The Week in Chess

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in the seventh round of the FIDE Candidates in Yekaterinburg and in doing so is leading on tie-break from his opponent at the half way stage of the 14 round event. Both players have 4.5/7 a point clear of the chasing pack of Caruana, Grischuk, Giri and Wang Hao.

MVL scored a convincing win on the white side of a French Winawer Variation and after the game was critical of his opponent's committal 18...c4? (18...Ke8 or 18...Rxb1 both seem better) 20...Rh8 also seems a waste of time in retrospect, white was much better at this stage and clearly winning around move 32. Perhaps 33...g6 was the last chance to set problems.

The remaining games were drawn. Anish Giri surprised Alexander Grischuk with 10.Ne3 in an English Opening but Grischuk reacted well with 10...h5! and 12...Qd4. Perhaps 18...Be6 was not the most accurate but black still seemed fine and the final precise move 26...Rc8 ensured a draw. Fabiano Caruana was not pleased to see the variation of the Petroff played today by Wang Hao "it's not the most popular line but it's a very good one" he said afterwards and admitted that he had to go for the endgame as he couldn't remember the sharp lines starting with 12.Bg5. 21...Kf7! and 22...c4! 23.Bf1?! left Caruana perhaps slightly worse but the game was drawn on move 41 without too many adventures.

Ding Liren against Kirill Alekseenko was a Catalan that could have become very complicated at various stages before they exchanged into a drawn rook endgame. 15.Ne5 was new, after 21...c5 it seems Alekseenko had equalised 26...Bd5 (26...Nxe2!?) steered the game to a draw.

Today Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared on TV and asked people to stay at home due to the Coronavirus from Saturday, 28th March to 5th April. It was quickly made clear following this that the Candidates tournament will not be affected and will continue tomorrow. There are few spectators and very few other people allowed in the venue which can followed online in many places and languages. In the UK at least the Coronavirus situation seems to become more serious by the day so I am still not confident about the Candidates being completed. If any of the players get sick for instance that will be the end of the event but there are surely other scenarios too. I'm grateful to have such an important event to watch and cover on the web site when pretty much all other chess activity has ceased.

Round 7 Standings: 1st-2nd  MVL, Nepomniachtchi 4.5pts 3rd-6th  Caruana, Giri, Wang Hao, Grischuk 3.5pts, 7th-8th  Ding Liren, Alekseenko 2.5pts.

Round 8 Pairings Thursday 26th March 2020 11am GMT: Caruana-MVL, Wang Hao-Ding Liren, Nepomniachtchi-Giri, Alekseenko-Grischuk.