Madrid Candidates 16th June to Tue 5th Jul 2022

[Tim Harding]

Nepo crushes Firouzja, moves to +2. Seems he is up for a re-match with Magnus...
Caruana probably just hanging on for a draw, P down in R ending v Ding.

Oddschecker looks way off.

[Mick Norris]

Nepo to plus two!

Yes, off to a good start again, but the question will be, as we're unlikely to stop halfway through again, can he maintain it over the 14 rounds

[JustinHorton]

Nepo to plus two!

Yes, off to a good start again

Unlike myself in the predictions business, as Nepo's win and two draws put me on 0/3. I still have a chance in Ding v Caruana though, in which I predicted a draw though I confess that looking at the position (after Black's 26th) I would expect to be winning if I reached it as White. (Quite wrongly, apparently, the computers see no advantage of any significance.)

[Tim Harding]

Commentators are confident Caruana will hold this.
Gustafsson said the 4v3 with Black having an e-pawn rather than h-pawn is good for the defence as he can (and did) play ...f5 and put his K on f6 to avoid being cut off on the back rank. And if White does succeed in creating a passed pawn it will be a useless h-pawn.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Nepo crushes Firouzja, moves to +2. Seems he is up for a re-match with Magnus...
Caruana probably just hanging on for a draw, P down in R ending v Ding.

Oddschecker looks way off.

But will Magnus be up for a rematch with him?

[Jonathan Bryant]

But will Magnus be up for a rematch with him?

My feeling is that Nepo probably at least as likely to be motivated by the prospect of not having to play Carlsen if he wins the tournament as he is by any other outcome.

[Tim Harding]

But will Magnus be up for a rematch with him?

My feeling is that Nepo probably at least as likely to be motivated by the prospect of not having to play Carlsen if he wins the tournament as he is by any other outcome.

Good point!

[Matthew Turner]

Nepo to plus two!

Yes, off to a good start again, but the question will be, as we're unlikely to stop halfway through again, can he maintain it over the 14 rounds

Having witnessed the hugging, selfies and general throng as the players left the hall, I'd say it is far from impossible that we won't be having a half time break again.

I am very surprised by quite how well Nepo is doing, but I'd say today's game was more of a failure for team Firouzja than a success for Nepo. Tomorrow's game Nakamura - Nepo already looks to be very significant for the tournament.

[Paul Cooksey]

I am very surprised by quite how well Nepo is doing, but I'd say today's game was more of a failure for team Firouzja than a success for Nepo.

It is hard to imagine Firouzja's team looked at rare move 15...Bc4 but did not reach the position after 20 Ng3 when he started to think. Generally he is getting very unbalanced positions with both colours, which is presumably what he wants, but could be doing worse than -1.

He took a decent break before the candidates, and reports are that he has been working hard on his chess. But received wisdom is improvement tends to be uneven and it might take some time for work to transfer into results. Perhaps Firouzja suffering from that effect. Maybe the opposite for Nepo, getting some of the benefit of his work for the Magnus match now.

[Mick Norris]

I've just caught up with the Chess by the Numbers event preview

Of course the cornerstone of our analysis, as always, is our computer model that simulates the event to translate the players’ Elo ratings into odds of winning first place. We will open this preview with the model’s projections, and then break down each participant in more detail. But we also have a lot of reason to be skeptical of exactly how accurate the model really is in this case, for a variety of reasons that are relatively unique to this particular tournament, and we will close this preview with a breakdown of all the extra reasons for uncertainty. Because to our mind, that only makes it more exciting to watch, as we have to wait and see what will ultimately happen!

So to summarize: everyone has a shot, the rating favorites are probably marginally more likely to win than those who are lower rated, but the uncertainty factor is through the roof here. Which as far as we’re concerned, uncertainty means excitement. This should be an amazing tournament to follow!

round 5 preview

Ian Nepomniachtchi took a huge stride forward in the fourth round, winning his second game of the tournament and snatching sole possession of first place in the standings when all the other games in the round were drawn. With this win, Nepo is now clearly the most likely player to win the tournament having now beaten the two highest rated players in the field and drawn the third, in just the first four rounds. That said, 10 rounds of play remain which is plenty of time for fortunes to shift dramatically, so let’s take a look at the current odds of winning for each player and how they changed from before the fourth round to after.

Round five offers us two high impact games between the four players currently rated most likely to win the tournament by our model, along with two other games featuring top seeds who have struggled so far and hope to right the ship. If we see some decisive results in any of those matchups it could have a huge impact on the eventual tournament outcome, particularly Nepo is involved in one of those results, but that impact could go either of two ways. It could clarify things greatly, perhaps locking Nepo in as an odds-on favorite, and perhaps setting us on the path toward an eventual winner with a very strong score. Or those decisive results could instead largely equalize the players, eliminate leads, and just generally sow chaos, increasing the chances for a winner who scores relatively low and perhaps has to eventually earn first in tiebreaks.

[Nick Burrows]

Round 5

Caruana 1–0 Rapport
Radjabov 1/2–1/2 Ding Liren
Firouzja 1–0 Duda
Nakamura 1–0 Nepomniachtchi

[JustinHorton]

Two Petroffs!

[JustinHorton]

Caruana agrees a repetition with Nepo. I put it to the panel that Magnus Carlsen would not have done that.

Magnus is on Chess24 right now saying pretty much this.

He's also puzzled by Radjabov playing 12 cxd5, perhaps having missed my advice here

[Mick Norris]

Two Petroffs!

Good news albeit I'm not at all sure about what Nepo is up to

[JustinHorton]

Firouzja draws with Duda. Nepo really struggling and Caruana less than comfortable.