E-Paper
Candidates: Firouzja and Pragg battle to a thrilling draw
It was a fitting game between the sport’s youngest superstars – intense, nerve-wracking, and never short on pyrotechnics.
What do you get when you have two, young imaginative players, unbound by convention and fearless in the face of complexity? A fiery draw ft. Alireza Firouzja and R Praggnanandhaa.
Firouzja was down to three minutes on the clock and his mate-in-one threat with Re8 stared Praggnanandhaa in the eye. The Indian had his hand on his head, contemplating the best way to shut down his opponent’s plan. He pushed his knight to the e5 square (32…Ne5) in a brilliant defence, blocking the e-file. Firouzja took it with the rook (33…Rxe5) leaving his h2 pawn unprotected. Praggnanandhaa mounted a dazzling defence and went on to move his Queen backwards to the h5 square leaving no room for White’s King to flee, delivering a perpetual check – where the position is repeated three times and the game ends in a draw.
Playing his second Candidates at the age of 20, the French-Iranian Grandmaster’s quirky choices in the Ruy Lopez were as unorthodox as the green bomber jacket with varsity patches he wore to a room full of business suits at the Candidates opening ceremony. He opened up his kingside early and the 18-year-old Indian debutant chose to respond with a somewhat risky capture (5..Nxe4), choosing to play the Open Ruy Lopez, one of Black’s best defences.
A fitting game between the sport’s youngest superstars – intense, nerve-wracking, and never short on pyrotechnics.
“Both deserved to win…But a draw is certainly a very good start for both of them,” five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand said on the commentary, “Alireza managed to put a lot of pressure and Praggnanandhaa defended phenomenally.”
In the all-American battle between the top two seeds and favourites – Hikaru Nakamura, playing with the Black pieces, uncorked an absolute shocker with 6..e5 in the Open Sicilian. Hikaru attributed the idea to a training session he had with late American GM Walter Browne, a prominent Najdorf player in the late 90s. It’s a move that has suffered disrepute and typically A6 is played in the Najdorf to cover the B5 square. A quiet middlegame led up to Hikaru cracking open White’s kingside with a rook sacrifice.
Caruana ran into time trouble and trading rooks didn't turn out to be a great idea.
A pawn down, Hikaru offered a draw right after 41..Qe3 which Caruana promptly accepted.
Later asked what makes him great at defence, Hikaru replied: “I’m used to playing a lot of bad positions. In general, my opening preparation is not as good as some of the others. I’m pretty comfortable playing worse positions. In my training camp before this event, I looked at this E5 line and one of the German GMs helping me was very unhappy. He said ‘You’re just going to get a worse position and lose’. To each their own, I don’t mind defending.”
To no one’s surprise perhaps, Hikaru – who identifies as a streamer primarily – posted a recap of his game titled ‘Starting the Candidates with a BANG’ on his YouTube channel soon after handshakes were exchanged and the post-game interactions were wrapped up. “A draw is very good for me playing with the black pieces against a player people say is the favourite to win the tournament,” the world No. 3 said, addressing his 2.29 million subscribers and promising to recap the remaining 13 rounds as well. On the eve of the first round, he had dropped a pretty irreverent take, saying that if he were to become world champion, ‘the influence of that is so minor compared to streaming and content creation.’
For the first time in over a decade ( more precisely, since the 2013 Candidates which Magnus Carlsen won) all games in the Open section ended in draws in Round 1. Former women’s world champion Tan Zhongyi scored the only win of the day over last year’s World Championship challenger and fellow Chinese, Lei Tingjie. Tan cranked up the pressure on the kingside early on with Black and went on to prevent White’s counterplay with a lovely king march (40..Ke5..42..Ke3 47..Kf2)
Caruana unhappy with live audience, small playing hall
The Great Hall – in Toronto’s West End, which is the venue of the tournament, didn’t manage to impress some of the top players. In opera style, spectators are allowed to watch the games live from the balcony above.
“It’s not great, to be honest,” said Caruana, “The room is rather small and it would be nicer to have more space to walk around, especially at the start of the game. I’m not a fan of having a live audience for this tournament. In Berlin 2018, we had some real issues. During my game with Levon (Aronian) back then someone took photos and started recording. It was very disturbing. Here no electronic devices are allowed so it’s much better but you can’t still ensure there won’t be some disturbance in a critical moment. For most events, you don’t care too much but the stakes are so high here. I would prefer it if there were no live audience.”
Both Vidit and Gukesh touched upon the conditions in the hall being too chilly. “I was feeling extremely cold so I had to get my jacket,” said Vidit. Gukesh said that after a point, he was “basically shivering.”
