Carlsen and Kramnik lose, tie for first, Carlsen advances

This Candidates tourney has been a real doozy. If you haven't been following it, here's a little recap. After seven rounds, the halfway point in the double round robin tournament, Carlsen and Aronian were dominating the field, each with three wins and four draws. Former World Champion Kramnik had drawn all seven games and trailed both leaders by 1.5 points. Then Kramnik went on an incredible tear, scoring 4.5 points in the next five games, to vault into the lead! He beat Aronian in the last of those games after Aronian blundered away an easy draw. That was Aronian's second consecutive loss, leaving him 1.5 points behind Kramnik. Meanwhile, Carlsen was unrecognizable as White against Ivanchuk, who had an incredibly erratic tournament. Carlsen played badly throughout the game and lost after missing a possible draw in the rook ending. So after 12 rounds, the standings were Kramnik 8/12, Carlsen 7.5/12, Aronian 6.5/12, with just two rounds to go. Then in round 13 Carlsen eked out an endgame win as Black against Radjabov, while Kramnik was unable to convert his advantage against Gelfand. Aronian drew against Grischuk, falling out of contention.

This set the stage for an incredibly dramatic last round. Carlsen and Kramnik led with 8.5 points. Carlsen had White against Svidler, while Kramnik was Black against Ivanchuk. Ivanchuk, as mentioned, had been extremely erratic, losing five games on time before move 40. (By comparison, Fischer lost twice on time in his entire career.) Carlsen was leading on tiebreaks, since the first tiebreak was number of wins and he had won five games to Kramnik's four. So Kramnik had to hope Carlsen did not win in the final round, and if so had to outscore him: if Carlsen drew, Kramnik had to win, while if Carlsen lost, Kramnik would have to win or draw. Kramnik must have figured that Carlsen would at least draw as White, so he (Kramnik) would have to win. Carlsen, on his part, must have feared that Ivanchuk would get in his usual time pressure and flag, in which case he (Carlsen) would have to win.

The upshot was that both of the leaders played badly. Carlsen got nothing out of the opening, got extremely low on time (he had something like two minutes for his last 12 moves in a complicated position), and barely made the time control, only to find himself in a hopeless ending. Kramnik, meanwhile, played the opening dubiously, trying to keep the game complicated and hope that Chukky would flag as usual. Chukky was having none of it. He handled the complications deftly and made time control with a minute to spare, with a completely winning position. Both Carlsen and Kramnik lost, leaving them tied for first with 8.5 points. So Carlsen, despite losing as White for the second time in three games, backed into a tie for first and a win on tiebreak. He will face Anand for the World Championship in November. An unbelievable finish.

Aronian meanwhile won nicely against Radjabov. He and Svidler tied for third with 8 points. Gelfand (Anand's challenger last time) and Grischuk tied for fifth with 6.5, Ivanchuk was seventh with 6 points, and Radjabov was last with 4.

Oh yes, the World Championship

Game 6 in progress: right now, Kasparov and Svidler are discussing Gelfand's and Anand's chances on the live site.

Latvian-American beats six-time Russian champion

Lest we be accused of overhyping the nationalism card, we should note that the genial 1994, 1995, 1997, 2003, 2008, and 2011 Russian champion watches more Showtime series than either Andrew or I do.

Breakfast tomorrow: World Cup round 4

Peter Svidler leads Alexander Grisckuk 2-1 for the World Cup title.  Svidler has White and the two Russians are friends: a quick draw is not out of the realm of possibility.  Both players have already secured a slot as one of the eight candidates for the next world championship.

Vassily Ivanchuk leads Ruslan Ponomariov 2-1 in the match for third place.  To me, the Ukranian matchup is more fascinating: Ivanchuk has not been a Candidate in the classical cycle for twenty (!!) years, and in 2002, he lost a match to the teenaged Ponomariov for the pre-unification "FIDE World Championship" title.  The winner automatically qualifies for the 2013 Candidates, while the loser is very unlikely to earn an invitation.  Ponomariov managed to apply some pressure in today's game, but never came close to converting a pawn-up endgame.

Catch up on previous rounds at The Week in Chess, and follow the pre-dawn action at the official site!

World Cup catchup

Moiseenko-NavaraWorld Cup 2011White to move
A week ago today: David Navara had just reached an easily winning position in the difficult Q vs. R ending, and the 50-move rule was no longer a problem.  But Navara offered a draw...on purpose!

Lubomir Kavalek explains this act of sportsmanship.

The World Cup's knockout format can  lead to some rather random results, which would have been particularly unfortunate given that this event is being used to qualify three players for the World Championship.  But the four quarterfinalists are all among the world's elite: Grischuk faces Ivanchuk, and Svidler faces Ponomariov.  The winners automatically qualify for the 2014 World Championship cycle; the losers play a match, the winner of which also qualifies.

Someone had to lose the match between fan favorites Gata Kamsky and Peter Svidler. Kamsky had the honor of losing to the most beautiful move of the World Cup:

Svidler's point after 26...Re2!! was that 27.Qxe2 loses to 27...Qg3! (The immediate 26...Qg3 is met by 27.Nc6, stopping the mate threat.) Someone (I don't remember who) described the combination as worthy of Frank Marshall.  Edit a few days later—aha, it was Mig.

Early risers are urged to check out Game 1 of the semifinals tomorrow morning at the excellent tournament website! If you hear Russian, don't panic: there is an English-language simulcast.

Peter Svidler interview

From Crestbook, via Chess in Translation.

Svidler on Nakamura-Short

At Chess Life Online.  (Where else?)