2016 Candidates Moscow 10-29 March

[Roger de Coverly]

The knights will win the day.

I would have thought the bail out plan for White, should he need one, is to sacrifice the exchange to eliminate the d pawn. It's then Queen and two Bishops against two Rooks and probably a Bishop and Knight, but with just the King side pawns remaining, there are few winning chances for either player.

[Roger de Coverly]

Giri has now been induced to play .. h5, so Topalov has got his h4 tempo loss back. This was provoked by playing Nc3-e2-g3 after defending the e4 pawn with Qc2.

They are now in one of those typical Benko endings where White has the extra pawn, but cannot do anything more useful with it than to defend it. The engine doesn't say "advantage Giri", but it might be in practice.

[JustinHorton]

Takes me back. I used to play the Benko long before Giri was born.

[NickFaulks]

If Karjakin does draw this ( which is the way I would bet ) I shall be very impressed. My guess is that he was outprepared and found the queen sac as the best way to hang on.

[NickFaulks]

Svidler has just gone down in a most awful heap. Free point for Anand.

[JustinHorton]

I wonder if he missed Rg4?

[LawrenceCooper]

If Karjakin does draw this ( which is the way I would bet ) I shall be very impressed. My guess is that he was outprepared and found the queen sac as the best way to hang on.

I'm beginning to think that he may be the one with winning chances if Caruana isn't careful.

[MartinCarpenter]

The one thing the official coverage has which is great is the press conferences

Sounds like Svidler basically went off his position somewhat, saw some plausible ways for Anand to go wrong and tried it.

Nice game wasn't it? Rxe4 definitely isn't an easy move, and whites attack has very few spare pieces/squares so definitely needed calculating quite well.

[Mick Norris]

If Karjakin does draw this ( which is the way I would bet ) I shall be very impressed. My guess is that he was outprepared and found the queen sac as the best way to hang on.

I'm beginning to think that he may be the one with winning chances if Caruana isn't careful.

Caruana certainly taking enough time to indicate he sees problems

[Barry Sandercock]

Karjakin certainly did well to draw that game. I'm glad I got his autograph at Hastings when he was 13.

[Mick Norris]

Topalov has held the draw against Giri

[LawrenceCooper]

Topalov has held the draw against Giri

I suspect that the final game will also end in a draw although it will probably continue for some time.

[JustinHorton]

As the old saying goes, "all rook endings are drawn and never mind what the computer says".

[JustinHorton]

...but not this one!

I am absolutely gobsmacked

[Mick Norris]

Nakamura must have gone wrong somewhere, and in the process probably puts paid to his chances

4 - Karjakin, Aronian
3.5 - Anand
3 - Giri, Caruana
2.5 - Svidler
2 - Nakamura, Topalov

Rest day tomorrow

Saturday will give us the last games of the first half:

Karjakin - Aronian
Nakamura - Topalov
Giri - Anand
Svidler - Caruana