oh wait.
Maybe takes. Takes Queen b5, Queen c7, correct.
Oh.
No, no, no. Then Nb5, Nd6, sorry.
Ah, Nb5, yeah, of course.
Nice one.
Falktown.
Okay, so maybe just Queen ec7, maybe a6.
You're not scared to play a6?
I'm always scared to do it.
It's my default setting when I play trust these days.
This looks scary.
Yeah, but black just needs one move to get out.
And we swapped off so many minor pieces now that black's probably okay in the long term.
True.
White's knight at least can't jump yet and e5 probably not in time.
He had the idea to play knight e4 but it seems to be pretty slow.
E5, Qc7, that's it.
Yeah, but knight e4?
Ah, Qe5f4.
Ah, no, I'm going to hang on d7, sorry.
No, no, no, no.
Maybe Rxc5, but then maybe you start hitting my pinned piece.
Okay, Pryk, it's kind of that sweet spot,
that maybe he's finally out of preparation.
He hasn't spent much time until now.
Still got one hour 42.
So he's gonna be probably putting a rook on d1,
and we might actually see that variation
or very logical moves.
Now it's important that also e5 still doesn't work,
because the same idea, taking everything on e5.
Taking everything in one more time, we'll share.
The end of the bishop is hanging.
Back to the pawn up.
Okay, I think we leave it here while Prague tries to come up with a plan.
Yvonne Bar taking a nap today.
Our featured chat saying that's maybe better news for my prediction than anyone else's.
But let's go to the women's duet where we see the four red boards at the bottom there.
We've teased it for a while.
It looks like maybe more life or at least more imbalance on those boards.
Well, I see one game, the Su-Lachno game.
It's quite scary for Black having those double pawns. Don't you think so?
Yes.
Earlier you were asking me, like, do I grab a pawn? Do I get the bishop pair?
What do I prioritise here?
I don't care about the bishop pair anymore, that black king is so open, she needs to be really quick.
Probably play knight e5, otherwise the white knight's move being queen h5, it's just knight h4 coming in.
Scary for black.
But I don't know if knight e5 is not scary.
Okay, let's say I play 95 and actually just before we make variations, okay, I think she
might have made a mistake, like no, because in this position, somehow something's maybe
already gone wrong, but d takes, she takes f6, this is why she had to take with a pawn
because 97 would otherwise be a fork.
So okay, Bishop takes f6, gf6, and here we go, Bishop d3.
let's say knight e5 then, I'll try. I just want to put my knight on g6 or swap something
off. You definitely don't want to take I guess. I'm thinking about taking you know. Oh wow,
okay. Maybe it's a very bad move but it crossed my mind for concrete reasons. And if takes
that I go check maybe on g4 and going ce4 or bishop f5 was also something
enough to e4 yeah you do have a lot of light squares oh wait bishop g7 is
actually impossible as well I've just dropped c5 so you have to go queen g4
engage it. Okay that's not great news. It feels matey but e4 is blocking. Okay so
bishop f5. Threatening some stuff. And after that to go e4 it will be better.
Yeah so for example just to make a random move like you want to play e4 and
And this pawn structure, you're always going to get nice outposts in 94.
I guess you don't like my bishop on F5.
You don't care?
That's black.
That's black.
Yeah, I really don't like that bishop.
I thought you meant from white, then I was like, yeah, that's a beautiful bishop.
The rook is coming right, and this looks positionally and probably dynamically tough
for black by bishop. Okay, what else then? Knight e5 is the most natural but at least
to my eyes I just don't really see much choice.
But after knight e5 of course, knight takes e5 is not an obvious move. The logical move
is just to play bishop f5.
I just kind of want to break through with black before the suffering becomes like the
long term.
I don't know if I'm quick enough.
I don't like it.
Like, Ival Bar says it's not that bad, Judith, which is surprising.
Do you trust Ival Bar here, or do you think black is actually in bigger numbers?
I know that I would hate my position with black, but of course I would be fighting.
Of course I would try to go with my knight to e5, possibly to g6 to block that bishop
because that is really frustrating from black, I mean looking at the bishop, looking towards
h7 pawn and that diagonal is just freaking me out. 95 also bishop b1 possibly. I mean I
just don't like those double pawns. Difficult position for black. Oh sorry, if we go back
to the live position. Now this is a big game. Two of the five, two of the joint leaders.
a win here would be huge for either one of them.
So let's see the other games in the ladies section to see
where those 3-4 decisive games will happen.
Okay, let's go back to the birds.
You can choose where we go next due to the bottom row, the redboards.
I'm very much interested on the Vaishali Divya matchup
because that's a big, big matchup today, I think.
in the end clash.
Okay, h3 just been played and it looks like a Dutch defense or as to Stonewall Dutch
but it actually came from a Reti opening and it's transposed and visually I quite like
white here Judith, beautiful knight.
It's happened for a while.
I don't see any plan at all for black.
Bad bishop on c8.
Again I'm confused by the eval bar which says it's a tiny advantage visually this
looks fantastic.
So now I'm going to ask you, would you be playing h5 here too, just to prophylactical
against g4?
Oh, I don't know, I'd be scared g4 would happen even stronger in the future if h5 happens.
It's so one sided, isn't it?
Yeah, I woke up on a different side of bed today, Judith, I'm not going to suggest any
h pawn pushes this time.
Do you think White's playing g4 immediately?
three kind of hints that she's doing it but is that a scary one well I think
she's not joking with it she really wants to go g4 yeah it's her style as well
by Charlie very direct but it's just seems to be so nice for white
Can Black play for c5 maybe?
I mean I'm only opening up this bishop.
I didn't see a plan like a4 maybe?
I didn't mean to just take it perhaps.
But okay, what's the problem to go g4?
So a4 or g4?
Yeah.
What's White's next move?
I don't know what Black's playing here. I just don't understand Black's plan.
Taken B3.
Will it be a pawn?
Yeah, of course that was my first intention to take it with a pawn.
I said Black gets some stuff off the board.
Let's say back just sits still and I'm asking you the question whether you want to push or whether you ever want to take.
Yeah, now it's a big question how to go further.
Yeah, this is a big question.
How to improve the position?
Kind of a slow play like rook f2, bishop f1, rook e2, just build, keep building.
Perhaps it's one of those positions where like Divya under, definitely under pressure with black, she just needs to kind of sit and not do anything
anything rather than lash out as black like with c5 or something and just make the position
less h5 i feel like we can the position b5 okay she's not joking in the returning counter
like in round two like by charlie was the one on the back foot slightly as black under some pressure
and she was lashing out a bit so it feels like neither of them will want to just sit and defend
passively. Yeah she wants to bring her bishop. Mm-hmm. Brc6. Oh, so yeah. Mm-hmm.
But White has a beautiful position in any case. Yeah, she just ignores everything.
Continues. I quite like Rf2 and g4, Prf1. I'm thinking also can White go
A4. Ask the question from black. So what are you going to do?
Blowsing or taking? Because black can't leave it, I think.
Because then I will be taking with the A-pwn and...
Yep.
...if my c-pwn.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, let's see if black takes this way.
Okay, takes.
Yeah, space six.
And I was planning to play Bishop a3.
Ah, switch to positional play instead of g4.
Yes, somehow.
But without these bishops, I'm slightly more tempted to try and build for c5,
or I don't know if I can play it immediately.
Probably not.
I have about 97 maybe, or 97.
4.
Yeah, maybe it was too fast for me.
Interesting this move b5, that she's making it an active way.
I quite like B5 from Divya, at least asking some questions about structure.
But, Judah, I think we can conclude that Vice-Charlie has an advantage here,
both on the board and the clock.
And as we wait for her next decision, it's time for John to give us an update
on how confident he's feeling about his prediction of four decisive games this round.
Oh, okay, David, in a combative mood, that's for sure.
Look, there are 16 players in this playing hall.
I've taken a look at every A-pawn and every H-pawn, and there are only two
where it's moved at least two squares. So a relatively reserved start to the day, David,
but what that tells me is there are 14 more pawn pushes available on the flank that you're trying to avoid today.
I have a feeling we're going to see a couple more of them push, and I still think
we can get a strong number of decisive games out of this, but
we'll have to wait and see as the games continue to develop.
Speaking of developing games, you can develop your own as well as we hop into this next break
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for the link.
We'll see you back here in a couple of minutes for round nine of the 2026 FIDE candidates.
I'm on your grandmaster and I'm a retired I am so I'm gonna actually use this board to have the advantage if I'm touching the piece
It's gonna show me whether it's a good move a bad move or an decent move. Okay. Okay. What if I touch this?
Oh taking is not a good idea. So what's a good idea?
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 gonna go up sometimes in my intuition sometimes with the magic of this board
I think we need to try to bring the pieces back.
No way!
Come on! Take that!
There's just no way this works.
That calculated it till 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 pick it.
Is it Queen H6?
It's Queen H6 first.
Of course I know it.
What?
I don't know how I stopped this.
I got nothing here. I can't even move.
Anna?
Thank you, mom.
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.
Yes.
Does that make me a grandmaster?
I think there's opportunity for... I'm sorry to drop you here John but there is a major
development in the game of marginary dice against Mathias Blobom.
Tinian Grammister has blundered something because the relation barge is completely
dropped.
Queen takes A7.
I'm out of words.
I mean Mathias has been playing a really great game.
He was the one who put Arjun in this position.
Exactly, you don't sleep on Bluebaum, man.
Wow, this is wild.
We have a really quite exciting run to the finish now,
Bluebaum and Nihao.
Insofern haben wir das eben sehr auf Distanz,
also nicht nur von zu Hause,
sondern eben von unterwegs halt so ein bisschen verfolgt.
Wir in dieser Zeit eine Radtour gemacht haben
mit Freunden zusammen.
Und am Anfangs habe ich das gar nicht so intensiv verfolgt,
But when it was time to go to the last few games,
I drove off, drove off,
and today we stopped somewhere,
and pulled the end of it.
having pressure like both times I became European champion I had to make a
draw on the last round like usually when I'm close to something I still manage
with. Hapius played on and got his chances. He defeated Prague and
Argynero Geissi and with that draw Ani Stiri and Matthias Blubarn will go
through to the candidate.
It was a bit surreal. It took a long time until I really worked it out.
It was already a bit of a thrill.
It took me a few days to realize now I'm actually going to be part of it.
I've never prepared so much for a specific tournament.
Normally I'm used to just work on my own before tournaments.
So yeah, it's just very different.
It's important to try to find the right people
and to try to work as much as possible.
I mean, mainly for me it's just I don't want to feel in the end that
yeah, if I would have done this or that, I maybe would have had better chances.
I already have the impression that he has grown again on this task,
the composition, the team and the preparation.
That's a completely different number and I think he has gotten it pretty well so far.
It's impossible to not feel pressure at this point.
If everything goes well, like you're just enjoying the moment,
but as soon as you start losing games,
you mental challenges are going to be very tough, but on the other hand, it's a great chance for me to play this.
So I just try to do my best and not really think about all of that stuff.
This year I have a lot of chances like in Viac also candidates to perform well and hopefully I managed to do that.
Buddy, to ground nine of the FIDE candidates 20-26 and chat I got to say I'm slightly disappointed.
We have got the results in from our poll to decide how many of you agree with us for the
number of decisive games today.
Over 7000 of you voted and apparently 31% of chat agree with David that there will
be three decisive games.
26% agree with Judith that there'll be six, which is very exciting. And then 28% of you
think that no one will get it right with only 15% saying I've got it right with four.
Now, David, considering you've been wrong literally every time so far, and I've been right
literally every time so far, that's a claim.
fifth time lucky John you've had four days of bragging rights this is this is where it ends three is a guarantee
I've only been off by one every single round so I think that today the 8th of April it's it's one to remember and
judging by the games I'm pretty confident about that so far I think chat sees the eval bar sees the type of position
we've got as well and yeah we'll see that being said things have been heating up a little bit in the last few minutes
Look, if I'm going to be wrong and I'm going to lose to either of you, I'm not gonna lie.
I would much, much rather lose to Judith at this point because I want to see six decisive
games.
I want to see blood on the board, and that would make for an incredible day at the races
as far as the candidates is concerned as well.
Judith, we still don't have any H-Porn pushes, but we've got some Gs coming along.
Exactly, John.
Exactly.
Well, I doubt myself that it's going to be a 6 decisive game right now.
At the same time, you never know because look at that, what's going on David.
What do you think about this G4, G5 and black is pushed back with his Nx8.
This is for a 3 result this game for sure.
Yeah, Blue-bound syndrome.
We were talking before the round about maybe Fabiano-Caruana against Anish Gehry
being the most fiery encounter, both players almost in muscle-in situations.
But, uh, Sinderov, yeah, I'm not sure whether he's happy about the developments,
or whether he's genuinely scared by Bluebaum's pawnstone, the attack,
but, uh, Judith, we saw something very similar earlier.
You were suggesting, uh, the FG pawns flying forward,
um, partly positional initially, but, uh, partly just to gain a bit of time space.
And that's what he's done after QB6 earlier, preemptively retreating from Sinderov.
f4, you said f, you might as well say g and I think you might say h in a second, it wouldn't
surprise me if the h pawn starts flying forward as well.
But hold on, there is knight d6 coming up in the position and maybe that can be kind
of unpleasant for white.
I don't like this what's happening around my e4 pawn, even if it's not hanging really
immediately. Still, knight d6 and maybe even knight b5, rook b8 might come there. I mean,
you know, that b-file can be kind of tricky.
Yeah, should we check out some concrete line and see who's first, if bluebound continues
racing because he's quite committed now. It would be a bit odd to switch to like more
positional play like knight b3 looks a bit inconsistent. Let's say h4 let's see. Nd6.
No I go to b8 you know. I just said Nd6 but I just want to go to b8.
I understand. Chess plating so we can be we're allowed to be fickle and change our
mind. That's also quite a scary move. I don't know if you're actually threatening
anything but. No but you know how it works threat is
the most dangerous thing. No execution needed.
I'll let you try and execute something. H5, let's see.
You're provoking.
Yeah, luckily I can defend on the second rank.
Okay, knight d6 after all.
Okay, now.
Normally, ideally, I would want to play g6 to break open the king side, but somehow
it feels odd, feels wrong. Maybe h6. Okay, I'd probably play h6 in the game, but let's
see if I play g6.
The question is, can I go Bishop takes e4?
Oh no. Okay. And I wanted to take covering this pawn, but now you...
Knight c4.
Knight c4 first, yeah.
knight e4 is better and then after that knight c4 but the point is that the b2
pawn is under attack. Yeah, so white can't take the knight because of mate.
This gets really double edged and we see the eval bars on black side so okay
instead of g6, oh this is a bit scary. I'm really surprised because
bluebound could have just played more position e, put a knight on b3, played
like Rook he won, Queen e3, just stable but okay let's say h6. You go h6. Yeah. I'm
hoping you can't just do the same as we just saw. I can do to you something much
worse. Okay. I know what I'm thinking. Some kind of Bishop d5 stuff. You knew it
it's coming I knew but I was trying not to think about it I was hoping I could
always play like b3 or that's the only move right but maybe it's just great oh
wow only move in the barcraft yeah I was scared of going before Queen A5 one
of the two yeah Queen A5 is better
What is the move then? If not that, it would be Qa5.
Okay, Evaaba is laughing at us.
I mean this looks just super scary for the white king.
I think black's winning the race but what is the knockout blow?
Ah, maybe this student, maybe a non-message.
It's a Nb3.
Yeah, Nb3.
Had to be a break-through.
Okay, whoops, Bishop d5. If not b3 then what could it be?
This is confusing to say the least.
It looks like b3 is the only move, right?
Literally. It's going to be like some weird Bishop b3 and white holds up black long enough.
That's the only other legal move I can see that doesn't lose on the spot.
Yeah. Maybe white is quite quick as well.
And Bishop takes B3.
Mm-hmm.
And...
Ah, now you have a...
Do I...
... want to breathe?
Do I take? Maybe? Oh, no.
It's the answer.
No, you can't.
Okay, I guess I take back. Take back. Take back chess is my favorite.
Yeah, I take.
Yeah, she's six now, maybe.
Well, that's what I can do.
Yes, but I mean looking the evil bar it's like giving us a hard time, but when you don't
see that and the players are playing, I mean, what would we think?
Who is better here?
Yeah.
With which color would you be feeling to play with?
From which side it's more scary?
It feels easier with black.
said like in the current position next moves to 96 for it be eight and then threats might
appear with white it's like h4 h5 and then I was already stopping there I was like wait
what next and if not that then like b3 always feels weakening no idea what I want to do with
my rooks maybe too late to move my minor pieces now like with e4 so weak.
And also the thing is that there are suddenly completely different patterns and ideas show
up in the game like after 98 knight d6 where that come from I mean you're looking they having
their knight on f6 and d7 or c5 and d7 but for me it's like I mean d6 the knight and it looks
quite annoying yeah and he helped maybe bluebound with g4 g5 the black knight to find a much better
square. I just want to like take it back because if after Qb6 if white plays like
I don't know RQ1, Qe3 similar plans to what we were talking about. Surely black
can't get anything like the same attack. Okay maybe not Qg2 because of Ng4
maybe f3 first. I just prefer the plan of the f3 and just more positional
Queenie 3, Knight B3, or maybe move to Bishop and go Knight C4. Here it can't be too bad.
Much more control for White than in the game where he's all in on some kind of side.
Well, you said it before also that F3 you want to go.
Yeah. Partly because I'm boring, but partly because you're experienced and you like safety
more.
Yeah. And also I feel like some of the hard work has been done, like long-term,
white chances are long-term here because of black's back pawns. It's not short-term dynamic attack.
But okay, here we see a wild position, Judah. And okay, now I'm starting to think that maybe
your John are going to be right in the prediction because this looks like it could
easily be decisive either way. Okay, but John is far away from my prediction.
John's just far and away above us all. He's right every day. He's got crystal ball.
So let's see the other games, because the Karawana game was also something that many
things have happened. Structure wise. Who do you think is happy about these changes
in structure as we go to the Karawana-Giri game because white has doubled e-ponds.
We kind of talked about black's potential for double e-ponds earlier in the Italian,
but here white's pawns are not such a fan. It feels like long-term, especially if the
black knight ever comes round in an endgame, for example, to c5. e4 is going to be weak always.
Well, once you're going to make all that journey with your knight, then you get a b4.
Then I'll go around to b6.
Then I have knight on d2.
Tricky position.
I'll push it round on g6 maybe.
It is tricky.
I think I would pick black.
Yeah?
Yeah, I just don't really see white ever generating anything on the king side.
in general like I just a bit stuck. I think Anish it's his type of position as
well where he's not facing any dynamism really he's just I'm expecting like
queen b8 maybe and just start improving some pieces. I understand your point. I
like queen b8, queen b6 idea a lot. Yeah black seems to have a very reasonable
position. And it seems like with black it's easier to play, more plans, don't you think so?
Yeah, like what's white doing with the pawn structure? What pawn moves are they going to be?
I don't really understand, like c4 maybe after some exchanges, then c5 is an even nicer target
get full blacks blacks night he's gonna bring the night back first 97 looks like
he was reaching for that piece Peter well if he goes 97 maybe he wants to go
at five at some point strange he almost went for making a move right and then
he says no I have to rethink again he's been watching Cinder of Cinder of
does that every time. Maybe knight h8 was his intention although I don't really see
why it's there. But then there are you heading too. Yeah, I was just thinking what legal moves
that might be. Not much with the knight. Maybe he's afraid like if he plays
queen b8 that white will play knight f5 and it's harder to get the black knight
in the game. Then maybe White starts advancing the kingside pawns.
And then knight h5, knight f5, g4 h4, I mean.
Yeah, interesting. This feels like a long positional battle ahead. I can definitely
see both players kind of just manoeuvring around for the next 20 moves or so.
Yeah, it's going to be a slow
game
And why is there pretty cool?
What do you think about the time control because we've seen Hikaru complaining a lot about
the
time control
About the time control or the weather or the second
Time control
Like there is no increment, right? They have 120 minutes to start, and then after move 40 only after that they get the time increment per move 30 seconds.
I mean, yeah, I guess I grew up playing this time control, Judah, and I guess a lot of your career you're playing a very similar time control.
So I don't really see the downside like the players new far far in advance like I kind of understand
Hikaru's frustrations when like every tournament is different like if Fide are gonna have
Two-hour time control here, then probably it should be the same at the World Cup
But the Grand Swiss like consistency. I think it's the main thing but in itself
I quite like this time control like it leads
Bone was the increment time that it starts after move 40
that yeah again I probably have it one way or the other to be consistent like
either no increment or increment from the start how about you what was your
favorite as a player well I can't even remember how I was playing already
because I've seen so many time controls since I retired but yeah this is very
confusing. And I think it is important to talk about it because our audience also, I'm not sure
that they understand the differences between the different time control. Because when you don't get
increment, that's how I grow up until my teenage years. And for me, it was very strange when
the Fisher Clock became popular because I was a player who was making great time management.
I was fast, I could make my decisions, good or bad, but I made it.
And then my opponents usually got in time travel.
And of course, to have someone time travel without increment, having seen Iván Csuk playing
19 moves in one minute without increment, it's something, you know, you do have the
drama and you do have something really to root for Iván Csuk or be disappointed
when he's losing in time. And actually once, well actually more times, but I remember that
in Lenaris he lost in time, because it was that he was already used to the fact that there is
in time increment and suddenly there was no increment. So one minute for 19 move was quite a
lot of moves to make, which was impossible for him. So it is very challenging to switch your
brain from having, after every single move, an increment of 30 seconds, and it's not two
seconds we're talking about, right? It's 30 seconds. It's a lot of time. But these days,
I'm very much thinking about it, that it's not good to have time, the increments.
Because, but one thing is for sure, we are playing a completely different kind of game.
with increment or without increment. This is something we have to be aware of. Because you just simply
make different moves. You can make different decisions because you know that you will not
have enough time or you make a decision that you enter into an end game where you know that okay,
I can always go back and forth in a clean end game or something and increase my time to 10 minutes
And then I'm going to be thinking, right?
So if you have a choice, if they say that to play increment with increment from move one or without increment, what is your
decision? How it should be?
First, I'm asking you as a player and secondly, I'm asking you as a commentator and what is
the best for getting chess into mainstream?
Oh, tough question, Judith.
I'm also curious why you would prefer without these days, you said you were thinking about
it.
But I think as a player, I've spent most of my professional years when I was playing
actively with the increments.
it was pretty much for 10 years, it was standard,
10 plus years, it was standard, it was 90 minutes plus study.
I think the same time control that the women here are playing
and I changed my game a lot.
Like you said, I would play longer games.
I would always repeat twice every position
just to get closer to move 40.
Like my mode was like survival mode
because I knew that I had quite good stamina.
I could outlast a lot of opponents
but I would also still be guilty of those long, long
things because I knew I could get away with it
like with the 30 seconds in the bank
I mean, when I won one of my first British championships, I was in the same boat as a
Vantrick a few times.
I would have like, there was one game against Peter Wells and English drummaster.
I think we both had like about 30 seconds to make 15 moves.
And it was just, it was crazy stuff.
And then the increment kicked in the next year and it was just totally different.
I felt such a luxury.
I never felt troubled.
I felt I could always handle it.
And yeah, so I think as a player, I need the increment just who I became, what I trained
with.
But as a commentator, a total opposite.
I think much more fun this way that we're seeing this tournament and the trends like
eSports World Cup and other things because it seems to produce drama.
And now we can talk about time management as much more concrete issue that seems to
plague a lot of them.
surprised Hikaru was complaining because there was time to play lots of training matches.
Maybe Cinderov was doing that, maybe that's why he's been even quicker than usual in this
tournament because he's using it as such a weapon.
Judith, do you agree, though, do you think as a commentator this is more fun?
I think there are more benefits as a sport.
Actually it's very tricky because I'm looking at it as a player, still remember
when I was a player, I'm looking at it as an organizer because I do organize some events
and as an organizer you need the time frames. And I'm looking at it from the point of view
as a commentator. And of course there is a lot of debate, but I like to discuss this
with different people these days because it's a big question. Why? Why do we have
to get increment after every single move. What's the reason? Because we cannot control ourselves.
We cannot make good time management. Or is it really about the quality of the game that
does it really give a much better game quality if we have? You know, another thing is if
we play the first four moves without increment, then why do we get increment? Is it because
we can't control ourselves and we are hitting the pieces and the pieces are falling off the
board when it comes to seconds. So there are a lot of questions to ask. I would love to
ask our audience also what do they think about that one day.
Maybe it's time for another poll. Maybe we get another poll going. We had thousands
of people voting on our predictions. Why not on the increment? That's a great point,
Maybe we can ask John about it. He can't tell us about his views.
Well, luckily for, or perhaps unluckily for you guys, I'm also titled. Unfortunately for both of you, I'm a national arbiter.
And I can honestly say that from an arbiter's point of view, having 30 second increment is an absolute life saver.
the number of times you don't actually get into problems or
arguments over
Whether someone did this or did that. It's just it's so refreshing that
Maybe it's guilty of making us. Okay a little bit lazy because we don't have to deal as much with
Players making incorrect claims as we did before but my response to that would be
You've got rapid and blitz to make up for that if you really fancy flexing your brain and
Having players get you into some tricky situations. You can't normally deal with for standard play
The increments actually been quite convenient if I'm honest
But there is so much technology John
I mean the technology cameras and and all those things has to help you out in these
situations but also the big question is of course when you are talking about the
round robin when there is only four five six games going at the same time you
can have more of yours and also another story in a in big open right so there
are a lot of questions regarding this so I think that's a really good point and
I think there are two different problems with that Judith the first is
is, yes, we have lots of technology.
But have you ever, I suspect you have,
have you tried to follow a three plus two Blitz game
accurately on 10 different DGT boards?
What happens is you get absolutely no moves registered
and then 25 coming in at once.
And it's not just about accuracy,
but the speed of that and the order of moves
seems to start to take a little bit of a hit,
especially when players are playing quickly.
But the more important issue,
And I think what you were talking about the open
tournaments is when you need to get 200 of these
and you need to set them all up in a tournament hall
for that many people, especially at grassroots level,
the technology is still quite prohibitively expensive.
Even buying 10 of these boards,
let alone 200 of them, is a considerable expense.
Well, actually, I was not thinking about
the digital boards, but also the cameras.
But I think this is an endless conversation
regarding the time control, but there is something really
interesting going on on the Sindarov game,
because he's kind of getting the advantage.
It seems like it will be a decisive game.
It might be indeed.
I'll leave you guys back to talking about the chess,
but to sort of summarize,
I think the technology is great.
I just think it needs a little more time to mature and scale.
And at the point where it scales,
so that you can deal with 100 boards at once, for example,
and the moves are always transcribed correctly,
then we can have a conversation about removing increments
and everything's still accurate and everyone is still happy.
So there's definitely a role for technology to play.
Back to you.
Thanks.
And Judah, I've taken us over to that board you requested.
I think my final point on that note is that,
yeah, I'm an end game purist.
I love seeing really high quality end games.
So maybe that helps having the increment.
But here, no increments until May 40.
And, okay, Matias, blue balance down at 45 minutes now.
This follows the trend of Cinderov just being so speedy
out playing his opponents as well.
But now he's got a 30 minute time advantage.
We're only at move 18, so long, long way to go.
And A5 given a question mark,
we'll just take it back and show that after Knight E8,
blue balance thought there was no time for H4, H5.
So he dropped his bishop back to B3.
Knight d6 and the bishop continued dropping back I guess maybe it could be played with black now.
Yeah, Rb8.
Just looks very strong and Knight c4 now just looks like it shouldn't work.
Maybe he's preparing one of these Knight moves just to trade off pieces.
This looks like it loses on the spot.
But bishop takes e4. Doesn't work.
What does it? Knight e4?
94. No, I mean after we should be for my thanks. Yeah, should be for night before
Somehow whites just running away
Zero point zero of course computer says of course
I would be so scared as white like a bit before the eight like I don't know
But okay, I guess maybe he was worried about not finding a knockout blow their syndrome
So he wants to meet
Something like knight c4 now by I guess taking in push race six
But still not that convincing after Queen d4. I don't really understand a five to do that
Why is this a question mark? Do you think it was just something better?
Probably there was something better that's all
Okay, I'm yeah, I'm being told that by the computer here just turning it on that root be it was indeed the best move
and if knight c4 or
or knight b3, knight b5 apparently and starts to get a bit weird with the
knight's dancing but knight c4 we could have seen capture and just bishop c6
just black just has plenty of time. And after b3 just queen a5 maybe. Yeah exactly
Nice work before Qa3. Big attack. Yeah, because maybe that's why a5 as well is not the most
precise because now Qa5 is taken away from the black queen. Yeah, but still it's more
dangerous for white for sure because I see that after this g4, g5 having the
knights on c5 and d6 and bishop on b7 it's clearly white got weakening the
king side right instead of having a great attack because white will not have
enough time for a real attack. Yeah and I won't go back to it but that's why
I was saying just keep the center solid like the hard way it's done make it positional don't make it tactical
I didn't realize that he would be driving Black's pieces to actually better squares, especially not in these things
Yeah, G4, maybe he had the time thinking over the board to
Realize that this is just way too slow
You know, what do you think about going to bird's eye view and then pick another game because we
Yeah, we'll do just that, Judith, but first breaking news from John Sargent.
I have a feeling that this might dictate where you go next.
I'm going to leave this with both of you.
I highly recommend you check out what's going on in Divya's game.
Okay.
That helps us a lot, Judith.
That's on the bottom row.
That's the first red board on the left side, so on the bottom row, second from
the left and it looks like stuff has happened. Is this just a big oversight or is this a misjudgment?
She's left the c6 pawn hanging, Judah. She sacrificed it, right?
Must be. Must be. And it really reminds me of the first clash early in the tournament in round
two when Vaisalhi just sacked a pawn and it just didn't even slightly work. But there was one
trick in mind and if you took the pawn and fell for the trick and it was a draw
but okay we've got to check out what happens if the pawn is captured
I thought rook c8 initially but then there is the a5 pawn as well isn't it
though after rook c8 d5 seems to be a very powerful move too yeah d5 I was kind of
of hoping Knight takes a5 and like bishop here and I at least I'll get the c4 pawn.
Yeah probably I rather keep it there.
D5 at least has nice c5 and squares.
Bishop e5.
OK, you go rook c6 now, takes on e5 and then knight d3.
Yeah, nice.
Traditional sacrifice.
Yeah, just anything here other than Qc6 basically.
Just Qc6, Rd3 and it's a pin, but maybe just, I don't know, Qb8 and Nxc5 and the game goes on.
So not entirely clear, but we're being told by one of the chess.com team here.
Shout out to Tadej, a very strong player as well.
Nc6, B6 and here, okay, double attack.
You're going to suggest Nb6 I think Judah as well.
Yeah but d5, no?
Yeah, d5.
And maybe she's missed that Nxc4, there's a very strong tactic here.
Rxc4 and Qd4?
Yeah, fxd8 and double attack, game over.
This would be a strange miss.
It's quite forcing stuff.
What do you think it's, Faisali is going to take the pawn surely here, she's got 40 minutes,
she's been spending 12 already, she'll take it.
But interesting that she's spending already 12 minutes.
Do you think she's just trusting Divya, she's like, oh she wouldn't blunder a pawn
like that for nothing.
It was a bad position for black anyway, but this feels like it's just helping accelerate
white's advantage.
Free pawn.
And do you know me, I'm a pawn grabber, I would spend, if I had increment like the women do,
I would probably spend 48 minutes of the 49 just thinking okay, I'm going to be a pawn
up and then I take it.
Well, I understand that of course it has to be calculated what happens, what Divya has
in mind, so it's logical that Vaishali is thinking about it, but you have to, I mean
that's the first thing, anyway you have to calculate, right, to take a grab a pawn.
d5 is the problem, d5 is the big problem for black.
Yeah, we didn't find a total solution after rook c8 because of this knight c5 idea trying to come in.
I mean there's not, there's Qd4.
But maybe white can just go bishop a3 even.
Yeah, I like it, I like it.
Just pin and win-up on and how would you evaluate this like does black have any compensation
in a position like this? Rook D2. Rook D2.
Doesn't help that I'm pinned all over the place.
It's not so easy to convert it with white, that's for sure, from a practical point of
view. Because all the squares are covered by black. The only problem of black is that
she has material loss.
Yeah. Take material down. I guess slowly white will break through. White might just put the
bishop on f1 and start rearranging pieces, start finding a better square for the queen.
But then my d3 can be at some point because then the diagonal can be opened. Not for now
because the a3 bishop stands really well controlling pinning the knight. But okay,
black goes let's say Rookie 8. How do you progress with white? You go Rookie 2 and G4?
Yeah. Oh that's not the direction you had. That's not my style but I respect the idea.
That's a good question Judith. I was thinking of just trying to improve the white queen slowly
and then maybe double up Rook somewhere but yeah the game goes on definitely.
like this I think it's deceptive the evaluation bar because yes white's probably winning objectively but a
lot of work ahead. Black will just put the king on h7 like h6 king h7 and just sit. I think this is
what Divya might have to do though if something along these lines if by Charlie captures the
pawn and she has just taken it. Big moment Divya just needs to like not self-destruct here if
she realizes that she's miscalculated and just find a way to survive.
Not easy for Divya.
Not easy. Looks like by Charli's, uh, yeah,
gonna continue her great form from before, well,
from towards the end of the first half and, and yesterday as well. Uh,
Judith, can I take us over to another women's board?
It was, uh, not only the position, which is, uh, very interesting,
but the storyline of yesterday was Divya turning things around against Anna Muzichuk.
It looked like a horrible position, almost totally lost strategically,
but she managed to turn it around and win, and Anna first lost of the tournament today with Black.
I was a bit fearful for her. I thought maybe most mortals would spiral,
but she looks like she's got a very solid position here with the Black pieces.
Yeah, it seems that black has a very comfortable position and the d5 pawn might be something
that will fall off. Rd8, Bb7 and taking. But what black has to be careful I think that
in this case white will be going Bb3 probably and trying to enter into different color
bishop and gain and holding that. So black will need to keep on at least one set of
rooks. Bishop f2 for example. So you want me to take the d5 for this rook. And take the
Bishop maybe self-piss but I can defend it.
Then Bishop b3 is on the board.
Okay. So how would you evaluate overall?
Bishop b3. Would you say that only black can win this position?
So two result games? Well you know the yesterday's game that's
what I said that it's only white can win that game.
So I can be more careful but generally speaking yes it's only
black especially that she's going to play bishop b7 and in one way or another
she's going to capture on d5. Vidin moves and within minutes as well
because she doesn't have too much time but this move 28. I think for the
tournament Tanjong Yi if she doesn't win today it's probably out of the race
she was the one tailander two points behind the group of five it was like
maybe it's not going to be her year. But for Anna, I think a draw would be a
totally fine result. A win would it be even better? Perfect way to bounce back
after yesterday. Yeah, that would be quite amazing to win today and she has
great chances. Just wanted to show d6 would run into e5 and the rook is trapped.
Very nice from Anna, so she's going to win up on.
Tan offering Queen trade, Tan happy with draw against Anna is the question from Feature
Chat.
I think this position she would love a draw, but I guess the question is in reference
to the opening, it was a Grinfeld and very early Queen trade from Tanjongi.
There's probably other ways to force a draw against the Grinfeld I would say to our
chat there.
So maybe she would just want to do an end game and play, but she's been outplayed by Anna.
Maybe we leave her to this difficult defense, Tandrungi, and we can go back to the bird's eye view, Jada.
Yeah, absolutely, because here it's going to be a long end game, most likely.
With Black up upon.
Okay, the only game we haven't seen is Goryashkina against Bibisara Asobeva, but that's maybe a bit more stable now, looks quite level.
Where do you want to jump to next, Judah?
We haven't seen, we haven't been with the Prog Menanda game for a while.
What do you think?
Yeah, let's get some updates from that top row, that's the board on the top right.
King to h1 was Pragg's last move. That's not too mysterious due to that he wants to get out the diagonal. He wants to play f4 next move.
Let's go. f4 forward.
Straight forward.
But in the meantime, what has happened, Vaik could eliminate the black square bishop since we've been here.
Because there was a very unpleasant d6 bishop. And how did he get rid of that?
Yeah, after Nxd5, just Bxd5. Interesting. And yeah, just to point out, like I did see
earlier, okay, actually Bd3 wouldn't have been a good move order because Black can put
a knight on d4, but okay, so my point is Moots, but okay, some captures, Bb3, Qb6, take
and now king to h1 so okay winning threats on the board that would win a
piece f4 so it's got to be a bishop move or move to defend it I would think
bishop c6 somehow that bishop always ends up there especially if the
opponent's last move was king h1 right on the diagonal yeah and after f4 just
knight d7 and replacing it to c5. Just like Sndarov? No, he went to cd8. Okay, wow. So maybe
his plan is after f4 to go knight c6 and the d4 square he's aiming for and maybe goes
back bishop c8. If I talk to that bishop I don't think that bishop is happy about
that decision but it does look fine solid enough. I think he kept the rook on
e8 just to deter f5 maybe you're scared of some f5 stuff on the diagonal like
f5 now I guess probably back and take although I can see the makings of an
attack like Qh5. G6 taken, take enough 7 and then sack first, think later. Okay, anyway,
fun to see that. But I think that's why he left his bishop probably on d7 and played
for, at least to move the c-rook rather than the e-rook, which would have been more natural
my eyes yeah to keep the the rook on the c5 right mm-hmm yeah so like for example
if the other rook you come to the 8 maybe somehow he wants to keep control over
the e6 square yeah and and actually it takes f5 probably is possible it's not
It's only that black should not blunder there with g6.
Yeah maybe knight d4 first. Knight d4 yeah.
Remove the bishop first and then decide whether or not to take.
Yeah so okay.
Prague is he committed?
King h1 feels odd without f4 but maybe he doesn't need to play it immediately.
But what else?
Yeah, in these positions it's very interesting that, I mean if I ask you which bishop is better, the b3 or the d7?
It's a trick question, Judith. It's like d7 now is not a great bishop but it's got great potential, especially if f4 happens, right?
So what about this b3 bishop? It's not so great. Does it have a potential?
Again, good question. Only if f4 or f5, but that's very double edged. Which one would you prefer, the bishops?
I don't see the d7 bishop being anywhere worse than the b3.
I see more potentially my d7 bishop, strangely enough, than the b3.
Actually if it's the b3 bishop having some ideas I would see it after f4 e5
bishop c2 on that diagonal. But I never get there I think because
knight d4 is so powerful. White had a few more moves like e5 and then knight e4
or bishop c2 then maybe knight d4 is... You know what is interesting in this
this position I think if the black pawn would be on a6 it would be much more
difficult position for if it would be playing it with black because for example
e5 Nd4 Qf2 I mean this unprotected queen on b6 I thought for some reason
the evil bar is not agreeing with me. Maybe there should be five doesn't lose on the spot,
otherwise knight e2 right there's also knight e2. Bishop c6 knight e2 looks... wait what?
Problematic. How is this? But why is it not winning yeah? Okay chat we need help. Oh bishop
B5 again now maybe. Okay, that's a good point there, either way, like, you know,
after B5 we can ask, so why isn't it winning for black?
Ruki 1 maybe, because of the unprotected.
Ruki 2 maybe?
had that. Yes, because Rook e1 was tactically Bishop e2, Rook e2, Knight b3. Oh, and oh
wow, it's h5 apparently, dude, h5. I don't know when or where or why. It's only two with
h5 from chat. Thank you. Wait, when is that even? Bishop e7, c5 strong move.
chat is very smart someone now saying the bishop would be best on c500 squares that would be
yeah double x clan move if it were possible yeah
i'm not sure whether we're being trolled or taught or taught lessons here by chat you did
yeah i'm being told h5 definitely a troll okay so i'm not getting crazy
Okay, so anyway the position is pretty balanced and it seems like
he has no problem at all. And yeah this position looks very balanced since he's
adrewed it. I think we have to go back to our leader because Cinderov, I'm gonna
drop straight there. He's not making jokes, yeah? Yeah. I mean... In serious business.
Is he just playing perfect chess every game at this point because not only is he playing
super fast still with over an hour left but...
I wouldn't say he's playing perfect chess, I'm saying he plays successful chess.
Yeah, yeah. Strong and practical. Okay, big threats.
Oh, I don't see any moves other than b3 or moving the knight, but b3 feels wrong due to a4.
Knight e2, knight b1 feel odd as well.
Wait, knight e... no, doesn't lose upon.
I drew that. This is horrible for white, for bluebound. I think he's just in big trouble.
Well, suddenly all black species are working against the white king. Nobody is guarding
the black king because there is no need for that. That's what Sindaro is saying.
And it just pains me looking at this because white burned three full tempi like f4, g4,
g5 like three full moves on what like I would love to have a pawn on f3 now
just defending e4 and then white could have had like a rook on d2 double
rooks on the d-file like everything covered but yeah I just lost 3-10 people
Blubam couldn't choose a plan and inconsistent like if you push g4 g5
you have to go h4 h5 I think so actually white goes knight e2 simply
maybe should be for right yeah when's a porn I think yeah thanks and thanks right
yeah and white has to take Queens maybe but Queen takes night this quintet allocate
the phone up
Porn up he B3 played oh he'd rather die by the sword do you think cindara will
think a lot? On A4 move? How many seconds? One minute maybe, one minute thirty just to
be safe. How about you? Twenty seconds down. Within two minutes. I mean I can't imagine
he's going to be thinking. I mean the question is what else? Yes, this is what I wanted to
like you have nothing else, right? You're just double checking that is it really true
that I can play a4? What does he have in mind against the a4?
All of his pieces are set up on the a and b files, like his knight and bishop support
a4, so it's like, unless there's a tactical refutation, I don't think there is. Yeah,
I mean it's got to be a4. What's blue bam got in store after a4? That's the question.
No, that's a big question.
Super scary.
We'll see if he plays it.
Yeah, I don't see any other move for black like g6.
There's no point giving the king some lift.
I don't think he'll blunder a back-ranked checkmate.
No queen exchanges ever.
So yeah, it's got to be a4.
Queen b4 is also quite unpleasant, maybe.
But after Qb4, Qb2.
Qb2 is nice just to stop Qa3.
Now Black is wondering why he offered a Qxg, White will just play with b1 and try to take this piece.
It's going to be a4.
It's blue bam, it's blue bam I'm gonna just like sac a pawn just to get the queens off, like b4, but that's sad and if he takes the Qb2...
Yeah, if he takes Qb2, he'll do d8.
Yeah, if he takes with a knight, Bishop takes. Or maybe knight takes even. Or rook takes even.
What's the refutation here?
What about taking Bishop takes and Queen c6?
What about Queen c4? Queen c3. Queen c4, okay.
Now this is quite cool tactic for okay for oh and I did three
Chuck yeah, and what about Queen c3?
Queen c3, oh sorry in this position. Knight b3. Knight b3. Knight b3 queen b3, a b3,
white didn't have such a good position for some time. Yeah, level material. Queen c3
of course which is annoying so horrible to defend but I can be one maybe one
rook v8 v8 just to stop root d3
this is this is still difficult to defend and this feels like a best case
scenario for Bluebound.
Rook is in the room, is spending his time.
So a4, Knight takes a4.
Sorry, Knight takes a4.
I saw the buzz slightly drop after Bishop takes a4 but what else could it be?
Is it just a case of like keeping all the tension just Knight takes and then keeping
the Queen on?
And Queen a5?
Yeah, and then okay, moving up Queen a5, apparently.
But what about simply going Qb7, you know?
Qb7?
Yeah.
What's the next move?
Well, Bxb4 might be a threat.
Well, not yet, Bxb4, Bxb4, Qd8, and another kind of back rank.
But Qb1.
Qb1 just not Rxa4 and Qd8.
Check and this will be mate.
No, because the thing is that there is Qb1, Qd2.
Qa2?
Uh-huh.
Yeah, White can't block because of Rxa8.
And if they run then...
Yeah, then Qa4 we have.
Yeah, but is that more?
Yeah, you want more of course.
You got me thinking.
Wait, is there like a...
I saw the bar drop at some point here.
C5 first.
Maybe.
For instance, the elimination is the only other move.
Wow.
Now the Wacken has to lose protection of the bishop because it has to protect B2.
Okay, this is...
Yeah, okay now it's over.
But Judah, he's going to find A4 because it's the only logical move, but there's the only move he's looking at.
It's five and a half minutes, and maybe Queen B7 is the tricky one.
But we'll leave Cinder off to think here.
Crucial moment A4 and he gets even closer to moving to plus six almost unthinkable.
John, are we going to see the runaway train run even further away from the pack?
from the pack. I think I don't want to call it too early, but I feel like if he does win
this, is that the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of us figuring out who will win
the tournament overall? It's so hard to see Cinder off do something other than run away
in first place. If he manages to pull this off today, there is still belief in the
great blue balm sweep, but I'm afraid hope is starting to fade just a little bit.
While most of chat appear to be reaching for their coffee pots, as we refresh our glasses
heading into this next break, I'd like to remind you as well that's not the only thing
that's going to be dropping.
We also had Netflix's Untold Chessmates that I believe officially came out yesterday.
It's live now diving deep into the rivalry that shook the chess world to its core.
You've read all the headlines, you've got the soundbites, but now take a look
at the personal struggles and behind the scenes moments of Magnus Carlson and
Hans Nieman.
missed the story. Head to go.chess.com forward slash Netflix I'm told or type
exclamation mark Netflix in the chat to see the moves that made history. Go grab
yourself a brew folks and we'll see you in a couple.
Let's talk about Magnus. I've interviewed him many times but I've never
heard him speak as stridently about anybody as he did with Hans. Did it feel to you that you were
giving him a platform and he was just waiting for an opportunity to really speak his mind about Hans?
No. It's funny, you know, Magnus is like, that's why I really like the characters in this film,
because they're so different from each other, you know, just going into an interview with Hans,
I kind of know what I'm going to get, like I know my questions, I know possibly what's
going to irk him, but when it came to Magnus, I mean first of all obviously Magnus is older
than me, but he's an intimidating guy, I've been watching, I love 60 minutes and I remember
when I was let's say in my early 20s seeing a segment about him and my whole life I've
seen Magnus.
So to be around him and feel that aura is pretty great, but also like the guy is, you
know, he's a certified badass and he does carry himself in that way.
So, you know, honestly, my biggest fear in going into the Magnus interview was just,
is he going to talk?
You know, he does have a way of speaking words very tight, you know, before he did
this, you know, he was on Rogan, I watched that.
I believe that was after I interviewed him, but just to see like how he reacted in
in that situation, but it's all about him feeling comfortable.
I think he was so sick of just dealing with this thing
and possibly just like, OK, I got to do this one interview
with this dumb bearded man.
I'm just going to do it and get it over with.
But you know, Magnus is cold and calculating.
That's how he is on the chessboard.
And in the interview, I could feel that at first.
He's an extremely obviously brilliant man.
But you can tell in the interview sometimes, at points,
that wall starts to come down and it just
starts kind of talking.
And those are the moments that you kind of live for as an
interviewer, because you're like, OK, finally, he's not
seeing me as just like a camera.
He's seeing me as a human that he's talking to.
Yeah, I felt like you got him to do that.
So kudos to you.
And perhaps even more revelatory in that
interview is how disappointed Magnus said he was in
Danny.
He said he thought he was gaslit into thinking that
to say that Hans was cheating over the board, but then the report failed to claim that exact thing.
So this is one of the biggest mic drops for me in the documentary that I did not know.
Did you also feel that in the moment, that that was a huge, not confession,
but a huge statement for Magnus to make about Danny?
Yeah, obviously it is because, you know, they're, I believe, friends and obviously business partners.
you know, I think that's Magnus just being honest as we're talking about Danny and
Eric earlier, like making the decisions during Singfield and all that stuff.
Magnus is really in that too, where you know, we don't have time to go into like
everything that happened at Singfield in the film, but you have to understand
that this guy goes into this tournament and even before he plays Hans, he's
He's hearing whispers, watch out for this kid.
So you know, that was a big question I had going into this and I believe I asked Magnus
at one point, but it's like, you know, can you lose a chess game before you even reach
the board?
Of course you can.
Magnus beats people all the time before they get to the board just because he's such
an imposing figure.
That was interesting, but I also, you know, as I said, I think Magnus has kept his
mouse shed on this bit his tongue all the time. This was finally time to be like he was also in
a very strange situation. He has players he trusts telling him things. He has his new business
partners telling him things you know like that's a weird place to be in as a guy who just wants
to focus on chess. So true what you just said Magnus has said many times he feels like he has
a psychological advantage sitting down because he knows what the other players think about him
but in that one game he admitted that maybe he had a psychological deficit knowing the
rumors about Hans, and so that's very cool that you picked up on that.
Hey guys, if I make this in one go, we're gonna want your no ass plan.
Does an old goal count?
Hey guys, new plan.
If I make this shot, we're going to launch a no ads plan.
Hey guys, last try.
If I make this bullseye, we're launching the no ads plan.
No more questions.
I get it.
I made the bullseye.
Do it.
Launch the no ads plan.
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Welcome back, everybody. Look, we wanted to have a break. I was getting ready to get the
brew in my coffee, but apparently Bluebaum had other ideas. Some very quick moves played
on the board now, and we have a rather interesting development. The bar suddenly does not agree
with what things looked like just a couple of moments ago. Jude, David, what the hell
is going on here. Wow, Judith, he's human. He's human. He was totally winning with one
key move. You actually mentioned it just before our break. I think it was difficult. QB7,
but it's findable. And the key thing is he didn't spend any time, Sinderov, before rushing
in and allowing the queens off the board. Yes, because after bishop a4, it is also
kind of looks very nice for black and he's kind of happy with that. And he didn't
even think about it that even there is a better one, right? And this is sometimes I discuss
it with other players that it's a matter of luck which move are you starting to analyze
in your head, right? You start off, it should be A4 and you're happy with that. You're
simply not pushing yourself that, but maybe there is even a better move, right? And it
happens. And of course, when you have how much time he has, he has nearly one hour,
But still he felt this eagerness, I have to make a move.
But of course he's very excited about his position, his tournament situation and sometimes
you can control yourself and you make your moves very fast.
You understand that you have a great position.
But it's going to be painful when he understands it after the game that it's, and he's lucky
if he understands it only after the game that Queen B7 was winning, right?
I was actually getting ready during the break to say that this might be his fourth win with
Black in the tournament so far, which is almost unthinkable at this level, but just a quick
action replay for everyone at home. He played A for the best move. We said it before the
break. He played it. Bluebaum apparently here needed to bail out, play B for, give
up a pawn, go into a bad end game. But Bluebaum, of course, was not going to accept
long-term suffering. He wanted to at least challenge. And the thing with this position,
Judas, okay, he spent eight minutes on a4, but here he could have slowed down with one
hour on the clock. Knight takes a4 is the best move. He played it. Bishop takes a4 also
promising. We showed like this move, Qc6 and Black also has a big advantage. But even
after Knight takes a4, I mean, Qa5 is a candidate move. Qa6, Qb7, other options
Bishop takes a4, Qb7 was winning on the spot because Bishop takes a4 and the
Queen coming in like we showed is totally winning but yeah I mean Qa5 was
also plus two advantage didn't think about it he spent 11 seconds before
allowing the Queens off and like you said Judith still looks promising for
black but now he cannot keep both of his rooks active on the a and b
fells he has to take back with a pawn. Yes but at the same time you know
showing this line when you're replaying it, why did the Sindarov was thinking 8 minutes on the move A4?
Because he was calculating all this, that after NxA4 he's going to be taking on A4 and taking it with the bishop after that.
So there is a logic if we are understanding that he was thinking 8 minutes, of course he has the self-confidence, he knows what he's doing so he's not going to spend extra time.
But even 8 minutes isn't that much when you have an hour, especially when you have 3 or 4 very tempting moves.
Each one deserves a few minutes of thought. I'm very different with my clock handling.
Cinder O's way more impressive than that regard, but critical position, just sensing that moment.
If he doesn't win this game, if one of the players between Karawana and Giri wins, suddenly the gap closes slightly,
looking back and he'll be like, ah, it would have almost been wrapped up a win here and
he would just need to draw against those two guys and tournament would be over.
Okay, but David, how easy it is on the highest level for you, for grandmasters also, to pick
which is the most important moment of the game?
It's difficult to sense it in the heat of battle, right, Judith?
But like, I always tell like students and people in general, like when all the captures
happening when there's a big attack for one side, that's when you slow down because the stakes are
high, one blunder, game over, or one great move and you might win on the spot. So I would say that
around A4 that's when the capture is the forcing move started. Like everything is a capture
threat, like everything is very concrete, that's maybe the sign to slow down. How about you,
did you find in your career that those moments were, did they just come to you
naturally or did you have to kind of pause and slow yourself down sometimes?
I don't know. If I have to explain it, how do you find it? How do you feel it?
I think it goes by intuition. And this is the problem. If you lose your sense, if you're
not focused and you're, as Gary says it, you have to smell it, right?
And it's not so easy, especially if you have a beautiful position because, I mean,
As we were listening, Sindarov had a bad position after the opening.
So for him to survive, it was definitely the priority.
And then, within three, four moves, everything shifted completely, with all the knights moved
away to C5 and the other one to D6, and suddenly Rb8 also showed up, and A5.
So he understood that suddenly he has a good position, but he was not realizing,
seems that he has a winning position. It's just that he recovered and he has a very beautiful
position, which is very nice here. But I don't think he will be able to win this. Because
now the problem is for black, if he goes on the second rank, then the white D-1 rook
will be chasing to exchange, right? That's a big problem. But rook a8, he will be playing.
my question is can't white go rook d8? yeah it's a back ranker chat was teaching me to show you all the back rankers here just give up the rook that's that strong
rook d8 deflection let's go rook d8 king a2 and then if rook d4 rook c1
I mean it can still be tricky though yeah like so also
threatening rookie 2 as well as winning this point I wonder whether rookie one
just go passive I think also H6 okay H6 I'll take and then I'll play rookie
I'm not sure I take it back with the pawn. Why aren't you rushing?
Oh, sorry. I had one hour on my clock and I played a movie.
G8, you see? I have an hour on the clock. I still don't think but I played G6.
What do you think of that?
I love it. I love it. Keep your pawns.
Maybe it doesn't make any sense. I don't know. You just push f5 maybe.
Yeah, trying to get pawns off the board.
I need time, yeah, to take on h6.
Yeah, it's still going to be a difficult defense.
White at some point will try and go active and go for the b6 pawn with the king of the rook.
Okay, if we go back to the live position, I don't think bluebomb has much choice.
Like rook d8, if you don't take the opportunity now, maybe it's still the next move,
but it feels scary to allow some checks or just something on the second rank,
rank or black will play h6 or g6 and get some lift. Yeah, two rooks on the board. It's a
bit like the Nakamura-Karawana game yesterday, often if you're defending somehow with an
open king like this, it's nice to get one set of rooks off the board.
Yeah.
Yeah, the one thing, you mentioned instinct unit, the one thing that surprises me is
that surely his instincts told him he had turned it around and he was almost
winning. Like white's king was so open there was so many tempting moves for black.
Surely instinct shows you like oh I'm close to winning like calm yourself
down just dig a bit deeper calculate a bit. He has been rushing a bit in
pass-arounds. I agree with you and actually I'm thinking about this
moment which we discussed like after knight a4 bx a4 then he played
B4 and going to exchange the queens that indeed why I mean he must have been
so convinced that it's so good enough for him to have just a little upper hand
after B4 right that he was not spending time. And if we go back to
the live position. Wow, Blue Bounds played f5 first. Makes sense. Which is... Apparently
wrong. Slightly wrong. f5. I'm really surprised that he didn't just get one set of rooks off
just on principle. Just remove some of the risk. He's a fighting aggressive move today,
Yeah, he wants to draw actively.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Because it's not so easy to get out with the king, that's the story I think.
Let's say if he takes f5, he takes f5, let's say Rook, ah, so after Rook f2 he wants to
go Rook df1, you think, or Rook hf1 and chase.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, I'll just chase the Rook forever, wherever it goes.
Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't be 100th central like position like okay, maybe the rook on f2. Sorry
Like
Yeah, this is a bit too. Yeah, but takes takes a little d1. Yeah, your king is
Your h6 idea
Even maybe even g6 is possible. Yeah
G6 no, not sure takes
I mean, at this point, maybe even at this point, like it's so simplified that we're
T6.
Of course.
Yes.
Keep things a bit more simple.
Okay, bluebound playing f5.
If the king's an issue, like yeah, maybe not h6.
h6 with king f8 would come to mind.
I wonder if you'll finally slow down, Zindorov.
King f8 I like.
King f8 I like.
No more back rent mates.
But maybe after king f8 rook hf1, he takes f5, takes h2, but white is incredibly active.
Probably have to take with a pawn due to some checks.
Yes, that was my plan but then you take on h2, then I tell it to go with the rook.
D something. I want to go to D7, but D6 also looks very promising.
D7 as well. Reminds me a bit now. Sorry.
Sorry, my bad.
No, if you go from rook h2 to a2, then I can go up with my rook, right?
Mm-hmm.
But okay, White has a pawn down.
I was going to say it reminds me of the Nakamura game even more now with the potential of the two Black Rooks landing on the Akan rank, but White's not going to play Rooks e1 unfortunately.
So there's no rugby to mate, but I don't think Black can create that many threats as opposed to that game.
I don't know, rugby 7 or f6 or something.
f6 seems to be pretty promising.
Yeah.
right is very active.
Okay, what are your predictions now? Are you confident this might be a decisive game still despite
Oh David, you're asking me this kind of question at this moment you didn't ask me five moves
ago when Queen B7 was winning, yeah?
I'm trying to set you up for like a easier prediction. I knew that there would be a big twist
a big twist to interrupt with Mr. Key moment and I think this is going to be
a draw. Okay, believe in Bluebombs defence. Yeah. The wall, the German wall. I mean I
just don't see that if he's choosing activity and even giving up a pawn I
I don't see that unless there is something tactical unexpected like let's
say I play e takes f5 takes and I go g6
Yeah, after x6, my plan was to go h6. Maybe just go h4. I would like my king.
Yeah, I quite like Bluebombs f5. I was so tempted to play Rook d8 and that would have
been apparently a draw two against the evalvah, but maybe that would have been passive defense.
This looks like...
Yeah, maybe it's a better choice.
Exactly. Sometimes it's just better to push and at least scare the opponent with counter play.
Yeah.
Yeah, nice defense from Bbf5. Tournament is still alive. The candidates, there's still chances.
Should we check back on this one later now? It's going to be a longer end game with
Cinder off. Yes.
Finally slowing down.
I just wanted to suggest, can we go to the Fabiano game?
Because we haven't been there for some time.
And maybe it's worth discussing a little bit like who is better and why.
Black is 0.4 better, because the eval bar says so, but I think we talked about the positional
stuff, Judith, and I haven't really changed my mind.
Very interesting that the queen sides now fully blocked, and Black still has a c5 square
maybe for the knight later.
But more importantly he's got him with a rook. White's not really done much on the king side.
The queen is a bit stuck for white unless he's going to bring it back and come in maybe.
Yeah, what has happened in the last 10-15 moves that Black took over the A-file, isn't
it?
Mm-hmm.
I think Fabiano gave up voluntarily, but I mean probably both would be more happy to play with Black.
Yeah, for sure. Also stylistically, I think Anise is quite happy in these positions.
It's a bit more positional, like not too many kind of direct tactics.
He's just improving pieces, putting things on good squares.
It really reminds me, Judith, of the game.
I think it was from the last candidates it was Vidit with white against Gukesh with black and that was also an Italian and
white also had
double e-ponds and Gukesh just came around the side and eventually
I think it was Gukesh or was it Prague? I know Vidit was on the white side
So what should white do? Should white go Ruki too?
I'm assuming black defense
you don't really want to take me to allow the white queen closer
he's a walker
did you walk around during your games?
or you only glued to the board?
depends what kind of position I had but walking is the sport of just players yes
absolutely before the game after the game which was very much my sport also but
during the game it's I was also walking of course but I think it very much
depends on what how do you feel about your position so you walk more if you're
confident walk less if you're I was walking more when I was confident but
I know I think every player has their habits because sometimes when they don't
feel confident and they are very stressed then they stand up and walk
around acting if everything is okay just to try to give the impression that
everything is under control. I'm happy! I think the older I got the more I did that
like the more I was like okay I'm just gonna not only trick my opponents but
also trick myself into getting the tension out of the body and just not
not dwelling on a bad position or not stressing out about what my opponent
can play just like thinking okay clear the mind for the next 10 minutes and
then yes right down yeah and sometimes also it's good when there is a
a critical moment and you know that there are two directions your opponent has to be deciding
on and it will be very different structure or going to positional or the very tactical
or positional sacrifice or whatever like critical moment then also sometimes I felt that you
know what I just better if I go away and wait what happens not to spend too much energy
at the board calculating. Maybe I would be walking and waiting the decision my opponent makes and
also thinking about the position but in a much more relaxed way because I understood okay I have
enough time to handle it after it's decided by my opponent. Makes sense and there are a lot of
players who just walk no matter what like yeah I just couldn't sit at the board just up and
down and around, winning, losing, but still, if you know the players, you know how they
feel about their positions, because they, you know, you understand their body language
after some time.
I'm pretty sure you were also playing a lot of players many, many times, British championships
and also internationally.
And you know, the behaving of the other players, you know, that when they are
not looking at you, they're walking faster, they're nervous, they're covering their face.
It's not only about their moves and the time management, which gives away these informations.
Exactly. Every player has their habits, their tells. I remember there's one player, if he
starts thinking, especially if it's more than five minutes, you leave the board, you
just never come back because he'll just forget and he'll just spend all the time
in the world but as soon as you sit back down he'll play a move you kind of wake him up and yeah it's
everyone has that habit there are tricks there are definitely practical tricks but
I don't think Fabiano has any tricks in this position Judith he's a bit lower on time he
doesn't look comfortable with white this is not gone I think according to plan for him
yeah the question is what kind of plan and idea he can come up with the idea you
mentioned Qd1. What would that bring? I'm assuming that black at some point takes the
knight just to slow white down. I was wondering, would you think that knight takes h4 and after
knight h4 black can also try to go g6 not to allow the knight back or it would give two
big weaknesses enough six yeah I do quite like it and just I don't really see
how they'll be that week like one Rook who acts as a defender I think in general
as black I kind of want to keep a knight just because I envisage a knight and
see five in the endgame and that's the way to win and maybe a bishop in a block
position can't contribute so much can't really help yeah but if you go back
with your knight and you're not that changing on h4 then white can also maybe attack. After
Qd1 you can't go knight ff8 I think. Too much to keep to leave my boss of my knight and
you're so far away from c5. Yeah true that's why I thought it might be nice for white to
either force something like this or I was also kind of wondering about taking on g6
and then just saying okay knight h4 and are you defending it probably black does
defend though I'm just I'm not going to give it well I thought maybe g5 and then
even this maybe blacks the one gaining space gaining time oh yeah g6
and okay now with a white queen passive and the rook f1 bishop h3 threat oh
Oh wow, nice!
Boom!
H3!
Judit, even when it looks positional, you find the tactics.
Maybe it's not good?
No, it's good. G4 mate.
Yeah, G4 mate. I wanted to show you.
Looks like the lagnome mate from the other day.
And boom!
Nice.
Unexpected.
Very nice.
Okay, so NG6, let's assume that Fabiano
will not want to help
to help black gain some time. I quite like Qd1 to go in and just at least ask a question,
otherwise Rk2 or Rk1. Or maybe you could start with like, how about Rk1? And if black
does the same in exchange as a pair of rooks, maybe now Qd1 and I'm going to hope that
in those variations the f6 form might be a bit weaker. Although still it's hard to
imagine white's queen doing much on her own. But on the other hand maybe it's also no big deal from
black's side either. Yeah just b2 or queen a7 though. Yeah but rook b2, rook e2,
changing rooks also. Yeah queen a7 from this point of view I like it much more to keep the
Rook's on. Yeah I would pick black I think Trudette but how about you do you think it's
anything I just wanted to say that yeah you black has more activity I think white has
more minds around him, which can cause problems.
Can't explode.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Bird's eye view time.
Let's go out and see if there are any results incoming.
We're getting ever closer to the time control.
Wow.
I see some active bars on the women's candidates due to that.
wish might be coming true of all these decisive games but also it seems like
they made a mistake or what was going on isn't it some own exchange happening
there but F7 poem which is okay what is going on there yeah maybe before we go
to the women's we do jump into the pregnant and aboard and okay this could
That is a strange move if Rf3 just wins something. I guess he wants to take on e5 or play g6, but that also looks odd.
I think after Rf3, g6 is the only move, but then Rf4 takes on Ne4.
Yeah, Rf4 takes. Ne4 fork incoming. I can't seem willingly doing damage to a structure like this.
Wait, what's the plan after Rf3 or Qe5?
Qf7.
Qf7, Qh8. No backrank yet.
Yes, okay, but what about this pawn structure?
This is not what you want to have.
That's true.
We're using a bit of time trouble as well.
This is just move 22.
He's got 19 minutes left.
I guess Black's playing Nx4.
Next?
Rook f3 on the board.
Okay, let's go.
How would you evaluate this? Is this almost a size of advantage or is this still...
Yeah, the question is rook d1, if it's just very bad for black.
because you can show there are all kinds of back rank mates.
Bishop c8, no you just go bishop c8, rook d8, checkmate.
If rook would take back checkmate on the back rank also.
Thank you Judith, you've helped me no end.
Someone's getting back rank mated in this game, that's the conclusion.
So rook d1 though on a serious note, bishop c8.
What about rook d3, f3 d3?
Ah, now, okay. That's very clever.
I'm not sure it's clever. I'm just asking if it's working.
Ah, because black has to give some lift now, because...
The other idea I had to play simply g3.
Mm-hmm, g3.
Can we go g3? Another knight d4, rook f4.
And now already it works after knight d3 to take an affinite fate.
Nice, and now... Okay, I'll stop showing these mates.
But how about bishop d7 in that position? Like, I don't like the fact that...
Oh, wait, not now. Maybe I need one more move first.
Yeah the back rank is still hard to protect there.
The bishop d7 now doesn't quite work I guess.
Computer says that this is almost level somehow but I don't see why.
I quite like g3 but maybe knight f5 in that position. So after Bc8 what is the...
So knight f5 here. So Bc8. I saw the bar dropped after g3 a bit but what could be stronger
I wish it's the 8th.
Rookie 3 black wants to play
Queen f6 and get them off.
Judah, one in doubt.
H4, no?
Finally.
Finally, no.
maybe h3 you can go yeah I slightly prefer h3 for some reason just because I
don't like the idea of the black bishop landing on the same diagonal yeah yeah
let's not open up the diagonal and if yeah root d1 just taking back not sure
which way I probably be sure yeah it's gonna be unpleasant for way you to
defend us for sure how important is root d1 the blue arrow shows it and we
saw it's it's a nice advantage but like is it because knight d4 is maybe a small
threat for black just minimize the damage get pieces off the board put the
bishop on c6 maybe it's nice to force the bishop to c8 yes but it's not so
easy to play it even this position with the white also like we understand that
the pawn on e6 is weak but if knight can jump to d4 put bishop on c6 I think
that's why rook d1 is important because if knight d4 bishop c6 then
suddenly black has a weak pawn on e6 but doesn't matter because
suddenly the knight and bishop is too active but this has to be stopped
yeah that means it's important Knight d4 I guess rook e3 black is gonna lose
something like yeah it's gonna be a big trouble. Oh yeah big problems. Okay so maybe a big
moment for Greg but in the in the meantime we have some news from John Sergeant who's been
checking out some other boards. Absolutely right folks we have had our first result of the day
and it's the board between Goryachnika and Bibi Sara which has now ended in a draw back to
to you. Okay, Judith, that's not great for your prediction, unfortunately, but I guess
it's something we might have expected, because the position looked quite equal throughout.
Actually, we didn't go to that game too often. So one game down, Gorya, you're actually
going to still win this in the event. Maybe we can go to the bird's eye view, because
there are a lot of games actually going to be decisive, I think, in the ladies' section.
I mean if we look at it, Vashali seems to be completely winning, converting her advantage
into victory shortly.
She made some good decisions I think at some point, but this seems to be very powerful
for her.
Also Lucknow is in trouble.
question is if she can save the game but it's it's not an easy situation for her.
And Annamuzzi Tric still trying to grind out an advantage but not so clear. Let's start with
Vaishali. Let's go into the all Indian Dabi. It does look like a lot of past pawns.
I think she might have a very strong move now, but maybe just a very quick action
replay since we were last here due to it because there was a brilliant move along
the way. We last left it after knight takes c6, that did play rook c8, d5, I think we
predicted all of this, knight c5. Here you point out b3, which is actually the
strongest move, but queen to d4. Yeah, question mark is harsh, white is still
better. Rf7 now was slightly an improvement. Rf6 instead and the black Rook not doing too
much on g6. I think we see that in the game. The Rook's a bit offside. Kh2 defending g3
and now the brilliant move. I saw a green on the Rook takes d3 at least. Probably not
the most difficult but after he takes d3 the idea is c5 and the pawns are so strong
the black has to take on c6 I guess. Yeah, bishop f8 probably the pawns just continue
powering through. So we take c6, dc, bishop drops back and this is the live position.
Okay, looks like everything is probably pretty good but the first move that came to mind is
trying to break the blockade. I would just play ruby 1, one of the idea but bishop e5 seems
to be the most obvious at first. Check this out Judea. Bishop e5, actually I don't think
this is necessary or good but on the theme of my last couple of days Bishop takes e5
and Rb1. Oh you're so brutal. You took me off with Rb1 first. She's played Bishop e5
but yeah I just wanted to show you one final. I said it was final last time but one final
background mate.
We are going to have many more to come.
That's how chess is.
Even on the highest level we can show so many backrank problems.
Yeah.
There's always like key foundations to every tactic like double attacks always like some
kind of double attack fork.
But the truth is that even after bishop e5, f takes e5 is also not a bad move at all.
Yeah.
She is pausing by Charlie so she might be tempted with the Ritby one.
Yeah, I can say that Fe5 and Black again can't take due to Queenie 8 mate.
But maybe the big one is actually the most professional to be honest.
I like that word. Always a compliment in chess.
You know to win a winning position I'm always saying that's an art.
First of all the main thing is to win the winning position. Secondly, and she did it.
And secondly to win the game the way that you spend the less energy and less opportunity
and saving opportunities for the opponent.
I have a feeling now that momentum is so key in tournaments and Vaishali, the first half
due to like the first five, six rounds she was struggling in nearly every game like
tough positions but she was turning things around and then she got this gift from Tan
and she's on plus 1 about to move to plus 2. She's going to be in the lead. This is very
impressive. She punished divya's mistake with 97 very, very efficiently, very professionally.
She's just going to take it back and that's the 7-route b8. It's inevitable. The black
rook is so bad. This just looks like game over, right?
Well, like she goes queen f8, fx e5 and then, okay, black can go h6, but I think simply
queen d6 and then handshake.
Queen d6 is very professional.
At least resistance.
Yeah, Rb8 coming.
Okay, I think, unfortunately for Divya, no good moves.
She doesn't have too much time.
Maybe we leave this one here and just catch up because the other games are also entering the
time scramble
clock's ticking down
That's uh, and I'm not was it you guys going to win. I think
Which is quite an amazing performance by her. I mean psychologically. She got such a hit yesterday
Not winning her winning position and not even to ruin it only to a draw
But to lose it and lose her clear first place
Yeah, let's just briefly check into that one.
Question mark attached to the move, just as we jumped in, just to show the position, Black has a big attack and...
I think I thought maybe she should have pointed.
No, I find it very classy. I mean the pawn is not running away, right?
Bishley 3, just Black sidesteps and I thought...
Yeah, because the king, the powerful king in end games.
The king, I'm going to give the king a crown and a star, and there we go, yeah the king
is too good, and white's king is just really really stuck, it's in trouble, it's in danger.
King takes g5, it is a pawn, so why can it be that bad?
After all, it's a pawn, right?
It's a pawn.
Yeah but white king can go to g3 and there is no check on g1 so that's the
problem I guess. Maybe not because Rf1 is strong. Rf1 and Rf3 you have.
Oh that is also problematic. Maybe Bf2 blocks or h4 and Rf2.
You should have to f5.
Ah, yeah. But, ah, yeah, f5 is clever.
Hmm.
The evil bar doesn't like my cleverness.
I mean, this just looks super strong.
Like rookie 1 is always f4 even after h4.
Wait, why is this not?
Rook e5 maybe. And then h4 and bishop d4 right. Game continues but okay she's got a very narrow
path here. Tan Trong Yi if she wants to survive the computer suggests rook to e1 as the reason
that black's last move was given a quick look. Pushing back the rook. But still, I mean she
can continue here. Keeping the game alive. It's really surprising to me that this is
0.0 this position because black's just a pawn up.
Bishop e7?
Yeah, maybe it's something concrete.
Threatening Rook e5 in some positions.
Well, here as well.
Oh, bishop e7.
Maybe it's just very concrete.
Like, maybe white's only drawing because of specific ideas.
She's played Rook e1.
Anna's got no time but only one moment move to make to get to the time control so she should be okay there
Yeah, still some life left. This is gonna be a long grind and I still think Anna's gonna get some big chances to get I
Think huge chances for on this
Yeah, we'll ignore the zero point two on the
evaluation bar
Okay, let's go to the bird's-eye view. This will go on for a long time and I will keep the rucks on and hit the move 40 mark and
As you should know, Porn up you mentioned that one as well
Against Lucknow
The double deaf borns are no longer doubled at least for black on that board and the bottom
middle there
And
Lucknow will be able to draw this
to save the game? Hard to imagine isn't it? Hard to imagine. Let's just quickly check
in on that board we went and stay too long but you know white to pawn up the
knight's gonna be really strong right Judith and black spawns are all isolated
I think no I think it's usually no wins it how about you? Well again it's a
position if you don't win it you will not sleep well. It's that kind of winning
position I think that there is no risk it's it's such a one-way game and there
are so many weeks squares for black having the night in this position is
just such a beautiful situation. Yeah, that is the bottom board between Zuzina and
Lagnu. It looks like White has... I can't believe it that Mosey took exchange the
Rooks. Wait, what? Oh my gosh. That is crazy. We go back. Sorry everyone, I teased
it's easier at home with Zuginay against Lagnos, but that is wild on just before move 40 as well.
Like we're taught not to make these decisions before move 40, Judith. Like at least give a check
Rookie 2 and then decide like go Rook b1 or move 41 and then you have 30 minutes to think about
whether to take Rooks or not. But how is it possible to have anything after exchanging Nkf4?
I mean white can already put the pawn on a5, keep the bishop protecting the scene.
But okay, if I wouldn't play king f2 first.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. The term just meant in the near future like a4, a5 will come.
I mean king e4.
Bishop d4 for example.
Yep.
f5, a4.
If a5, I have enough time to take it, if King d3, a5.
Yeah.
And the bishop will always protect the pawns.
The king will block.
This is just a dead draw.
Opposite color, bishop is the base.
Completely dead draw.
Okay.
Judah, I sense disappointment in your voice.
Is that because the predictions they started?
No, actually it's not predictions.
I think John will win again with the predictions, or you, but definitely not me.
But no, the thing is that the game would have been going on, right, just a few moves ago.
But the time, you see the time, we were discussing about the time part of the game.
If Anna would have increment in time, she would not suffer from the heavy time travel, what she is dealing with.
And also yesterday she went down very much in time.
But the women do have increment for move one, so...
Ah, they do have.
Yeah, they do. I'm not sure it's an excuse there, but especially because she could have repeated,
she could have played Rp2, Rp1, repeated the position for a second time, and then decided.
What to do next with after move 40?
She did the repetition.
Did she?
No, she didn't.
She took the rook immediately without repeating that.
I think that is just a bad practical choice, but maybe it's affected by yesterday as well.
You know what she wants to do?
She wants to go king f2, bishop d1, not to allow the pawn to a5.
Aha, that's clever.
That is clever.
But the problem is it's not going to make any difference.
I mean, I don't really see this being too much of an issue.
Well, King e4.
Okay, so I just need to figure out what white is doing against the black king coming.
So what do you do?
Yeah, that's my question.
King d3.
Well, that's the bishop where it wants to go.
Okay.
Let's say I'm just like totally careless, like just to show the black plan is to hit
the bishop hit the pawn. King b3. King b3. I go f, yeah bishop c6. Just wait. Yeah f4
King a4, I'll just move again. King a4, a5 and I'm on. So I was just waiting to see when
the eval bar drops. It was here after King f2, so if...
Yes, because you have to go Bishop d6 immediately when I move away with my king from c3 attacking
the pawn. You go there so a5, Bc7. So turns out Tanjong you can just not panic and just
wait and give black everything and just last minute when the king gets to a4 come round.
But interesting that she went to d2 so she doesn't want to see the king over there on
the other side. Maybe Bc6 is the best try now. Just to again stop the white pawn
getting to A5 where it can be protected. Okay, Judith, we're expecting a draw here. In the
meantime, we do have some breaking news that has been a result and we need our man on the
spot to break it down for us.
Breaking news, but perhaps also expected news, folks. The game has officially concluded
between Vaishali and Divya, and Vaishali has taken the victory with the white pieces
back to you.
I'm just going to show the final move.
We were talking about professional.
She just wanted to rack up the brilliant moves, Rb7, a nice move to win the black queen or
make a new queen.
This would have been very much over.
Very dominant performance from Vaishali winning just 31 moves.
She sacrificed three rooks in this game.
Rb3, Rb1 and Rb7.
Well, and then a few moves later, Rb1, this should have got a double exclam as well, Rb1.
Yeah.
And then Rb7.
There we go.
Brilliancy.
And there we go.
That's bench.
Very impressive win by Faisalie, making, yeah, turning a positional advantage into a tactical
one.
Towards the end there, she's now on five and a half.
She's a streaky player, as we saw in the last candidates, where she won five games
in a row at the end after losing four in a row.
But okay, that leaves us here, Judith, still two games going with the women, but all four
boards still in action in the open.
You know, can we look Nakamura just a bit, because we thought, okay, it's a draw, nothing
really happens, and look at his fighting spirit.
Look at Nakamura's fighting spirit, it's droish, but he's pressing, he says, you
You know what? You're going to sit there forever, Mr. Recipenko.
Yeah, this is...
It's me who is going to decide when I say and I offer a draw.
This is unpleasant. Black has just got to wait, right, Judith?
Like, Black is just going to... I don't know whether Queen or the Rook, but...
Queen c6 or Rook...
Oh, that's scared to move the Rook off the background.
Got Rook c6, Rook c7, and just waiting for White to come up with a plan.
whether that's like Queen c3, a3, b4, some kind of break.
Do you think one day he wants to go g4?
Maybe. Sorry. I mean...
Wake up, g4 and h5.
Your radar is very different to mine, but I love the fact that you're looking at that side as
well. I was just thinking like slowly Rf4, Rf6, but now g4, boom. Maybe, it's possible.
Yeah, and even quick like even a queen exchanges in some positions might start favoring white
if white's king is quicker to the center.
Yeah, but how to exchange the queens?
I love it the queen on e5 in the center.
That's fantastically placed.
Yeah.
So let's say black goes queen c6 now.
Because it was on c3 I think.
there. Oh Judith sorry to interrupt but some breaking news we'll get back to this game in
a moment but John reveal all to us. That's right folks when it comes in thick it comes in fast I
have no doubt we'll have several more but we have had some questionable moves I don't know if they're
full on blunders but a big big swing in the game between Zoujin and Katarina Ladno I highly
recommend you have a peek at how that has changed things because this just got very spicy indeed.
Wow, this was not one game that we expected swings in but okay it does look like a winning
opportunity on the spot. Judith, we were saying that this is winning long term for White.
Extra pawn, knight vs bishop, very strong knight, but Rg3, is that just the second
pawn about to drop off? I don't know, after Rg3 is threatening with
knight f5 immediately and it's not so easy how black is going to be defending because
black has to go out from the pen and she cannot go to the h5 because f7 is hanging while after
king goes to f8, I believe there are two options. First of all white could go rook f3
after f6 to go knight f5 kind of move or first Rook e3 and after Rook goes back knight f5 or g4 finally
g4 and make complete stalemate black's bishop look at that it became a pawn suddenly
and Rook g3 is on the board but the other idea is for white I think that if this is if I want
to torture black. The other one is after king fa to go knight f5 maybe and h6 pawn falls off?
Yeah there should be 5 and then just rook anywhere. Rook h3, e3. What's that about back
rank student? Well I told you it's never the last. It's never the last rook d8 and
and takes H6 dual threats and white wins a pawn, a second pawn.
This is a game over. She found it, Ruchi 3.
As usual now, we can say now that she's likely to win.
She's also soon hitting move 40, so the clock will not be an issue for her.
Yeah, it seems like black is going to be losing another pawn.
And already it was very bad.
It was only one pawn down and weak squares.
But now it's going to be, weak squares are staying, but less pawns will be on the board from Lek.
Hard to imagine that Black can have any chance to save the game.
Yeah, that's an unfortunate result for Lagnu, but she won't be out of it. She'll still be within one point of the lead.
Zuzaner will join Vaischali on 5.5.
Okay, thank you John for that update, big developments there, but back to the open where we saw Hikaru grinding, maybe we will check back in a bit later on that board, since, as I say, that becomes quite relevant, but yes, Fanko has offered an exchange of queens that is also used on the track board.
What do you think about this, Kruta? To take or not to take?
This is not a question.
What? You answer? What is the answer?
For me, I just take it. I don't know if it's good, but it seems to me that I take it.
And run with the king somewhere?
Yeah, but I don't know. Maybe we are not fast enough.
I mean white can win a pawn, right? What happens if, hold on, I go rook a4, rook a7, a3, no,
rook b7, sorry, no, no, no, this was not my idea. No, no, no, no, no. And if you go instead
of rook a4, a3 immediately, if a3, then rook b7 and this is a territory called Rho,
on c5, takes on b3, rook a5 and this is a draw and Decipenco knows all of this.
Because rook b1 and rook a1 I guess.
Yeah, though pawn on a3.
White can go king f3 and king e3 and only after that later to push the pawn.
Okay. Now he did not take the c7. So he thinks that Asipenko will have to fight for it to exchange the queens.
I think it's a good psychological ploy because Asipenko likely will want to trade queens.
Like now in his mind he's like, okay, anytime I offer exchange of queens, Hikaru is going to say no.
So Hikari is going to try and hope that he can plan for a good moment and trick him into offering that exchange.
And just before we move on to the next position, but like Queen E3, yeah, totally fine.
But Judith, the computer wanted to just take and now race with the King.
King G7, King F3, King F6, King E4, King E6.
Yeah, King E4, King E6. But actually the computer wants to play this clever move.
I assume it's clever because it's going to be about King F4.
Mm-hmm
Rooks C8 and
Now okay for what's the difference and just wait wow
Okay, I'm not sure how much to trust the computer here
But I was gonna say like funnily this position if it's black to play with the whole queen side and the rooks off King of Pona in game
I only learned recently that this is winning for white
So this is a pawn
Structure if we don't have rocks if we don't have rocks and we don't have all these pawns if we ignore all the red stuff
this is winning for white if it's black to move which is mind-blowing to me but
since the black king has to give way and the white king goes in one of the directions but
wow okay yeah hikaru he didn't go for the queen exchange queen e3 how do you estimate the winning
chances are they anything more than 10 or 20 percent here would you say
How much chance that White is winning this game?
Yeah.
Especially now as Queen has been forced out of the center.
He has some chances I think, like he has 10-15% chance.
Let's say out of 10 games he would be winning one or two.
I mean I can't say he would be one and a half.
And, Judith, let's go to another Rook-N-Game.
I'm going to bring it straight there between Blue-Balm and Cinder-Rove.
Yeah.
Because...
I was also looking at that.
This is a dead draw.
Or is it a dead draw?
But why is it a dead draw?
I see that it's a dead draw according to the computer, but it's black to move.
So he goes King G7.
Yeah.
I thought it might be a dead roll because h5, but then I realized it was black to move.
King g7.
Okay, so two moves and black wins a pawn.
So if rook h3, then king h6, no?
And it wins.
No.
But why?
Ah, this is surprising.
Okay so let's say white doesn't give black a move like h5 g5. I mean blacks can make
play rook h4 and win the pawn anyway.
Sinterhoff plays king g8 that is nuanced, sophisticated probably.
what that's very funny but he's not thinking much in the last whatever number
of moves it really why is it a dead draw
I mean if if white's king moves nothing changes if white's rook moves not much
changes for g2 just king h7 so let's say h5 g5 yeah I want to play Rg2 but g4 I guess
h5, g5. Ah, now h6, h6. And rook h5. Ah, rook h5. And rook g4, rook h4. Ah, that's
it. Now, rook g4 just allows the white king forwards. So it was maybe a tempo game, but
I'm very curious that other line, due to why we were losing the h-pawn, why that was still a draw.
That I don't understand.
Yeah, because this I understand.
Yeah, black can't really do much to make progress.
And rook d5?
We just wait with the king.
Okay, just out of nerdy endgame curiosity,
In that line earlier when we were saying King g7, white states, how is this a draw?
No, it's not a draw. I don't think it's a draw. This is a draw, but why this is a draw? Rh4.
Rh4, nobody knows why that would be a draw. We'll never find out because the players have gone
for a different way forward. Rh5 would have been a draw to King h7.
It's okay, he's going to be a pawn up but I guess the white king is now out of the box,
Judah.
There we go.
And which way is he racing?
The white king.
King e4.
Let's go look at Cinderov by Bluban.
Sinderov does look a bit deflated because he's been the one with chances ever since the opening.
King c4 is probably good enough. King e4. Does everything draw here? Mattias
Bluebaum is going to stop Sinderov again. At least he can leave this event saying
that he was undefeated against Sinderov. Not many people will be able to say that.
I believe that all the King moves here look like draws.
The last few points is not going to be quick enough.
Judi, it looks like just checking table base, eight moves.
We're drawing there for white.
King is always one of them.
Interesting decision there. King h6, king f4, king h5. King f5 maybe.
After King h5 he'll play Rg3, Zwg3, the black pieces.
Okay, Rh3, Rg4, Rd3.
Yup, and he'll make it through there.
Probably in a variety of ways.
I'll just show this on the board while the players think.
I don't know how long the syndrome will play on 4.
Rf3 is always Rf4, so stay something like this.
Might as well threaten checkmate, but probably it's just enough to run the king.
So in this position, what it takes, yeah, well.
Sindaro will be not happy to find out that he was practically winning in one move.
And the fact that he rushed it, like, I know he spent eight minutes on the build-up move,
on the prep move earlier, and the key position he rushed past it,
he didn't stop, pause, he is shaking his head, Sindaro.
If a niche goes on to win convert a small advantage against Fabiano the gap closes to one and a half points and they'll play each other
Very very shortly in a couple of rounds time
Fabiano also up against Cinder Robin a few rounds
And against Indaro everybody's motivated no matter what they were fighting for for whatever place on the tournament
They pay extra attention to every move.
I think Hikaru is going to be extremely motivated as well to make up for what happened in the
first half.
Okay.
Going to move his rook, rook h5, check.
Okay.
King f4, very delicate.
Doesn't risk a king in point end game after king takes g4 there and then rook g5, check.
Trying to work out to it but I think that was just a draw anyway.
Lubaum is going to take the G4 pawn and no chance of getting it.
They have played out onto the two kings.
Yeah, Black King's too far away for any winning chances.
Ah, he really does look a bit upset.
Cinderov.
He looks a bit annoyed.
Yes, because in the last three rounds, I mean, against Geary, he had a better
position which he should be able to win that game. And now there is this game.
He hasn't been missing many winning chances in previous rounds. Every
chance he seems to take it, other than maybe that half chance against Gehry.
So this will be a rare feeling.
Xe3. Expecting handshakes at any moment, blocks the pawn, will bring his king. Lots of blue
Bounds out there who are going to be very happy with this result.
Tenacious. Great defense.
B4. Last few moves now.
Okay, Judith. He is human. He's shown it.
But it's the lead already too big and Bounds doesn't even take the point.
Rule B1. What do you think about that move?
And now King c2. Who wants King versus King when you can just wait.
Sinderov saying...
Is he going to play King b3?
He allows the Ricks off the board.
Anyway, this extra moves in.
And here we go. Ricks, Rook.
King takes. It's a handshake.
A second draw between Bluebaum and Sinderov.
great result for both players I think on paper but Cindarov will look back on a
big missed opportunity Judith. Well all in all I believe that it's a fair result
because the opening was very shaky for Cindarov. After that there was a complete
misjudgment by Blue Bound in the early middle game and everything was shaken
up. And luckily for him, Sindara was somehow missed this one move opportunity where he could
practically win the game. All in all, it's a fair result, I think.
A fair result. They both move on. And in the meantime, we're back to our bird's eye view.
Let's go back to the women's section. It looks like we're due our next result there.
Frag has increased his advantage against Wei Yi meanwhile, and it looks like Gehry with a small advantage, but yeah, let's go over to the women's board.
It does look like Tzujunar is about to force a resignation from Lugno, or has that game already finished?
It might have concluded.
Okay, let's be on the camera to do that.
I assume they've just made move 40, therefore, okay, maybe we don't need to stay here too long, but this one looks over.
Zuzina is just going to play knight to e6.
We'll show that in a second.
My favorite saying, pin and win. It's going to be game over.
Well, maybe Black will still make some moves, game g6, 9g7.
You want to say it's a piece, yeah?
A knight is a knight.
In the meantime, we'll go back to the birth I agree with.
Other action is going on. Pravna Nanda is improving his position and for Vahe, the situation is getting more and more dangerous.
More questionable if he's going to be able to hold this game, but I have doubt.
Yeah, maybe we go to Anish Giri's board just as he's about to make a move.
Oh, here we go, because question mark has been given to Fabiano's last move
and all he's reaching for is Bishop. He's going to play Bishop e8 I think.
and that was the maneuver we mentioned a bit earlier. Finally it comes and
chewed it. This might be huge for the standings because the bishop is coming to hit this weak pawn
and we talked about how bad those pawns can be and it looks like White's kind of gone
maximum passivity and he's going to get punished. That's a painful pawn to defend.
and wow, bishop on g6 is just so powerful.
The knight's just so bad for Fabiano. I don't know why he willingly put his knight on the
square, like it's blocking the rook and defending the pawn, but he must have missed this.
Well, maybe he wanted to go rook a1 and exchange the rooks.
Now that's a place Qe3 instead. Just to show Rxa1 he would have loved to got the Rxf, after
Rxf takes the knight has to stay defending e3. The queen would have to take and Bxg6, pawn
drops off.
No defence.
Yeah that would have been a big big advantage like in here white knight would have to
decide and this is just game over. So okay, Qd3 instead, he's going to just have to sit
there while Anish continues trying to improve. Do you believe in fortresses, Judith? Do you
think he can just do nothing and hold? Generally I do believe in fortresses but in this position
is not one of them I'm afraid if white can exchange the rooks
though maybe there is a chance to hold and get the knight back to a better square maybe
So what about rook a1 now?
A1, good question.
Let's check it out.
Is it rook c2 and queen e3?
I love it.
I love it. The computer may be less keen, but I love it.
What does it take you for?
Well, from a practical point of view, it's painful, but maybe it's not enough.
The computer does not like it's same so.
I don't think Geary will play this just before move 40 either.
Yeah, yeah, but it's also something which
might can worry a bit.
Could we be really clever and play let Rb2 first?
Can I go Rxa4?
I thought that was going to be a bit more clever than what I was about to suggest.
Maybe now Rxc2 and it's a better version.
You know what, also also possible maybe black can go Bxb8.
That's clever. Rx and then Qa7.
Yeah, trapped Rook, trapped Rook, can't move, and then Black's coming in.
Yeah. Wow, yeah, this is horrible to defend for White.
I think you might be right, they treated it like Rookay won if the Rooks came off, like White's
problems are lessened at least.
Well, it's hard to believe that white can hold.
A nice big moment for him.
Question mark given to Fabi's move, B2 the best way to press the advantage now.
I think also rook takes a1 takes and c5 maybe can be also very painful.
Yeah, so white can't take, e4 would drop.
Maybe or...
No, maybe you can, but maybe it's possible to go knight c2 because on bishop e4 knight
b4.
Ah, tactics, yeah.
Qb7.
Yeah, Qb6.
QB7. QB6.
Yeah, QNd5.
QNd5, yeah, to block the queen.
Difficult QNg, ahead. Okay, let's go back.
Big moment. We'll stay here just for this move, but if Geary plays for Rb2,
I think he's got fantastic winning chances. I think they will lessen massively
if he takes off the rooks. And then we'll jump to Prax game in a moment
to see whether he can wrap up a big advantage.
Is Gary going to move now? Or should we go?
Should we go and leave Anish to this decision, Judith?
Well, and then we come back. Yeah, we keep an eye on it anyway.
And yeah, because Vey seems to be falling apart. Right?
Yeah, he's lost his way, e4 now, strong move for Pragg. His rook is hit so that makes a
lot of sense. He doesn't want to allow like rook g3, knight e2 and black would get some
counter play. It feels like there's mate for white somehow. There was no smothered
mate due to black's last move h6.
okay so what happens
on rookie 4 knight c6
maybe just queen c7 and the bishop is falling off
and it's there on the board
yeah most natural move depends the f4 pawn hits the knight
saves the rook
so let's check it out Judith
your knight c6
Qc7. Yeah, there's barely even a way to attack this rook. Yeah. Yeah, this just looks done.
This looks over. Qb1 I didn't really want to suggest. After that, Nf7 Rc4 also, not
the other one.
That is... ah, yes, nice.
That is devastating.
Not a very friendly way of playing.
That is brutal.
Riki 4.
But what else?
Where does the knight go?
How about Qd...
Oh, Qxb2.
What are these?
Let's take a pawn.
Well, Qd...
Nc8 and Qd7 I think, double it.
born. Well, Qd, Qc8 and Qd7 I think, double attack.
Aha. But I hear Qd7 you're right, that's a double attack. I saw the bar drop, maybe
it's in this position up next year. Maybe some Nf3 kind of stuff.
Yeah, this was my hope. I don't really see the follow up thing. 92 maybe. Yeah, fight
goes on. Pride calculated the whole game, our future chat says. He's calculated very
well so far. Okay it's got to be either Qxp or I think Qd2 or Nxb3, one of those.
Ah no, Qb2, Qd4, Nf7, Bc2 and Ng5, Qh7, Nd8.
Nice, you did it.
Check, check, block, discovered double check, and mate, okay, right.
It's not Qd2 or Qxb2 then, we've ruled it out.
Process of elimination, Rxd4 is a big threat, so Nxb3 has to be played surely.
Maybe, but this is just positionally dominant as well as probably tactically winning.
Rc4.
Judit, you're getting credit for always finding the most evil lines, the most brutal.
Not giving black a single chance.
Well, you know, you win the winning position, you have to do it precisely.
Exactly.
But of course, all of us can write a separate book on that,
what we've done with ruining winning positions, right?
Yeah, I could write a best selling series.
There'll be like a nine, nine books.
There is no world champion and top player who cannot be included in such a book, I think.
That's true.
That's true.
Maybe that's what Cinder Rubble tell himself tonight when he realizes he missed a win against a blue
he'll just be like, ah, that's part of the job, that's yeah.
But it's not funny, it does.
Nxb3 has been played.
Hb8, h7, but Rxc4 just wins a piece or?
Well, it seems so.
It's the final trick that after like Queen d2, e3,
Knight takes c8, he wants to play Rook takes c8, give for Petrol but we see the bar, this isn't for Petrol, I'll check.
The king will run away I guess.
Yeah, queen check, King King.
Yeah, you just go...
King c1, queen f1, king c2, queen f5.
And then run around the sphere and go around king b4.
Finally, and if you haven't gone queen f5 I just want to point out as well this is quite
nice that the queen protects the king, queen a3.
Everything safe, Craig is winning.
I just noticed Wei's clock, he has 38 seconds to make 4 moves.
Yeah, he had problems with the time.
Not for the first game in this event.
Very impressive from Prague. Just looking here at the notation of the move, he played 7 exclamation mark moves in the space of 10.
Starting from Rd1, just a very quick action replay for everyone at home.
x-glam, h3, best move, knight takes, now rookie 3, best move, knight e4, knight e4, best move,
probably all of these are quite natural, f4 as well, and queen e7, maybe the key, setting
up some smothered mates, and that's how we got here.
nice technique. So Rooksy for one of probably many strong moves but the most direct at least
Prank will spend four minutes calculating and then he might just take the piece.
Well he wants to find the best way to spend the least time at the board from here on.
What is the best move which will not keep the fight longer?
And of course if you look at it, he has to calculate all the way after c4 which we just
looked at.
What happens if black sacrifices the rook and then check, check, check, check, check, check,
check until the king hides, but he has to understand that the king hides at the end behind his pawns.
And he doesn't get the bar. We knew, even when we hadn't worked it out yet, we knew that the white king would manage to hide because the bar says winning.
He has to work that out himself and it looks like his head was looking towards the queen side and the only reason I can say,
there we go like his head is looking towards like b1 a2 it's probably because
he's thinking about running the king the king over frag okay maybe he's also
looking at the clock on that side of the board okay now he's looking back
towards the center eye tracker he's looking back towards the black king
we just there we go checking out the clock yeah because actually it's you
would think that he had something easier, simpler, that no calculation is needed, but it's still
needed. And he went rook c4. If he plays knight takes c8 immediately now, then it shows he
spent that time working things out correctly. I guess, yeah, there's not too much urgency.
The bishop isn't running away, so maybe he could take queen f7 or something. Oh, wait.
Hang the knight on d6. Yeah, what else? What else?
You have to take it.
Then b5 is another move maybe.
When?
After knight c8?
Yeah, and then the rook has to choose between defending c8 or f4.
Okay, breaking news. We have to move over to the other game. Fabiano Karawana is in
big trouble against Anish Giri and Anish looks super locked in. No time for either side. One
minute each. Okay, we have been told that some mistakes in the last couple of moves.
We saw Rook A1. Rook takes A1. Not the best. Giri could have kept the Rooks on. But
c5 and he needed to take on pass on everyone knows it's a forced move but
he did not capture that line that Queen Endgame after knight d takes e6 we
showed earlier dc and knight c2 which takes e4 and knight takes b4 Fabiana
didn't have time to calculate this and Judah after c5 instead big mistake
King g3 and now he's suffering for the rest of the game the e4 pawn especially
Qa7, Qb1. And White is almost in Xx1. Can't get the knight out of the corner.
Qf3, Fabi's move 40. The spiral as chat says there.
What's the breakthrough? Is there a breakthrough? Now Nc2 is coming.
H4 can be played. But is that the best move?
It's a two-twang.
Yeah, but the knight is getting out the corner now if the king protects e4 or is it?
Well, if knight c2...
I mean, maybe f5 is also possible.
But maybe black will just go clean f7.
Yeah, Qf7 looks good. If the knight continues trying to get off these...
Qf8, 5 and Qg6.
It's just perfect, like positional play from Anish, like pawns all on dark squares, Qf1
light squares, Qn1 light squares, it combines so well. Worst knight. I've seen it a long
time. Qg3.
win g3
King f1
Was the breakthrough
Well, what if I just go g5 g4 I mean probably there are a lot of options for work
Yeah, that's the problem. I mean the knight on e1 is not defending the e4
Like even Queen and games I just wanted to even Queen exchanges. Sorry, I just wanted to show like this would ever save white
The Bishop is a fantastic piece, total domination.
This has been a sad game for Fabiano, just felt like the opening went all wrong and been
positionally outplayed.
Judah, it looks like all of our boards now have hit move 40, have hit the time control,
so we will see a bit of a lull.
We will see the players just find their bearings, take a bit of a refreshment break,
and that gives us the perfect opportunity to bring back John, who no doubt wants
to send us off on a refreshment break as well.
Absolutely, David.
Thank you very much.
You'll get your break in just a second.
We did delay it because of how much action was going on
over the board, and also because we
wanted to make sure we got to move 40,
and none of you guys missed any of the action.
I didn't even come in with the breaking news
that we've had two results in the women's section as well.
And Tsu Jin-a did successfully convert
her game against Lano, and then Muzicuk also drew
against Tan.
So that means the women's candidates games
are all done for the day and we only have three games remaining, but my goodness, are
they spicy. Folks, grab yourself a bathroom break, get another drink and we will see
you for what might be the conclusion of today's games after this break.
That being made the public offer to relocate to Germany, you mentioned Kazakhstan, but
you got, you're closer to the issue than perhaps I am.
Was Rex offering behind the scenes to host it in St. Louis?
Yes.
That's my one word to answer, yes.
Would you have liked it to be hosted in St. Louis?
For me personally, I actually, oddly enough, having played some matches, played some
more serious events in St. Louis, I would have preferred not to be held in St. Louis,
what I would say.
I also would say as someone who in a past life
spent a lot of time in Southern Italy
and in the Mediterranean,
this actually feels very much like a former life for me,
so I feel very comfortable here.
Well, you're familiar with the geography,
but one thing that's gonna be different about this,
Candidates, is you're gonna leave each day
with a wife giving you a hug and a little baby boy
giving you a smile.
How do you think that's gonna feel going into a game,
having your family here for the first time?
Yeah, so I think, for me, it's a great joy,
I think I really, it's a lot of work, obviously.
I'm not going to pretend that it's all sun and roses,
being a parent or having a child.
But I think certainly, when you see the innocence,
you see the way that at least my son is moving a lot
or smiling and trying to talk.
He obviously can't, he's only three months old.
It puts things in perspective.
And I think for me, at this stage where I'm at,
like it's very good to have perspective
and just focus on understanding what matters the most.
And I think that's one of the things
that gives me a great opportunity here
because at the end of the day,
there are things that are bigger than chess,
that are bigger than candidates.
And I think for most of the players here,
this is it, this is all they have.
This is the big thing in their life.
So I think that does give me
a little bit of an extra mental standpoint,
but regardless, it's still gonna be
a really exciting event.
And even if I don't,
when I'm still getting a three-week vacation
here in Cyprus, so that's better than Neppo can say.
our internal statistics team has done some math
and says you're about a 40% favorite to win.
Does that sound right to you?
40%? That's completely wrong.
I mean, I'm just gonna, I mean, as I've said many times,
no, no, no one, no one is a favorite to win.
I would make an argument that if myself or Foppy
are in the lead going to the final couple of rounds,
then you could make that argument that we're like
40, 50%, whatever you want to deal with statistics.
But I think going to the event,
no, no one is a clear favorite.
I mean, I think it's something like, you could say, I'm 20%,
Fobby's 20%, and then like, I don't know.
You could say Cinderob's like 15%,
but it's so minimal in reality.
I mean, I've said before, I really do think
any one of six players could win.
I think if the tournament is a low scoring affair,
so the winning score is two wins and no losses,
I don't want to use the chess terminology,
but say someone has two wins, no loss, and 12 draws,
and this is going to be a score like that
that wins the tournament,
I think probably seven players can win.
If it's going to be a tournament
where you need to win four or five games
with no losses, I think realistically,
there are probably only four players who can win the tournament.
There'd be me, Fabi, Prague, and Cinderot.
So it just, you know, it depends.
But again, you can look at all the scenarios,
but saying that I'm 40% or saying that Fabi is like 40%
or anything along these lines is nonsense,
because really anything can happen in this event.
Has this ever happened to you?
Oh, shoot! Another mouse slip!
What about this?
Oh, well holy bishops on Passant! I think I'm getting carpal tunnel!
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Well shucks! This Hikaru guy seems pretty good.
With Chessup 2, mouse slips and sore wrists are a thing of the past.
My cardboard 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.
Well, Danny, you're in luck. This feature is totally available on the ChessUp 2 as well.
Wow. Well, I'm convinced. But hey, what if I don't just want to play an opponent online?
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Play chess today on the board of tomorrow.
I
Welcome back to the Fidei Candidates 2026.
It is time to talk about how unbelievably adorable this dog is.
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toy to grab yours before they're gone.
Now we head back into the action with three games left to go.
We've got Gary Caruana, we've got Wei Yi Prague and we've got Yesapenko Nakamura still
ongoing in round nine of the candidates.
David, Judith, I'll leave it to you five folks to decide where we head next.
Okay, thank you, John.
And three games a lot on the line, Wei Yi looking up, not too happy.
Prague didn't take the piece, but still with a winning advantage.
Nakamura in the meantime has won a pawn, so he's still the only one who can
press on that bottom left board. But yeah, Karawana, Geary, dramatic stuff, Judith, we
saw in the build-up to the Time Scramble, things were changing. Where do you want to start now?
Let's begin maybe at this board.
Yeah, why not? Because they also got over move 40 and the Bishop is still on the board.
At the same time, it's still hanging and under attack. So it seems like, I don't
I don't know, maybe we can go back for a few moves like what has happened?
White decided not to capture the bishop immediately right after rook c4, queen d2.
And I was looking at the breakthrough that Knight takes, Knight takes his winning as we saw like
this is not the petrol check as the white king starts running and will be able to hide
We showed something like this, but also can start running. Oh, what's if I can do Aris fright
it can start running up the board and should hide but maybe Prey got scared of b5 after
knight takes bishop and here he would have had to find Rc3 and this is clever because
after queen takes Rg3 that cannot take the knight as g7 would hang. But maybe he was also
scared after Rc3 that now Rc8 might be different with opponent b5 but ultimately doesn't change
anything so he could have been winning but he found Qc7 instead still trapping the
bishop and maybe sometimes defending the f4 pawn with the queen b5 rookie 4 and
after some chasing with the queen and rook this is the life position move 41
okay I guess what else other than b6 or queen e2 the rooks just gonna sit on f3
exactly the white rook found the safe place defending the king defending the
f4 pawn defending the b3 if it's necessary even and at the same time the bishop cannot
get off the hook.
Okay, how do we win the bishop if like bishop to a6?
Isn't queen c6 just possible?
Yeah.
Or then rook d8.
Oh wow, rook d8.
Whoops.
Back in the game.
Knight e4? Just Qd3 or Qe2 maybe?
Maybe Qd5 also.
Black doesn't lose a piece so...
Preq have to be clever here.
I don't know if Knight e4...
I think Nb2. Knight c5 I was thinking.
Maybe two nice... oops, sorry, 95.
Yeah, and Bishop has to go back home, back to sleep.
Oh, okay, okay.
Okay, so let's see after Bishop a6 what is the best way to collect the point.
Hmm, not easy, not obvious.
I'm a bit afraid now that we've seen the eval bar like totally crash a couple of times
but maybe the advantage isn't forever although it does feel like...
What about going rook f3 first, b4, and then black is out with the bishop?
White has to be, White has to be somehow very precise.
A6.
Okay, we'll come back.
Prec has a lot of time, I think, where you will play this move and will fight on a bit
longer.
Let's go to a game where there might not be much fight left.
It is between Fabiana Karawana and Anish Giri and Body Language tells it all here.
Judith, it has gone all the wrong for Fabiano.
The last few rounds, but this game especially,
that poor knight in the corner still hasn't escaped.
Well, I don't know if it will escape.
I was wondering if black can go King H6, for example,
in this moment.
Trying to threaten some sneaky mate.
But for sure, Geary's heart is beating faster, I think,
because he feels that, if I don't win this game,
then it's nothing that I win.
Yeah, I loved one of Giri's quotes.
I think it was from one of the press conferences,
but someone asked him about his chances
of becoming world champion, how he rated them.
And he was like, well, I'm closer to becoming
world champion today than the day I was born.
So, he's still small chances, but yeah,
he still believes, I still think he feels his chances.
move on to plus two today if he beats Sinderov in the individual encounter in the second...
well towards the back end of the second question. Can f5 win? Okay, f5. Takes e4, takes e4, giving
out the bishop. Oh, Geary's jacket is off. King g6 and king g5 mate. Beautiful. King
is coordinating that. But probably after e4 you can go Qf1 maybe. Qf1 and game continues but
Judith you see Anish like he was nodding he was like I know I've got this I've
got this and now he's almost praying but I think he's calculating behind those
hand and those hands there. Where is the win? It must be winning. King takes h4, is that
a threat? No, it should be 4. So that's why first I thought what about King h6? I just
didn't want to allow White to come back King f3, which probably does not matter anyway.
Yeah, long-term black's winning but just to show your idea King takes H4, Bishop takes
E4, it's beautiful. Queen takes an F5, discover check. Winning. Okay, so King H6 looks good.
Hmm, what else?
you know it's funny if the knight would be on c2 then bishop e4 would win I think.
Vini4g6. Oh wow, let's show that. In f3f5.
Bishop e4, that is beautiful. Judith, that is so mean. The queen can't escape.
chat was right earlier you found the heart most heartbreaking ways to punish the opponents
queen can't escape.
Wow so white literally doesn't have a next move then.
The only move white has is king f3.
So black has to play against that.
You did just put his king on g4.
I'm telling you, King h6 wins.
King h6 looks good.
Because if you go King f3, f5.
Ah, this is nice as well.
e4, Bishop h5 and Queen g5, mate.
Sorry, my arrow is it going wrong?
There we go. That is a beautiful mate.
I mean, of course, unless it is not a good thing for black to win the pawn with the pawn.
I mean after f5, of course, white has to go king f2 or something.
I'm not sure black is going to be nice to take that, maybe queen g5 is better.
would probably rather pick this pawn up and just throw it off. It's gone. Okay, so, yeah,
exactly as you say, QG5 probably better and just coming in, we showed something similar.
That's E2, just moving on in. Probably anything F4 here looks very good. White is
Yeah, he has expunged, that's three coming.
Okay, yeah, Girry will play king h6,
so he's playing f5 due to that,
he's going for the immediate kill, the immediate knockout.
Or maybe f5, ef king h6 also possible, look at that.
f5 takes king h6.
It sounded beautiful, he's nodding, he's double checking.
We'll show it once he plays it.
giri smells blood
full of confidence
fabiana has nothing else to do other than take that one
kxh6 is the killer. As if you cannot go back
because e4
only winning move actually kxh6 or at least the blue arrow appears
this is study like kxh6
threatening mate, bxh5 is checkmate and
fabiana resigns
brilliant move from Gehry to finish it off. He takes a win with Black. He moves up to
only one and a half points behind Zindorov and suddenly he has overtaken Fabiano as the nearest
challenger. Judith, that was a masterful game, masterpiece of positional play and finished
off really nicely.
Well, Gehry played an incredible masterpiece yesterday also, so he really got into the
the mood for the second round of the event, second half of the event. He's serious. He
knew that he has to win. And we're discussing this in the very beginning, that this game
has to be decisive, deciding one way or another. But Geary is focusing. And he played a very
beautiful game, though Fabi made very serious mistakes, which usually he's not doing.
Yeah, Fabiano not looking like himself in this second half losing to Nakamura losing to Gehry
It's been tough and almost out of the race now two and a half points
Behind Cinder off with just five games to go and that leaves us with two games remaining
It is between Prague and Weiyi we left that board a while ago, but no moves
so maybe just a quick check in on Nakamura and seeing whether he has any winning chances in what's going to be a
a looking pawn in game. He is a pawn to the good and it's not an a pawn, it's a b-pawn
due to it, so maybe slightly more chances for white than the other end game we talked about earlier.
It's a whole different story if we have a b-pawn. It's quite amazing already that Nakamura was
able to bring this out of his position. So now the big question is how Black is going to be
handling the same game. There is Rb6, Rk3, Rb4 is the right defense. What a
classical to move Rc1, Rb1. Yeah let's check those out. It feels like he needs
to commit the rook at some point so maybe a good decision. For example if
black plays like King g7 due to it then white has the option I don't know
if it's good here but the option of going back with the rook putting it
b1 and saying okay I'm gonna support the pawn from behind so but I think the
pawn should be at least on b4 because yes this is the rule that you have to
have your rook behind the pawn whether you're an attacker or defender right
generally but here a rook b4 and I strongly have the feeling that black
Black will be able to play f6g5 and look for the con to play.
Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.
I don't know what vibe you'll do with this evil bar, it's evil to us.
Exactly, extremely evil.
I was gonna say, probably I had a feeling Kd3 was the best move there,
but taking allows the counter play that you mentioned, like h4 and...
Okay, maybe black here just plays moves like rook f4, tries to go.
The king is well, can start running across that's a no, but probably white shouldn't
take on h4.
Mm-hmm.
Keep the squares covered just to show that line one more time, King d7 back before King
starts running and yeah, the idea I guess King c3.
I have Frucci 4 now to take and we've gained a big tempo suddenly it's going to be a race.
The bar is having the race with your arrows David.
It was just going as you were having the arrows of the phone, it was also going up up up.
You got to the 8th rank before me like the bar.
There we go, I win.
No, but this is an incredible huge achievement for Nakamura.
And the b3 pawn, it can be easily winning.
If White is really having the rook either on b1,
or sometimes I think the rook can defend from e3.
Also, it can be possible for rook e3, you put the rook on f3 maybe,
and if the king reaches to c3, it's good.
I think it's quite well known that lots of positions with the rook on f4
opponent before if the white king is close enough that's that's also cooked so yeah white's rook
defends everything apparently still a draw here but it's got to be close like black's going to do
what you said I think create this counter play and he's got a hope that it's quick enough
maybe it is
As he can't go, we'll have to work for his draw.
Just in time here.
Okay, got to sing for his supper.
Rook e3.
Okay, let's see if black can race.
Rook b4 would be a losing blunder, because now white's king is close enough, apparently.
There's one tempo here due to that.
This is crazy.
So if he starts with f6, maybe he needs to start f6, Q5 immediately before white's king gets over to
defend the pawn and then white's rook can step up, e4, cover everything.
Wow, big move, f6 does find it.
Now, counter play is coming. Judith, it feels like he's up to the task.
Yes, I think it's quite a good end-game player himself, probably a draw, but very impressive play from Hikaru.
Okay, and in the meantime while we await Hikaru's return to the board, we do have an interview with our leader and
spoiler alert, he's not happy with how he played today.
Thanks everybody, we're back here with Grandmaster Javakir Sundarov who wanted to win that position today.
Let me ask you, were there any decisions you made in the game today that were safe that you may not have made if it was round one?
Yeah, I think if we were playing around one probably I would find the smooths, but today I was
Trying to play completely solid and I think like in the end game and just winning a point
And I just want to play for one game the same game
But I completely missed his a five move, which is really very strong and after that I understand like
I think how I'm stupid to don't play for this position, I mean, it's Queens like in my style.
Okay, I need to forego to this round and focus for my next games.
After the game, you found out that this weird retreat Queen B7 was winning,
but you even said it's such a strange idea that white can play anything and yet white has nothing.
Does it make it a little bit easier to accept that you missed that move because it was so weird?
Yeah, I mean it's very hard to see this move because I don't know like in normal I want to play Qa5
I think which is also better than the one I played but Qb7 is completely surprising me here
and I mean I just need to find this move maybe I just need to be on my move to where I just
I mean maybe if I take a time I will find this but I play it really very fast and
I think I don't have anything which is winning and in my opinion endgame was the best choice
during this moment, but after that I also became very sad, I mean, a 5 was killed me.
Well, you're a human, we've all played moves too fast, we can all relate to that.
Now just a moment ago, Jan Napamnish, he was walking by, I'm not sure if you noticed,
but he winked at you. How does that feel to get the respect of probably one of the best
can't let its players ever.
Yeah, it's very nice always.
I mean, if strong players like, I mean, I have to say, I don't know exactly in English,
but I mean, it's always very nice to get respect from these players.
And yeah, so I think he come to until the end and hopefully tournament will be finished
very good for me.
Do you think you'll talk about anything with him?
In general, I mean, it's like big stress anyway, so I don't want to think a lot about the tournament situation.
I just want to play a good chess and prepare really well, selectively.
Okay, well, I think the reason people love you is because you're trying to win every game.
Even if you do it in a little bit more of a restrained way, you're gaining a ton of fans,
so don't be too disappointed, and good luck the rest of the way.
Thank you, Javik. You're back to you guys.
There we heard it from the man himself. Perfectionist Judith, he wasn't happy with the way he played
but still a long way ahead in this tournament and he's put himself in pole position.
Yeah, it's clear that he was very unhappy with not fighting the move in B7. But we
could see him also being a very cheerful guy and still smiling and of course I think
Well, you were not there playing in a candidate, nor me, nor John was playing in a candidate's
tournament, so none of us can really feel that pressure, what he might be experiencing
right now in his first candidates event, right?
So it's very nice to see him giving interviews and how he's reacting, but I think we can
feel for but I've seen I feel it for the first time that it's increasing quite a
lot in his body and brain the tension. Yeah understandable I think we will felt it
Judith you've played in these world championship tournaments similar formats
so you must know the pressure but yeah I mean Javakir I think that's what's
put him in this position he expects the most from himself now. Yeah definitely
of course for him I believe it's very difficult to put it aside where the standing is right because
at the same time it takes it gives a lot of energy and self-confidence seeing the the standings
if he's just looking at it before goes to sleep that hmm okay I have still a point and a half
lead right at the same time it gives energy but it also gives puts on his shoulder a lot of
pressure and I do hope for him that he's not checking posts and he's not
following social media and probably nor apart from his family and very very
close friends he's just losing connection because I think it's extremely
hard to to feel that that many people would be just saying that they are
rooting for you and you're the best and you have to qualify and you're
there and whatever. You just have to exclude everything close to that. Because really the
most important for him to focus on his next rounds to be able to find those moves of PINB7,
right? And if you have a bad day, you have a bad day. But he understands it, that he
should not make mistakes like this, because if he would have been making mistakes like
in the first part of the tournament, he would not be standing here having this lead ahead of
Giri and the others. So he dropped his sense for critical moments, I would say, in the last several rounds.
Yeah, rushing and not stopping, not double checking. I still think he's being a bit harsh on himself,
But either way, impressive and big games ahead.
He got another black out of the way today, so he can't be too unhappy.
Judith, f4 played, should we try and figure out the narrow path?
Because it feels like if the white king now gets to c3, it's game over.
Especially if the black king is cut off.
It feels like black has to go for g5 in the near future.
Yeah, black has to be fast, I think.
because well what I said that the pawn on b3 the b-pawn is much stronger much
more potential for victory than an a-pawn at the same time when it's on
the third rank still on b3 it's very much behind right so if what will black
do something like King g7 I guess or King f7 and then King f2 g5 yeah and my
first question would be I was going to get it yeah no the problem is that white
cannot go f5 right because it would be alone would be 5 and rook f3 simply g4
and white is losing one of the pawns but if you look at takes on g5, takes, takes, takes, king g6.
And knight. It's only winning attempts I think is to rush the king over to support the pawn.
Yes, okay king there, king g5, king d2, king g4.
Okay, now king goes.
Wow, okay.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
It's the most natural move for black.
What?
You can see three.
I guess now white's going to get,
like, normally the way to stop this is checks from the front, right?
the heel white well white king goes forward ah maybe Ruby 8 has to be played
instead of King g4 yeah I think so Ruby 8 yeah I'm just curious I don't think
Ruby 7 works but let's see Ruby 7 yeah okay whoa okay so only Ruby 8 and the
idea of everyone at home is King C3 black starts checking the King doesn't
have too many places to hide if he ever steps back. Black stops the pawn and it goes forward.
Okay, so let's go forward King D6 and Rb8. Yeah, and after King c7, Rb4, King c6, Rb8.
This is crazy though that it's the only way Rxc8 in that position. I just wanted
to check as well. Kg4, you mentioned it, it's very natural, but I guess it's a bit different.
Because b4.
B4, yeah. And... wait.
Yes, and now Kd4 goes to d6 and Rb3.
Rb3 and back... oh!
Rb4 or what is it?
It must be Rb4.
Not yet, not yet.
No, no, no.
Not yet.
Black has to wait, King h3 maybe. Oh, Rb5 is nice.
It's King h3, there's b5.
Ah yes, sorry.
Rb5 on the move.
Rb5, King c6, now Sack, now Taken, the King slightly further away.
That is narrow, that path.
But okay, white shouldn't play Rb3 then, what?
Can you go back to understand why king on d6 is winning, why king d6 is winning, having
there?
King d6, it would be 3, if it would be 4.
Yep, if it would be 4, King...
No, it's not...
Ah, yes?
Yeah, can you 5 I guess, is it coming close to 8-4?
I think it's this typical pattern view that bringing the king across this way, h4, h3,
check, check and king g4 and yeah.
If king h4, king f4, yes.
This idea king g4, h2, check, here, king g3 and it's either checkmate or black promotes
to a knight and then it's over and it's done.
Wow.
But maybe in that position with King g4, if let's say, wait, how are we doing this?
Rb8, b4. Without checks, maybe I have an idea of cutting across the board.
So, King b3, black plays Rb8.
And now that the pawn's a bit further advanced, maybe the rook goes to e5.
This is quite a famous, I think, cut of the king like King takes.
Yeah, I mean the king will be cut off across the board and then the people nuns
and the rook actually helps with the shield from the checks from the front quite famously.
Yeah. Wow, small margins actually. This is not, I mean Yusufenko surely will find
Rukyeta process of elimination but it's not easy. Not easy as well.
Well he did his homework of the Doratsky's book I think.
I need to refresh it's been ages.
Yeah, basically if you're not nervous and you know that you learned it, when you get
there it comes back. But it's important also to understand that you know that it should
be a draw. It helps a lot. I mean it helps like we are having the bar. For him he knows
Yeah, this is a draw because the pawn is on B3 still.
Yeah.
And even then, he'll know it's kind of a tempo thing and that he needs to set up the checks from the front.
And probably he finds the most accurate way there.
But okay, maybe we leave Nakamura.
I don't think White has too much choice.
So we're likely to see that variation, but let's allow Hikaru a bit of time to think and we'll check in on the other board where.
Wow, things have gone wrong.
Prager's lost his advantage.
He played what I wanted to play, you see?
This is what happens.
Poor guy.
Wow.
Poor Prague and it's so hard and harsh on him that it was just before move 40 when he
had no time that he could have taken that bishop for free, but he just didn't have
time to calculate.
He had around a minute left and he's lost the advantage, consequently.
Rf8 is a very clever move and now I guess the rook continues hitting the
knight. Well, Rd7 only move. Okay, not Rf8. What's the difference?
He's about to play it. There we go. Rd7. And he does it. Maybe the
difference now is that after queen takes e6, whoa, black is winning?
Oh my god.
Well, that is harsh.
Yeah, virtue one just loses the pawn and then loses the knight.
OK.
Wow.
Comes to mind what I say in the documentary, Queen of Chess.
It's never over until it's over.
What's lived by very wise?
You know, these winning positions are sometimes a hard break.
Treacherous, treacherous stuff.
There should be sevens of threat, a winning threat.
So, David, should we write a book about it?
The winning collection.
If you agree to be my co-author, I'm happy. I have lots of examples to give.
Endless examples, yeah? Oh my god, it's so painful for Prague.
I mean, it's incredible what kind of winning position you have to have not to ruin it, yeah?
And it's basically the incredible fighting spirit what Vaj has.
And fighting spirit is not about making moves, because some people think, okay, I'm making moves, I'm fighting.
But it's not. You're making moves with clear intention and hidden ideas that your opponent can fall into.
And I can't believe it that after Queen E6 White is losing.
Yeah, exactly. It looks like you're a pawn up.
maybe you but I'm sorry I'm sorry after what do you do after 9d5 also bishop b7 yeah knight u5
bishop b7 gg game over so white's only movie screen takes a6 yeah maybe queen e4 if we go about
yeah queen takes a6 I think the the fact that the f4 pawn hanging is quite unfortunate for white
and this is just an immediate draw. Yes, but can white play for anything else here? Queen
e4 check. Maybe queen e4. What about king g8? Then knight h6 I guess. Oh, wow. Oh, whoa. Knight
h6 actually wins because now the bishop will hang on the block. Yeah, white's one of few pawns.
So actually after Qe4, g6 is forced and then Ne5, I was going to say at least now this
Bishop b7 is Qe6. Black has to go with g7. It is crazy, Judith, that Bishop was totally
trapped. The whole game it's been a bad piece and suddenly it's about to become a real
force.
Basically, it shouldn't be on the board anymore.
Exactly. For everyone just joining us, Pray could have taken it just five moves ago.
could have played Knight takes, Knight takes c8 and he would have been winning.
Wow, chess is cruel. Here we are. Game on. So this is why rook d7 is so much
better than rook f8 because rook d7 attacks and strengthens bishop b7.
That's wild. Still wild. And I guess after Rf8, if we just go back, Rf8, maybe this variation
we showed with Qe4 is more effective. G6, now Nd5, well maybe there's Rf5, but Rg8,
I was going to say this maybe just coming back.
But you must be kidding that the Rg8 is lost and Rg7 it's okay for black?
Yeah, it's just because bishop b7 is so important right? It's always bishop b7
Just the fact that he's threatening it from now onwards and still well probably until it gets there. That's that's the key difference
But actually
Crazy
Maybe now is a good idea. B5 shifted the game there.
Like when he didn't take, Proud didn't take on c8.
B5 and things fell apart.
I mean it was actually winning and
I just want to check to you that where the win disappeared because we left it at move 41.
It's still said after B6 the eval bar that White's totally winning and
the blue arrow now shows us B4. But this is what we said.
No, we talked about this for white before. Yeah
I'm not sure
Okay
Now black can't get mated in the corner so black has to play g6
And I guess Queen see six now now back
This is crazy and it's different now. There's no more root d8
counter attack since the 7th rank has opened up. That is incredible. So the trick is to
lure the queen to b4, get this check, force g6 and then come back and then trap the check.
But probably this is not the only one.
I am. b4 was given a blue arrow so maybe now it's the only one. I'm not sure. It's
definitely the most kind of instructive one, Judah b4. I guess black is threatening
b4 to get the bishop out of jail anyway.
This will look Rf3, then b4.
This we looked at.
Yeah.
Okay, life position is this one.
Here we go. Be7, threatened.
Just to mention the Hikara Nakamura board, it's the key moment where Rb8,
oh, it's not yet the key moment.
We'll talk about that in a moment then.
It's about to be the moment where Esipenko has to find the only move for Rb8.
That's it. In the meantime, Wei Yi is going to find the only move, G6.
Yeah. Forced. There we go.
Okay. Now, Esen Penko on the other board has to find Ritbe 8 only way to draw.
Okay. Maybe we'll zoom out of this one, Trude. I'm just curious. I kind of want to see
Yesifenko's body language, Hikaru's body language in the other game and I'm going to bring that up.
Rb8, Blue Arrow shows it. He's got 13 minutes. King g4 the most natural move or one of the most
natural moves loses to King c3. Black needs to check from the front with enough space.
He's nodding his head.
Yesifenko will do it.
It is a very well-known technique checking from the front.
Hecaru is almost squeezed water from a stone, like incredible that he's got here, like you
said earlier.
Unbelievable.
Just simply unbelievable.
The energy, the patience, what he has to grind there, you know?
I mean, it's already on Magnus' level what he was doing yesterday and today, I think.
Yeah.
Am I exaggerating?
No, I agree fully. His style changed around the pandemic.
Not only did he become a streamer and pressure came off, so psychologically stronger,
but his style changed. He became a grinder.
Most of his online games that he wins, it's just surviving,
surviving, surviving, slowly positionally outplaying the opponents.
Sorry, can we go back to Prague game because he made an incredible, ah, okay. So we see that he made the draw
Drawing we should go back to base game. I think
Whoa, look at that
Prague that's incredible. I don't understand it yet, but no, but it's amazing
It's such a cool move
Whoa
Anything with the double exclamation mark. It's quite rare to see brilliant pawn moves, but okay, Judith
Let's try and figure it out. So I
Know that rotates night is losing to f6 g6 check
Ef I guess is Queenie 8 and Queenie 8 mate
So my elimination
Though I'm not sure if if gf. Yeah
Yeah, I was gonna say gf might just lose on the spot now because Queen takes f5
and it looks matey. So maybe after f5 Bishop b7 has to be done. Wow but now fg? No it seems
not. Not exactly. King g7 clean e5. Yeah. Bye bye. If king yeah. Something now. Rook
of six. What about the play Queen f6? Yeah, Queen f6 even better, yeah. And then round,
there you go. Yeah, not bad. Many ways to win. Okay, f5, wow. I'd fall off my chair.
Featured chat is telling us that G takes f5, Qe6, and OK, and e takes f5, Qe8, that is
the idea.
Yeah.
Whoa.
OK, apparently this one is still saving, probably because then black can play Qe4 to stop the
mate.
OK, thank you, chat, for pointing this one out.
And after 9-e5.
G7 I guess, curl up into a ball.
He takes the right way.
Of course he takes the right way.
9-f7, g8.
This is incredible.
So this is a draw, Qe7.
If you are expecting this, dance.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because queen f8.
Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So maybe after rook g, yeah.
If after queen e7, maybe queen g7.
She's...still a bit scary, but I guess black is threatening rook f8.
What in the bishop's ompeissant is this?
Featured chat, surprised just like me.
Yeah, Rook f8 is coming.
Yeah, Qa7, Bxc8.
Although, maybe now White has time to play like Rook 1, Rook e7.
So after Qa7, Rook f8, I guess.
Yeah, and this will peter out to a draw, probably.
Wow, Prague.
This is why the top players are just so impressive nowadays, they always find resources even when
the game looks dead, even when we're writing it off.
It was like way yesterday against Bluebound, finding ways to play on, even when it looked
like...
I can't believe it, we didn't find F5, we were not even considering F5.
Yeah, 95 is just so natural though, you re-centralize a knight, double attack, but
F5 is...
And then you're just flashing it out.
best defensive moves. That's the strength way when it's really concrete.
Okay let's try and find moves we might have missed.
Or was f5 the last one? Well the problem is for
white that black is bringing back the bishop right?
But okay what happens if rook e1?
Yeah, 1. Is it Bb7? Yeah, you might as well see if white has a threat.
I mean, not much else. Bb7 pretty much, the only piece he can move.
If knight d8?
Every time we commentate together, you always mention these with knight e1 or knight d8.
And I'm going losing bishop e4 I think.
Ah, that's clever though.
That's not obvious.
I thought I can go knight e6 and knight e7, but there is a check on d6.
look at that look at three whoa three keep in the game alive
so after bishop b7 now just wants to look g3
Maybe rook d3.
Rook d3 and queen f4 rook g3.
Well, yeah.
Rook g4.
Queen d4.
Something already.
No, something.
Rook g6 can't work.
Yeah, I want to dance.
maybe 9d5 is the... Maybe just keep it simple. Just 9d5 now. Rx7 just take it. 9d6. Yeah, and 8 as well.
Whoa, this could still go in any direction. Suddenly the bar is slightly in black's favor but
it's hard to understand. Maybe does f4 just cut out any... No, f4 is still Rxd3. Rxd3.
Yeah. Okay, this is a crazy position. I've got no doubt that way he's going to burn some
of his time on the block. B4.
B4.
Is it g3?
No.
Covering the square.
Mm-hmm.
G3, Judith. And now, maybe White doesn't have a threat, so f4.
This could still become crazy.
Yup, a 4-richie-4.
What a position.
Okay, Judith, just while Wei Yi ponders what to do next, maybe B4 is a very clever one
to cover the D3 square.
We do have an interview with one of our winners today, Anish Gehry, closing the gap on first
place now in clear second.
with your grandmaster Anish Gehry who won his second game in a row.
Now do you think the fact that Fabiano really needed to win but got this really passive position
may have let his defensive skills down?
Yeah, absolutely. It definitely helped for sure.
So in the game, with the whole focus on this move C5,
now later you found out that C6 was actually an idea.
Is that kind of a weird one, the fact that you're focusing so much on Olympus Song,
but if you just pushed up on one square,
do you think that's like a not common pattern for you?
You know, it's like basically always the issue with C5 is DC,
and in that one position where I have Rook on Beto, the issue with C5 was something else,
and I didn't realize it, but the whole notion of then looking for C6 is just, yeah,
I mean, C6 never made any sense in the game, because anyway, C5-DC was the issue.
So it's sort of explicable. I think it's a completely explicable mistake,
but still, one you would want to make, of course.
point-and-a-half back you still have the head-to-head game coming up in round 13
with the leader what realistic are our chances do you have I mean I think I have
mathematics mathematical chances and also yeah I think they are better now than
they were two days ago probably absolutely you've been showing up at
the tournament hall first almost every single round first of all why is that
and secondly what are you thinking about in those extra 15 minutes it's
just our routine I like it like to have a margin there's also I think
I'm fine if you're late and that could be a later issue some fans asking for autographs
Also, it's just a routine we have and I don't see why to I mean honestly for me this I have extra like usually 10 minutes
It's always I like those extra 10 minutes
I think it's it's good to be walking from around 15 minutes and yeah
I can come five minutes later
But I don't see why gaining these five minutes at home like I would only be more anxious
I don't see any points
Are you certain about the tournament interesting, so I'll get you out of here with a follow-up to yesterday?
Did you talk with Sopico or Jonsmates? Have you watched the rest of the Netflix?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've watched actually the documentary. It was interesting because I was surprised that they revealed that
basically they might not have put all the blame on Daniel as far as I understand, which is something I was surprised.
a nice way to do everything I guess because you know you have like Hans okay
who sort of has this redemption in a way right because they and then you have
Magnus who always have a car because okay cars always likes to be there and
then you have like Magnus who puts all the blame on Denny and you have this
Eric yeah who is like also total G yeah he's like yeah I'm the man and then
have Danny who basically takes the blame for everybody and he's like, hey, you know, I
messed up. And it's kind of nice because Danny, like, he also has this book and sort
of like feeling like, yeah, you know, like he can make mistakes. Why not? Sort of. Yeah.
And sort of a kind of happy end resolution thing. I think it's quite, quite nicely
they made that.
But you were CEO of this company. So, yeah, I wouldn't have happened under my leadership
Honestly, yeah, let's say, on just an interest monitor,
we will really make sure we got our effects straight
before we accuse anybody of cheating.
Our kidding aside, Anish Geary has made this interesting.
That's what the fans wanted.
Good luck keeping the wings free going.
Thank you.
Back to you guys.
Thank you, Anish, for the hot takes.
Judah, it's impressive that he's
able to keep up to date with the drama in the chess
world, with the Netflix documentaries.
He's clearly thinking about these things a lot.
So, winning now on the board.
Well, I think all the top players are having their own way
of getting their mind off the stress of the games,
of the preparation,
and because they have to, they can't do it.
It's not only this two and a half weeks of the tournament,
but they have this on their mind
for a few months beforehand.
They have to be in great preparation.
they have to be in the best form.
They do everything in order to get the maximum,
the best form they can be during this event.
And of course, you make your preparation,
but mental preparation is the most important maybe,
especially towards going to the second half
and towards going to the end of the tournament.
So how to relax, how do you switch off your brain?
It is, I think it's a key element and also how resilient you are and how you handle your mistakes.
That's where the main difference is between players, I believe.
And this is the big question.
Anish was always famous for being curious about the world and the happenings in the chess scene.
So it's never a surprise.
over I think whatever we hear an interview with him we can make sure that
he's going to be saying some updates and clear views of his own. Exactly that's
why he's got so many fans out there and you know I think even his fans would be
even his staunchest fans would be very impressed by the way he started the
second half he has yeah a big say in the rest of the event in the meantime
Wei Yi has not moved Judith he hasn't yet reacted to this threat of Ricky
D3 you spotted it yourself very cunning idea and it looks like it therefore has to be b4
to cover that spot or maybe the rook can move just so that the black queen can drop back
if Rd3 but this starts to look scary well it's not only that that it looks scary because
it is scary for him in the last 15 or 20 moves I believe I think what is interesting
here that probably f5 came as a sander from the blue sky and that makes it very interesting
that suddenly he thought everything is under control finally I'm saving it whatever he
was calculating it everything was just okay move to move and then he got f5 and maybe before
it was played maybe he saw it already but when he played the previous moves I don't
think he's so at five. He felt everything is somehow just okay. And at this point, suddenly
he has to realize that new patterns, new ideas came on the board. And to switch your
mind, especially that we are in the, what, fifth hour or already in the sixth hour almost.
And there was a lot happening in this game. A lot of things happening. It was a slow
start but then it was a full mass and complicated and then he was drowning between move something
like between 28 and 40 basically it went down completely to a lost position and then he's
back in business and now we find Ruxi seven which you suggested yeah Ruxi seven maybe
maybe even better than before because to have the rook possibly going to see one
at some point giving check. It can be annoying. Yeah, so White has to be careful of any checks
on the diagonal against the white king, but it's now covered. And we were saying maybe
Rg3 is an idea. Rg3 now doesn't get anywhere, I guess after Qg7. Well, and Nxd5 does not
come with a tempo and Black does not necessarily have to go Rg7. For example, if Nxd5,
Black go Qd6 or then Rd3 would be the move probably. So probably Black has to go Rg7 anyway.
Yeah that's fine. I think we looked at the same position just with the pawn on b4
and Rd3 is always met by Qf4 check. And after that Rg3. Yeah that's not 100% obvious.
I quite liked having the pawn on b4 because sometimes they will like bishop b5 ideas in
other lines maybe.
Here's g5 forced.
G5?
No other way to defend the pawn.
9f7?
Maybe just no threat.
This is still crazy, Judah, like it's still a three result game.
Yeah.
Not much time on the clock.
So kind of that moves Rg3, Rg3 and maybe knight to e5.
Maybe that's why I also black played Rc7 to try to make a move which is not the most
obvious because b4 is the obvious.
He must keep giving opportunities for white also to make mistakes or get somehow, but
knight e5 is on the board.
Yep.
Makes sense, Rg7 only moves as we discovered.
Okay, he's going to have to play that g5 line.
The bishop's still a bit offside, so I think we will be nervous.
But the b7 square is there.
just one with one tempo. 37 and this is where earlier we mentioned looks like
he's played it. We mentioned Nf7 as well but then Rg8. Nf7, Rg8, Qe7 and the
queen goes back to defend and all as well. Rf8 coming. Yeah it seems like
a very much possible way of continuing the game. This is going to be happening.
Yeah, probably this draw that we mentioned in our rook f8 and yeah, this looks very
peaceful for both sides. We see from Prague, okay, knight f7 has been played.
Rc8, Qe7, okay we predicted this at least. Yeah. Rg7 on the board.
Can he move? He keeps finding them. What about playing Rd3 and Rd7?
Root d3 or Root c3?
Root c3, Root c8, I thought.
Ah, okay.
And then I'll be clever and go back to d3.
Maybe no difference.
Okay.
Yeah, but Root d3, I agree.
I just wanted to go...
Is it Bishop c8?
Yeah, Bishop c8, but then maybe Root c3.
Then Root c3 and Root c7.
What's the difference in that Root c3?
How's black holding?
Rf8, Rc7, Kf5, Kg8.
Oh wow.
Okay.
This looks like a hold.
Looks like a good way, an f96.
Well, White could go Queen out,
but maybe Black should be doing without Bc8.
After Rd3 going Rf8 and Kg8, what do you think?
Aha, so, okay, we might find out, Rudy 3.
Okay, so we just want to move the head of the game.
The players are playing very quickly, because Prague doesn't have much time.
They made that move with four seconds left.
Unbelievable fight this game.
It always is with Prague these days, and Wei Yi as well, credits to him.
him fighting hard. Rf8, this is what you're saying, do that. Rx7, Ng8, similar stuff.
Probably a draw in multiple ways. Nxh6.
You can make a draw like this, a petrol check, or take and allow black to give a petrol check.
But okay, now Black has to make a decision whether playing rook f8 or bishop c8 first.
I think visually this makes sense just to cover some squares and the bishop was always hanging
on a6.
Yeah, but at the same time after rook c3, rook f8, rook c7, the bishop is hanging in some
cases on c8.
That's true.
probably it's not enough. Rook c3 on the board. Speaking of not enough we
haven't updated anyone on Nakamura yasupenko because that looks like it
should be a draw not enough for Nakamura to win. No big developments there.
This is where the drum is at for now.
King g8, only move again.
I've lost track of how many only moves he's found to survive in this game,
where he is probably the easiest of the bunch, but yeah, just impressive.
David, were you the one to say three decisive games?
Yes, yes.
It's going to be your day!
It wasn't just me, Judith, it was also most of the chat, or the largest proportion of
the chat.
I did say, I predicted as well, one decisive game in the open, and two in the women's.
So I won both.
Time to go to buy a lottery ticket, you know?
Yeah, if the shots are still open here, I would
Finally, it's only taken me five days to get prediction rights, but maybe there'll be a twist a late twist
In the meantime unbelievable game
It's just a brilliant game with with all its mistakes
Well, Prague you see is annoyed at himself because now he knows he's definitely not winning with the Queens off still down a pawn
It looks inevitable. We'll see some kind of draw, maybe a6. White can take on c8, play Rooki6.
Heartbreaking when we said earlier like blowing these winning positions, it was similar for Sinderov today.
But of course Sinderov has some... he has a lead to play with.
Extra points in his pocket to allow to himself to do something like this, probably can afford it.
Yeah, for Prague you'll feel that he's just too far behind now to have any realistic hope.
Same for Wei Yi.
They wanted to win, they wanted to win, but it's just a pregnant and draw.
I like it. I like it. I haven't been so good with the puns this tournament, still plenty
of time. Judith, what else could black be thinking about here other than maybe a6?
I don't know, maybe also f4 and bring out the bishop at some point or f4 and f3. But
Of course the knight on d6 is extremely powerful. Rd8 is something you can think of.
Yeah, Rd8 as well. I was just reluctant to start giving pawns but probably it's just
no big deal.
Yeah, Rd8, knight b5, going a6, knight a7, bishop d7.
I'll show that. Rxd8, yeah, yeah. This would be a nice trap.
Yeah, and suddenly white is in. After a6 you don't go knight a7 because your knight can
be trapped.
I'll be flashed and I'll go knight back to d6 and make a draw.
But okay, then already White is who is trying, it's not funny, takes, check, king f7, takes,
rook b6.
This is not how you want to draw with White.
True, true.
Draw, draw, but you know, black king is coming up f4.
Let's look for something better.
So maybe after rook d8, maybe Nxc8 and rook a7 is.
But then...
Yeah.
probably. A6. I'm expecting him to do the same just slightly different version now like
just no reason to play on now for white just take the bishop. Can we go for a moment to
play game because there is an interesting pattern I think it would be nice to show to
our audience. Okay the Nakamura game let's do it. Yes. Let's jump over. Let's jump
over because here there was rook d5 played a minute ago and that's an interesting
moment because you can say that it sucks one but black goes rook h8 defending
the h5 so white has no time to play now white should be like putting the rook on
d3 and play b4 yeah I've white had the point here and king pushed the king then
White's winning but no time. So Asipanko is a king in this it seems. You know every bit of this
difficult rook hand game all these patterns. I guess he's got plenty of waiting moves if white
just sticks the king out, pokes the head out then he gets checked back. If white waits rook e3,
Rc3 then that can also wait. Yeah, Rc5, yeah this is a very nice pattern. Not risking
King g3, even though that might still be a draw, but Rh8 is always the answer.
No, but Rg5 now, hold on. I was thinking with the king on g4.
No, probably you have to go King g4 back. Yeah, that's the waiting move.
move and then rook h4, rook h8 sorry. Important that king c3, rook h8 and the white rook can't
get back. Okay, he's trying to get his king out, he's not going to make the same silly
waiting move that I did. Black's going to give a check. Yeah, there's just no way,
way through. Great defense from the Ace of Henko. King d2 is the choice. And in the meantime,
update that the pregnant Nanda against Wei Yi game was indeed a draw as we expected. It
was a frustration from Prague. He actually offered the draw as he took the bishop on
c8. Nothing left to play for in that Rook end game. And Wei Yi breathes a sigh of relief.
He was on the back foot the whole time and that leaves us with one. This Rook
Rb8 pattern, he's found the best way and shown he knows how to get the drop done.
Not much to try here for white.
Nakamura is not giving up, giving in so easily to a draw. FC Panko has to fight for
So now the plan of Hikaru is to bring back his king to defend the pawn on g3 and hoping
to give a check on d4 and push b4 and then bring back his king.
But it's not so easy to do that.
Not so easy at all.
King b2, king b4.
Okay, he's gonna play rook b4. I was trying to work out if h4 was a draw,
but I think it better to wait for the white king to go further away anyway, just in case.
But for example, now if king f2,
like black cannot go king h3 for example.
I think it would be, would it be losing or no? I had an idea to go rook c3. Isn't it winning?
It says no, but why is it not winning? Good question, Judith. Is it?
Is it g4 only draw?
No, I think yeah. Maybe it's the only move.
Because if black goes Rb8, then Rc4.
Yeah, but maybe this is also just in time.
Ah, Tx and Kg4.
Yeah, the rule of the square that Magnus claimed not to know about the black king is in.
Okay, he didn't go King h3, he doesn't risk it.
Oh, Rc3 was the idea.
King f2, played.
Ikaro's face does not seem to be happy.
He understands that there is a very slim chance that the second ko will go wrong.
And this is where, Judith, we loop it all the way back,
bring it full circle and talk about the increment,
like without increment, if it was four minutes versus four minutes,
maybe you have some chances tricking the opponent or doing some flagging,
but with an increment, yes, PENCO has all the time in the world
for at least 30 seconds every move to figure out the pitfalls to avoid the blunders.
Yeah, I understand what you're saying, that flagging is a serious issue and problem and
fact these days.
He's bringing his team back.
Yeah, very nice touch there, because Rx4b4 may have been a threat, Rx4 check, now Rx5
check, you'll keep going back, I think I might test him there slightly.
Rx5 game g6.
And then White has to come back to protect the pawn.
Yeah, he's very confident here, if the white king ever comes forward, he's going to get checked from the front.
Yeah, he understands what he's doing.
And it only moves 67.
Oh, wow, 67.
Big moments.
Big moment for me at least, with my prediction.
Okay, Rxd3, he waits. He's just hoping now, I think, for Hikaru for Kg4, so he can make progress.
This position, yeah.
Is it Kg4? No, that would be the mistake.
Yeah, he'll play Rb4 or something along those lines.
Probably he can go simply King g6 as well.
Yeah, King g6, King f5.
He's been playing Rb4 as his waiting move, so okay, plays Rb7.
He's married to this check from the front idea now.
Yeah, just out of curiosity, like if Black could play King g4, is it lost now?
not before, somewhere before. Apparently not lost but that's only because black can
start bringing the rook around and behind just in time. And while we wait for
Hikaru to try and find one more plan to test his opponent I'm gonna bring back
Jon who yeah it's been witnessing a long day today but what do you think Jon?
Am I gonna win the bet? Finally am I gonna win the predictions? I think
going to win the bet, David, but I also think you're getting points docked for sending chat into a
meme-fueled frenzy every time you're on screen. But what's the chat about that behavior after it ends?
For now, we've still got a rook and pawn ending. I was saying earlier how I'm the quantum physics
observer of rook and pawn endings. They're all drawn until I say they're drawn, and then
suddenly someone makes a blunder. So you never know. It's not over till it's over. The game
The game is ongoing as it currently stands, guys.
It is the final game to conclude in today's coverage of the candidates, so we're going
to grab a brief break.
Hopefully you've got your tea and coffees ready and topped up if necessary, and we'll
get to the conclusion of this game upon our return.
See you soon.
Let's go!
We're back with the final game of round 9 of the Fidei Candidates 2026, Ikoru Nakamura
still pressing looking for an opportunity against Andre Yesipenko, currently very much
a theoretical draw but that is not stopping our players pushing.
I want to talk to both of you about the tournament situation and a winning or even a losing sometimes
mentality.
Judith, I'm sure you've been in this situation many times.
It looks like you're trying to milk blood from a stone at this point.
But when you're in Hikaru's position and you're thinking, I can get my candidates actually
off to a pretty good start in the second half.
If I find a way to win this, you have to keep pushing, even if it looks like
It's hopeless. What do you do in these situations? How do you switch your mentality mid game? It's something so many chess players struggle with
Well, of course, he wants to try it. He knows exactly that it's a draw
But it's another kind of game where you try to exhaust your opponent
You're playing for time of course also that he may be
Confused after some time. I've seen this so many times playing carp of for example
I remember that Magnus was playing a different color Bishop against Fabiano in their match,
and I was commentating that, well, I don't really understand why Magnus is playing, and
then Magnus was complaining.
Of course, he knows it's a draw.
Yeah, we all know it's a draw, but there are some positions you can play, and there
are some positions maybe some people think you cannot play.
This is kind of a position which I understand to a certain point, but of course with
Hikaru this game is crucial because he won a very important game yesterday and if he would win today
two in a row it would be a completely different second half of the tournament for him that's
okay he wins two in a row and nobody can stop me and everybody will be so scared of me even
having an equalish position so it is very clear I think that he is going to be fighting for
probably some time. It's part of the sport. It's part of the game that you're trying to squeeze out
every drop of this stone, but it's a fact that black has to be falling apart mentally in order to
not to draw this game. And a question for the grindmaster himself, David Howell,
when you're in these kind of positions, it's very easy for observers, for us
commentators, for chat, for anyone watching casually to go, well, this is
clearly just a draw. Why don't they draw it and go home? But at the same time, how
many times have people said that about a position that's not point not not that
Magnus was playing, that he found a way to squeeze a result out of 50 or 60
moves later? You co-wrote the book with him. How do you tell the
difference between a game where there's a flicker of hope and a game where, okay, you really
can just pack it up and go home.
Great question, John.
I think the only positions where Magnus are pwned up in an end game where he would agree
a draw is if it's about to be stalemate.
If it's totally done, if he's tried everything, tried the 50 moves and the opponents passed
all the tests here, there's still some small questions to answer.
chess etiquette dictates that Yesapenko, he can't offer the draw. He's the only one fighting
for that draw. Hikaru will be trying everything possible. It's just about that 1%. Maybe he
wins this position one time out of 100. But at the top level, everyone is so good. And
that extra 1% can set you apart. If it happens to come in a key tournament like the candidates,
that can be the key. But here, there's still life left. There's tricks left. Yesapenko
had this exact position pretty much a few moves ago could have played Rook g8, Rook takes g3,
just ended the game on the spot but has yet to prove himself fully. So it is just, as you said,
Jon, the psychological side. You outlast your opponent, you set one trap here, then you just
play five, six moves, you set another trap and eventually your opponent might be down to 30
seconds when you set that final question. They might fall for it, but yeah, this one we're
very much expecting it to be a draw. But I'm very impressed that Heikaru is showing his
determination. He's not eager to run back to the hotel room, film that recap, talk to his stream.
He knows that this might be it. If he doesn't win this game with white against the lowest-rated
player or one of the lowest-rated players in the field, then I think his candidates is done.
Oh, at least the race for first place. So it shows how much he means to him,
shows that he's a grinder in nature himself these days.
Well, you don't get to 2,800 plus by not taking those 1% chances, so Hikaru Nakamura here.
After having a, has to be said, by his standards, a bad start to the tournament, Judith, he's
showing us what kind of a fighter he really is.
He's showing us that his level is absolutely up there with the best in the world and we've
seen some fantastic chess from him in the last couple of days and he is determined
to make every opportunity count.
So it's great to see.
I leave this game in your capable hands as we see if he can wrangle any advantage out
of this position.
Back to you.
Well, thanks John.
It is a big question how Nakamura can give tasks for Yasi Panko that he's not going
to be playing it by heart every move, right?
This is the big question.
how to pull in Yesipenko to make a mistake, to make an inaccuracy, to make him nervous.
And yes, somehow probably you have to go with the king another five times around the board
and then maybe he's going down to five seconds.
Right Davin.
Exactly.
And I mean that last move, I have table-based open now so computers up there, they've
They've crunched the numbers and in that last position, for example, they were the most obvious moves and he showed the pattern before, but Rb8 and D8 were the only two drawing moves.
So like he said, he has to find a scenario where maybe the only drawing move isn't an obvious one and ideally, Espenko is down to under one minute and then the chances arise.
But at this point he has attempted most squares with the white rook, most squares with the king.
He's gone forward, hasn't worked, he's gone back, hasn't worked.
So he is running out of steam here a little bit, Hikaru.
Impressed it's going on, feels like one of the games that Hikaru will look back on and say,
okay, there were chances even if the opponent defended perfectly, but ultimately a draw looks inevitable.
Yeah, the problem is I think in this position that there is not too much
moments where black can go wrong because rook b8 move was so important back
like 15 moves or 20 moves ago that to keep the rook distance from the pawn on
b3. And the other thing is that the king you should always be around the
g3 pawn and when the h5 pawn is attacked, then you're just protecting it with the rook.
So there is not so many details that black has to be taking care of.
But on b2, Hikaru was there before, but I think also Hikaru is getting exhausted.
I mean, they are playing already for quite some hours, five and a half hours, almost six.
Yeah, over five and a half now.
And okay, he's trying a couple of last things.
The rook goes to e5.
Now the black king has to go back and defend.
Yes, because rook h8, rook g5, right?
And game would be over.
King g4 only move but yes Panko has found this pattern before and again the white king can't
stick its neck out can't just edge forward without getting checked.
Okay this is what Hikaru wants.
If it were this position with white play, still then King c3 would be met by Rook to
h8 and the g3 pawn would be hanging.
He's found it.
Yes Panko will play Rook h8.
something very similar, I think that was just with the rook on the d-file, so back to previous patterns here.
And again, important that black goes back to b8, stopping the pawn from moving to b4,
because once the b4 would be played, that would be already the winning position for white.
Let me see when he carrued that he's disappointed that he was so close at the same time so far.
Away from victory.
Yeah, that's been the story of the tournament for many players actually, mistransits and just not quite getting that winning killer instinct that Cinderhoff shown that Anish is suddenly discovered.
But you know, it's interesting that for example, what a player gains from such a game that he
was playing it for six hours and squeezing the opponent, grinding. Next time, most likely,
the opponents would try to avoid maybe this kind of droish, equalish position because they understand
that they are going to be sitting there for six hours. So maybe they are going to make a
a different decision in the opening choice or later on that, well, maybe I should be more
active and sacrifice a poem before. So it does form a player and how the others are looking
at them. Because now you see that he kind of will sit there for four hours, for five
hours, six hours, no matter how many hours, he's going to try to pull you in to make
make a mistake. He knows he wants to win this game and that's the only chance that he's
enjoying the tournament, that he can do the maximum. But eventually in this game it will
be not enough but he still gains respect from many players that he does not have enough
points to be a real candidate to qualify. But still he's sitting there for six hours,
not giving up and he's so disappointed look at his face and he's moving and doing it.
Yeah it's funny you mentioned that Judith because I 100% agree and like from personal experience
when I was young I was more of an attacking player and the antidote like older players were
trying to grind me down they were trying to get the queens off get these positional battles
as soon as I was a bit older I started grinding these types of things myself.
Now I find that people keep queens on even when objectively it might be a bit worse for them or
they try anything to dodge these fixed pawn structures or they try not to give me the two
bishops, they might have to concede something but they're just so scared of the grind even if
it's not realistic that psychologically it kind of pushes your opponent into
uncomfortable situations. So I 100% agree and maybe it'll pay off later this tournament for
Ikaru. Hopefully the energy levels won't be too damaged ahead of tomorrow but again it's just
just playing for the small, minimal incremental gains.
And occasionally it pays off, but as we reach move 84,
body language shows that Hikari might be about to give up
his winning attempts.
Yeah, it seems so that he's kind of
maybe ready to give up at the same time.
time. In chess we've seen actors, right? Okay, I'm done. Okay, I'm fine. I'm already giving
to a draw, right? Like nobody's paying attention anymore. But if you make a mistake in the end,
don't worry, I catch you. And I win the game. But, okay, I just make moves. I'm not paying
That's very true, there's many actors out there, few actors and bad actors, some you
can tell, you can read through them that they're just bluffing but some are quite good and convincing.
And okay I would refuse the draw if you offered it from our featured chat. I'm assuming
you mean Yesapenko offering the draw, maybe you'd say no to Ikara as well, that would be a
bold move. But I guess, you know, now that he is the oldest
player in the tournament, Judith, like energy levels. I mean,
it looked from yesterday that he'd come back refreshed, he'd
come back reinvigorated, he fought on ground down Fabiano,
but yeah, maybe if it's a series of longer games, that could
get to him. I think probably the best strategy against
Cinder in the first half of the tournament would have been
something like this rather than a chaotic double pawn
sacrifice where it was all about theory. I think if he'd
You've done this a bit more in the first half, hey Kory you might have been a bit more successful.
Well it's very difficult, what strategy to take in a tournament where you have one shot, right?
And it is very difficult, like these players were living in a life for three months, four months.
that this candidate, if you win, it can change your life.
Because in this candidate, everybody
thought that the person who wins the tournament
will have a great chance to become a world champion, right?
To play against Gokash, because Gokash is a fantastic player.
But he was not showing that performance which he
was expecting from himself.
And also what others may be expecting.
He's extremely young and amazing nerves
and amazing chest knowledge.
So for the players, it was even more pressure
because they felt that if they can win this,
there is a great chance that they can become world champions.
So there is a double or triple pressure on the players
and especially when you are the oldest participant
and you know that it might be the last occasion
that you want to go through
on these difficult months of preparation
while Hikaru is a world famous top streamer,
content creator and the chess promoter on every level.
Yeah, and to top it off, I mean,
not just the fact that they'd be favorites
against Gukash or fancy their chances,
but the field before the event just looks so open.
It looked like it'll be super close.
It'll be half a point here and there,
but the whole tournament strategy had to change
for most of them when they realized
that there was a runaway train in front of them,
just streaking off into the distance, win, win, win,
and leaving everyone else in the dust.
And yeah, it's hard to change strategy mid-tournament
when maybe he wants to grind every game
and suddenly found himself one and a half,
two points behind and put pressure on himself.
But yeah, he's still trying, Hikaru,
but both players look pretty relaxed now.
If he's haven't played.
And actually, Hikaru goes under a minute.
Yeah, that's the thing with increment.
Like he can let his time drop,
but Yesapenko built up a time bank back over five minutes.
So hard to test.
Hard to test his opponent now.
Back to F3.
We've seen something very similar before.
I think with a rook on B8,
where it goes back to.
Okay, just making moves. I wonder when the last pawn move or capture was, Jidak?
It's been a while. It was maybe more 60 or something. Yeah, I think it was 51 already.
51, the last capture. With 40 moves in, 10 moves away from the 50 move rule.
Ikari looks unhappy, shaking his head, but I don't think he can blame himself. He did everything, he did everything right, maxed out what looked like a totally drawn position.
Well, he did more than most of the people would be able to get out of that position.
Yeah, more than we expected.
And credit to Yesapenko for holding under pressure
for most of the last 60, 70 moves.
OK, every move seems to draw here.
Every logical move.
Yeah, the question is whether he wants to go rook.
He goes check and goes back.
Hikaru is smiling to himself. It looks like maybe this is it, maybe this is the moment.
And there we go. It's a handshake. The last game of the round does conclude. It is a draw.
Not what Hikaru Nakamura wanted, but he tried everything in the process. And that wraps
up round nine of the candidates today. John, what a round it's been. A marathon round.
Long, long games and some big results for the standings.
Yeah, it absolutely has. And the biggest call-out result I would imagine is Anish Giri winning
his clash with Fabiano Caruana to become the player who is closest to Sindarov and chasing
him. That gap is still large. It's gone from two points to one and a half. So a couple
more days like this, and we could be in for some very interesting standings indeed.
Here's how they currently look after round nine. Sindarov still leading, of course,
one and a half points, the only player to not have suffered a loss. Geary, however, moving up
as his closest challenger, which is very interesting stuff indeed, the chasing pack then also very
close behind with Fabi slightly ahead and Yesapenko slightly behind, but realistically
this could be turning into a two-horse race. A little early to officially call that depends
perhaps on what happens tomorrow, but it's looking very likely. If we head over to the
women's as well, there's so much going on. Let's go ahead and break down some of the
results you've had today, arguably Judith, some of the bigger fireworks you've seen today in this
section. Well, between ladies, Vaishali and Deviya was the biggest clash for me, but
for Divya, she made a blunder sacrifice. It was not clear at the middle of the game when she played
Nd7 and after that, I mean Vaishali had a little better position, more comfortable position,
but there it was something that Vaishali played very well. Rook sacrificed once, twice, three
times, so she did win that game in style. And well, we see a fantastic guide on first place
with Zuhend and Vaishali but of course we see also Anna Mozicciuk with half a point behind
and she had a fantastic winning chances game today against Tan but she was not able to convert
her advantage she was not careful she made mistakes and this way she is now behind half a point
while two rounds ago she was ahead in the lead. So David we now go from five joint leaders
down to two. But if I'm being honest, this is still extremely wide open, a lot harder
to call the race than the open.
Exactly. Even the players all the way down to seventh place in the women's will say that
they have some measure of fate in their hands. They're one and a half points off the lead,
but they will be playing some of those leaders. It feels like at this point everyone's beating
everyone in the women's and it's just about being consistent towards the closing stages.
Momentum would be great. Maybe avoiding defeat for those leaders is going to be
the key over the next few rounds. I think Anna Muzitruk is going to be the unhappiest
of the bunch just on the way the last 24 hours have gone yesterday and today. Many missed
opportunities. She could have been the runaway leader if things had gone differently.
So there concludes, ladies and gentlemen, our coverage of round nine of the FIDE Candidates
20-26. The story, not quite as clear cut as we thought it could be in the open because
the gap to Sindarov has narrowed. It's gone from two points to one and a half but all of the players
are running out of time to catch the leader of the tournament. In the women's it's still very
much anything goes but we're starting to see a couple of players pull away. The question is whether
they'll be able to keep their momentum or whether everyone will keep beating everyone up and we
start to see another four or five away tie. Anything can still happen there. We hope
that you'll join us for our broadcast tomorrow, it's same time, same place over here on these
channels on Twitch and YouTube, and we hope that you have enjoyed the broadcast tonight,
as much as we have enjoyed bringing it to you. Stay safe wherever you are, and we look forward
to welcoming you back in the morning. Good night.
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