The Week in Chess

Dommaraju Gukesh is on the verge of victory in the FIDE Candidates tournament in Toronto. A win in the final round with the black pieces against Hikaru Nakamura would guarantee first place. Half a point behind is his opponent Nakamura as well as Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi who face each other. Gukesh could well win the event with a draw, the other players need a win. There could also be a two way tie, this will be resolved by rapid followed by blitz, if necessary.

Gukesh beat 20-year-old Alireza Firouzja whose entire campaign has been undone by his highly emotional approach to chess. Unless Firouzja learns to calm down I don't see how he can move forward. This was a double edged Berlin Defence where Firouzja was at least equal, 32...g5 was a misguided attempt to play for a win I guess but it rebounded and left Firouzja on the defensive. 43...Kh8?! (43.Qg6+!=) was a step in the wrong direction 44...Rg8? (44...Qg6 again) 45.Qg5?! (45.Qh6!) 45...Qg6? ( 45...Ne6! last chance to fight really) after which white didn't make any mistake in converting. Gukesh probably will play solidly against Nakamura and see where that takes him.

Hikaru Nakamura surprised Ian Nepomniachtchi with 4...Bc5 in the Ruy Lopez and was clearly well prepared. It does seem like he mixed up that preparation as 14...d5?! (14...d6 is fine) gave white chances if he'd found 17.d5! As it was 17.Bc2 roughly equal and they drew by repetition on move 27. Nepomniachtchi was really the one who could play on and given the size of his task in the final round perhaps he should have.

Fabiano Caruana continued to be in must-win territory in this round and he delivered beating Praggnanandhaa with the black pieces in a gruelling grind. In such a long game it's hard to pick things out but 15.Qh3?! (15.Rb1!) handed Caruana a nice initiative and he was quite soon hugely better. 25...Nxe1 grabbing the exchange was entirely natural but it left Caruana with a difficult task of breaking through but perhaps he thought he was fine with that. 40.f3 was forced opening the position a bit but the position was still about equal there. Once Queen's came off Caruana could slowly activate his Queenside pawn majority and although the engines quibble about his choices 67.c3? was the start of collapse from Praggnanandhaa and after 69.Ba1? the game was soon over.

Santosh Vidit tried a little bit against Nijat Abasov's Petroff but after great preparation and equality both players had no real motivation to continue and drew.

Round 13 Standings: 1st Gukesh 8.5pts, 2nd= Nepomniachtchi, Nakamura, Caruana 8pts, 5th Praggnanandhaa 6pts, 6th Vidit 5.5pts, 7th Firouzja 4.5pts, 8th Abasov 3.5pts,

Round 14 21st April at 19:30BST: Nakamura-Gukesh, Firouzja-Vidit, Abasov-Praggnanandhaa, Caruana-Nepomniachtchi.