The Week in Chess

All four games in the FIDE Candidates tournament in Yekaterinburg finished decisively with the leader Ian Nepomniachtchi's win over Wang Hao keeping his fate very much in his own hands. Anish Giri moved within half a point with a victory over Fabiano Caruana but his losing head to head score in this event against Nepomniachtchi is the first tie-break effectively making the lead a point. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave kept his small chances alive with a win over Kirill Alekseenko and he will have to go all out with the black pieces against Nepomniachtchi on Monday. Finally Ding Liren beat Alexander Grischuk, Ding is playing for pride and may want to show something in the final round against Nepomniachtchi.

Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri knew a draw in their clash would probably be no good to either of them, for Caruana in particular it was definitely a must win and he was happy with the opening but then it went wrong he said "After Qf8 I lost the thread. I thought I was pressing and that his position was very dangerous and then I couldn't quite see how to play it... I think I played very badly after Qf8."

Giri too identified 20...Qf8 as the turning point - he believed he was equal after this move and this was difficult for Caruana to handle as he really needed to win. Giri identified 23.Bd2?! as the moment he first stood better and Caruana's position really went downhill fast. On the run up to first time control Giri was a pawn up with a winning position - there was just one interesting moment when following 40... Ra2 41. Rb1! Giri found he was forced to go back as taking the Queen lost immediately but this only delayed the win by a few moves. Giri still needs some help to win the tournament but he's hanging in there.

Ian Nepomniachtchi played the solid Petroff Defence and playing quickly and confidently to get equality. Wang Hao said at some stage he started to tire and play very weakly, not being able to calculate accurately, 39.Re7? was the start of white's troubles but Nepomniachtchi too wasn't playing so accurately and as late as move 54 he had equality with best play (54.Rd8+) and 59.Ng3? was the losing error (59.Nd6 or 59.Rd4 and the game continues).

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was surprised by the Caro-Kann from Kirill Alekseenko but in return played 3.f3 - the Fantasy Variation - which he wasn't known to play. A sharp battle followed where MVL had reason to be very pleased with his play and he brought the full point home after first time control. MVL is a point and a half behind Nepomniachtchi but plays him on Monday.

Ding Liren won a tense manoeuvring game against Alexander Grischuk.

Round 12 Standings: 1 Nepomniachtchi 8pts 2 Giri 7.5pts 3 MVL 6.5pts 4 Caruana 6pts 5 Grischuk 5.5pts 6 Wang Hao 5pts 7 Ding Liren 5pts 8 Alekseenko 4.5pts.

Rest Day Sunday 25th April 2021.

Round 13 Monday 26th April 12pm BST 2021 Wang Hao-Caruana, Nepomniachtchi-MVL, Alekseenko-Ding, Grischuk-Giri.