Candidates/World Championship Tournament 2016

[ajay]

Three rounds completed and in every round there was one result. While Anand took the lead in the first round, Karjakin and Aroninan have joined Anand at the top in 2nd and 3rd round. The results for the last two rounds are:

Round 2, Saturday 12 March 2016
Svidler Peter ½-½ Topalov Veselin
Aronian Levon ½-½ Anand Viswanathan
Caruana Fabiano ½-½ Giri Anish
Karjakin Sergey 1-0 Nakamura Hikaru

Round 3, Sunday 13 March 2016
Nakamura Hikaru ½-½ Svidler Peter
Giri Anish ½-½ Karjakin Sergey
Anand Viswanathan ½-½ Caruana Fabiano
Topalov Veselin 0-1 Aronian Levon

[ajay]

Anand loses in 4th round to Karjakin. Anand also loses his India #1 ranking in Live rankings for the first time in multiple decades. Today's loss means his rating points goes down to 2763.0 (Live ranking 14), while Harikrishna(Live ranking 13) is at 2763.3.

Once again, only one decisive result as in previous rounds. Here are the results:

Candidates Tournament 2016,
Round 4
Svidler ½ : ½ Aronian
Karjakin 1 : 0 Anand
Caruana ½ : ½ Topalov
Nakamura ½ : ½ Giri


Karjakin takes the lead in the Candidate Championship with 3.0 points through two victories and 2 draws. Aronian in 2nd spot (2.5 points) with one victory and 3 draws. Anand, Giri, Caruana, and Scidler are tied 3rd with 2.0 points.

1 Russia Karjakin 2760 X 1 ½ 1 - - - ½ 3.0
2 United-States Nakamura 2790 0 X ½ - - - ½ ½ 1.5
3 Netherlands Giri 2793 ½ ½ X - - ½ ½ - 2.0
4 India Anand 2762 0 - - X 1 ½ ½ - 2.0
5 Bulgaria Topalov 2780 - - - 0 X 0 ½ ½ 1.0
6 Armenia Aronian 2786 - - ½ ½ 1 X - ½ 2.5
7 United-States Caruana 2794 - ½ ½ ½ ½ - X - 2.0
8 Russia Svidler 2757 ½ ½ - - ½ ½ - X 2.0

[ajay]

Anand escapes with a draw! Never mind, just kidding as Anand was playing against his bête noire Nakamura. Anand went for an early draw even though he had white. Probably, he needs sometime to overcome the shock of defeat from last round, or just to conserve energy as its a long tournament. The only silver lining with this draw is that Anand(2763.4) recaptures his position as India # 1 from Harikrishna(2763.3) by slimmest of the margin just after one day.

Update: Round 5 - First time all draws in this tournament .

Anand, Viswanathan Nakamura, Hikaru ½-½
Aronian, Levon Caruana, Fabiano ½-½
Giri, Anish Svidler, Peter ½-½
Topalov, Veselin Karjakin, Sergey ½-½

[ajay]

Anand won an easy game where he destroyed Svidler in just 24 moves. Aronian is also looking good for another win against Nakamura. Let's wait and see if he gets the full point. The other two matches were drawn.

Round 6,
Caruana ½ : ½ Karjakin
Topalov ½ : ½ Giri
Aronian 1: 0 Nakamura
Anand 1 : 0 Svidler

Current position with one more point from Aronian-Nakamura game to be added. Aronian has a chance to join Karjakin on top or join Anand on 2nd spot. As expected, Aronina wins. Here is the updated position.

Code: Select all

#	Name	Pts	SB
1	Karjakin, Sergey   	4	10.75
 	Aronian, Levon  		4	10
3	Anand, Viswanathan 	3.5 9
4	Caruana, Fabiano  	 3	9.25
 	Giri, Anish  			3	8.75
6	Svidler, Peter  		2.5 7.5
7	Topalov, Veselin		2	6.25
 	Nakamura, Hikaru		2	6

Update
Round 7,
Giri, Anish Anand, Viswanathan ½-½
Karjakin, Sergey Aronian, Levon ½-½
Nakamura, Hikaru Topalov, Veselin 1-0
Svidler, Peter Caruana, Fabiano ½-½

Round 8
Aronian, Levon Giri, Anish ½-½
Caruana, Fabiano Nakamura, Hikaru 1-0
Svidler, Peter Karjakin, Sergey ½-½
Topalov, Veselin Anand, Viswanathan ½-½

[ajay]

Anand just had another great win in the 9th round as he beats the joint leader of the 8th round Aronian with white. That means Anand once again leads the point table albeit jointly with Karjakin. Giri is fighting hard to get full point against Caruana. The other two matches were drawn.

This is a great comeback for Anand. He now has three wins (agains Topalov, Svidler and Aronina) and one loss against Karjakin. The chess world, especially the Russians and European countries are really tired of Anand. They keep wishing and predicting that Anand's time is over, he is dinosaur and should be extinct. But he keeps coming back. Remember how Kasparov used to say that Vishy's best time is over. He can no longer play at the highest level. Well, Kasparov has now shut up. All the talented youngsters of the current chess world still can't push Anand away.

With five round remaining, the tournament has become very interesting especially for Indians with Anand at the top.


9th round
Anand, Viswanathan Aronian, Levon 1-0
Giri, Anish Caruana, Fabiano ½-½
Nakamura, Hikaru Karjakin, Sergey ½-½
Topalov, Veselin Svidler, Peter ½-½

Code: Select all

#	Name	Pts	SB
1	Karjakin, Sergey   	5.5	
 	Anand, Viswanathan 	5.5 
3	Aronian, Levon  		5	
 	Caruana, Fabiano  	 5 	
5	Giri, Anish  			4.5	
6	Svidler, Peter  		4   
7	Nakamura, Hikaru		3.5	
8	Topalov, Veselin		3	

Updated the results after a draw between Caruana and Giri.

[PKBasu]

Remarkable comeback indeed by Anand. He seems to be settling down and getting more dominant as the tournament goes deeper. Let's hope he soars in the final five games!

[Prashant]

In the last five rounds, Anand has white pieces vs Karjakin & Giri, and black vs Nakamura, Svidler & Caruana.

It looks like the round 11 game Anand-Karjakin shapes up to be very crucial. Karjakin is ahead on tie-break right now.

[Tolamu]

Vishy resigns- Caruana joins Karjakin in the lead.

A guy named Jonathan Tisdall tweeted

A voice inside me wonders how many times Vishy would have resigned Caruana's position against Giri in the previous round

[ajay]

A setback loss and another setback loss barely avoided in the cricket field. The day is salvaged with Bangladesh's foolishness as they just lost their head and surprised India with an unwanted sacrifice and exit from the T20 world cup, leaving India with a chance to rebuild their campaign. Hopefully, Anand will comeback from this setback and rebuild his campaign too as he is just 1/2 points behind the leaders Karjakin and Caruana. (The later had an unbelievable escape in the last round against Giri.) For Anand with white, it will be now a must win match against Karjakin tomorrow. Can he come with some trick tomorrow?

[Tolamu]

Anand has slowly turned the screw on Karkajin and may get another bounce-back win

I hope he wins and draw level in the top.

[prashanthm]

Anand has slowly turned the screw on Karkajin and may get another bounce-back win

I hope he wins and draw level in the top.

Vishy won't be able to draw level at the top, not at least today as Caruana is winning his game with black pieces against Topalov. Vishy, if he wins, which I think he will will still be half-a-point shy of Caruana after this round....

His resignation yesterday against Caruana hurts even more and could be the decisive factor in the end.... I hope not though....

Update: Scratch that, looks like Caruana committed hara-kiri against Topalov while in time-trouble and petered out all his advantage... Hopefully he'll lose now....

Update 2: Caruana's game is drawn. Now the onus is on Vishy to convert and join Caruana at the top...

[Tolamu]

Caruana draws, so Anand could be a joint leader(as I'm sure he will beat Karkajin)

[prashanthm]

Anand finally manages to win it after a long struggle...

He is now tied with Caruana at the top with 6.5/11

Karjakin stays at 6

Svidler managed to turn the tables on Aronian and Giri got his 11th straight draw of the tournament.. all 3 of them have 5.5 points...

3 games to go... Caruana has two whites, while VIshy has two blacks...

[ajay]

Anand plays black against Nakamura in the next round. Naka is in awful form with three losses and 1 victory (against worst performing Topalov). Although Anand has not had great results against Naka, but based on performance, can Anand bring some tricks with black to beat Nakamura.

After that Anand plays Giri with white and finally Svidler with black.

Caruana has some tough games as he plays Aronian , followed by Svidler, and finally Karjakin with black. Caruana has not lost a game. May be its time for him to lose one.

[Tolamu]

Anish Giri draws all the 11 matches. A joke doing the round in the chess-circles.

I forgot how many rounds have been played, then I remembered it's just Anish Giri points times two