The Week in Chess

Sergey Karjakin has finished the strongest in the last two Candidates tournaments and looks set to repeat the trick in Berlin. Karjakin started the event at the bottom of the field after losses in rounds 1 and 4. Wins in rounds 7, 9, 11 and now 12 have taken him to the top on tie-break from long term leader Fabiano Caruana who he defeated today.

Karjakin found a small wrinkle against Caruana's Petroff Defence with 11.Nd4 but it was the sequence 16.Bf3 Bg4 17.Bxd5! ("I should not have allowed that" - Caruana) that set up the win. After the exchange sacrifice white's position was significantly easier to play and after 22...Rd7 (22..Qe7 seems better) black was in trouble and Karjakin said he was pleased to find 27.Qf1! and brought home the point confidently after that.

Ding Liren finally won a game when he defeated Shakhriyar Mamedyarov with black. It looked like Mamedyarov was pressing but the computers aren't that optimistic for white calling it about equal. Perhaps this proved to be a problem later in the game, 29.Bc2 (29.Bd1) was the start of white's problems and 30.Bd3 (30.Nd3) soon led to a lost position. 43...Qa7+ picking up material had to be seen well in advance.

Alexander Grischuk would have been hoping to pick up the full point with white against a struggling Levon Aronian. Had Grischuk played 23.c5 this might have happened but something put him off the obvious move and after that Aronian had few problems securing the draw.

Vladimir Kramnik secured a large opening advantage against Wesley So and had many ways to bring home the full point. 32.Ne6? (32.f4!) seems to have been the mistake that cost the full point because after that Wesley So held quite comfortably.

With two rounds to go Karjakin leads on tie-break from Caruana with Ding Liren, Mamedyarov and Grischuk half a point further back. 2/2 or 1.5pts from any of these could make life very interesting for them.

In the event of a tie, the following tie breaks are used, in order:
Results in the games between the tied players;
The most number of wins;
Sonneborn–Berger score;
If all these are level (which I highly doubt is possible right now) then there will be rapid and blitz games.

Round 12 Standings: 1st Karjakin 7pts, 2nd Caruana 7pts, 3rd Ding Liren 6.5pts, 4th Grischuk 6.5pts, 5th Mamedyarov 6.5pts, 6th Kramnik 5.5pts, 7th Wesley So 5pts, 8th #Aronian 4pts.

Rest day Sunday 25th March 2018.

Round 13 Monday 26th March 2pm GMT: Mamedyarov-Grischuk, Ding Liren-Kramnik, Wesley So-Karjakin, Caruana-Aronian.

Round 14 Tuesday 27th March 2pm GMT: Grischuk-Caruana, Aronian-Wesley So, Karjakin-Ding Liren, Kramnik-Mamedyarov.