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Viswanathan Anand
D Gukesh is the deserving winner of the Candidates tournament. The story of the last two rounds was only about him. He has become the youngest challenger in history. In his debut Candidates tournament, facing off against some of the all-time strongest players, including Ian Nepomniachtchi, the winner of the last two editions, he managed the pressure effectively throughout.
Gukesh was the only one whose level didn’t fluctuate very much. In the 13th round, against Alireza Firouzja, the opening didn’t go well, and he was just looking for play, but unexpected things started to happen under such pressure. Gukesh was the calmer player. His moves were steady, and when Firouzja started to overreach, he grabbed the advantage and converted it most efficiently, which is very difficult when you realise the implications of what you are doing, that you are going to take the lead in the tournament and so on.
The pressure was only going to build. Fabiano Caruana defeated R Praggnanandhaa. Then we had a dramatic last round, in which only a win against Hikaru Nakamura would have guaranteed Gukesh the first place, and he was black. He once again played one of his unusual openings in Queen’s Gambit Accepted. Nakamura never seemed to find his way against Gukesh and was very soon worse. But the advantage was not big enough for Gukesh to play for a win. He got the draw, which at least guaranteed him the tie-break.
mounting Pressure
He was facing a tie-breaker for some time, as Nepomniachtchi had managed to get into a lost position against Caruana; that was the situation for two hours. Occasionally, Caruana would slip, Nepomniachtchi’s position would improve, and then a few seconds later, the old evaluation would be restored. The participants must have been under enormous pressure at the end of such a long tournament. Ironically, it was the youngest participant of all that coped with the pressure and the more experienced ones cracked. It shows the enormous mental strength of Gukesh. Caruana and Nakumura managed to win late games, showing their class, bringing in more pressure on Gukesh.
Caruana and Nakamura didn’t have the strongest tournaments, but they waited for their moment and grabbed the chance at the last minute. It was worrying for Gukesh that Caruana and Nakamura were peaking at the end of the tournament. But Caruana, who has won many games with smaller advantages than what he had against Nepomniachthic, was unable to cope with the pressure. He got confused about a position where there could have been four queens on the board and then he had to come back to make a draw.
women’s tourney
In the women’s tournament, only the two Chinese participants had even the mathematical possibilities.
In the end Lei Tingjie lost both to the Indian participants R Vaishali, who scored five wins in a row after four straight defeats, and Koneru Humpy, who rescued her tournament in the end.
Tan Zhongyi was the deserved winner, by a big margin.
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