The Week in Chess

The ninth round of the resumed FIDE Candidates Chess tournament in Yekaterinburg saw just one decisive game with Anish Giri defeating Wang Hao and this win moved him up into a share of second place half a point behind the leader Ian Nepomniachtchi. This total number of wins could and probably should have been higher today with MVL having a lucky escape against Ding Liren. Nepomniachtchi drew with black against Alexander Grischuk.

Giri produced a small surprise in choosing the Catalan against Wang Hao and he obtained a nice position where he could gradually improve. 27...g6 was a mistake that gave Giri good winning chances although 33.Rc4 allowed 33...Rd1 which the computers think is equal and 34...Qa7? (34...Qd6) was the decisive error after which Giri broke through to the seventh rank.

Grischuk chose an interesting variation of the Gruenfeld against Nepomniachtchi with 9.h3 and was pushing a little for a while but after 21.Rfb1 he was in time trouble in an equal position, 26.Bxf7 seems in retrospect a bit risky, the computers think Nepomniachtchi should take the exchange but instead he took the bishop and the game quickly burned out to a draw.

Kirill Alekseenko was pleased with his opening against Fabiano Caruana offering a pawn for a lot of compensation in a Giuoco Piano, Caruana found a solution that meant he had at least equality after 20...e5. 22.Nh4 seemed to be wrong and put Alekseenko under pressure. Computers like 26...Nxa4 a lot and although 26...Raf8 wasn't bad Caruana didn't get anything clear cut after that and the game burned out to a drawn Rook and Pawn endgame.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave started this resumed Candidates with two games with the black pieces and after yesterday's loss his whole campaign was hanging by a thread as he again had a lost position. Ding Liren played the super-sharp 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. h4!? and while MVL seemed fine for a while and probably knew some theory his 14.Neg5?! Nd4! brought about complications that were very favourable to white. after the sequence 28. Rb2 Nc5 29. Bxf5 Qxf5 30. Bxc5 dxc5 white was completely winning but Ding didn't make the best of these chances - in particular his mistimed 37.d6? just before time control threw away almost all of his advantage (Ding suggested 37.Rd2 after the game and said he missed 37...Re6), Ding should have kept such a committal move until after move 40, just as the Soviet school always taught. MVL's position remained not very nice but very much playable and he held on to draw.

Round 9 standings: 1 Nepomniachtchi 5.5pts 2 Caruana 5pts 3 MVL 5pts 4 Giri 5pts 5 Alekseenko 4pts 6 Wang Hao 4pts 7 Grischuk 4pts 8 Ding Liren 3.5pts

Round 10 pairings Wednesday 21st April 12pm BST: Caruana-Ding, MVL-Giri, Wang Hao-Grischuk Nepomniachtchi-Alekseenko.