Round 10: Standings Virtually Unchanged After Clash of Leaders at Berlin Candidates Tournament

Fabiano Caruana, the leader of the Candidates tournament in Berlin, faced Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, his closest pursuer in Round 10 and came away with a draw. With the other players near the top of the crosstable also drawing their games, the standings remained virtually unchanged.

Caruana, an American, leads with 6.5 points, followed by Mamedyarov, who is from Azerbaijan and has 6 points, and then Alexander Grischuk of Russia, who has 5.5 points. (Each win is worth one point and each draw is worth a half point.)

The Candidates is being organized by World Chess, the commercial partner of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), the game’s governing body. The prize fund is 420,000 euros. The winner will receive 95,000 euros, but, more importantly, he will earn the right to play Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, in a title match in London this November.

Eight players are competing for the right to face Carlsen. In addition to Caruana, Mamedyarov and Grischuk, they include Sergey Karjakin and Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, Ding Liren of China, Wesley So of the United States, and Levon Aronian of Armenia. The format is a double round-robin, with each player facing all the other competitors twice, once with each color.

The venue for the tournament is Kühlhaus (or “cool house” in English), an industrial building in central Berlin that was built in the early 20th century as a cold-storage facility for fresh produce. Among the principal sponsors of the tournament are PhosAgro, a giant Russian fertilizer company; Kaspersky Lab, a global cybersecurity firm; E.G. Capital Advisors, an investment management company; S.T. Dupont, a global luxury goods maker; Prytek, a venture capital firm; and Isklar, a Norwegian mineral water company.



Felix Magath, a well known former footballer and football manager, made the ceremonial first move in the game between Mamedyarov and Caruana. Mamedyarov had White and chose the Catalan opening. The position became very sharp as Mamedyarov traded his light-squared bishop to break up Caruana’s pawns and also win a pawn. But that strategy caused Mamedyarov to fall behind in his development. Though he was able to force a series of trades, he was not able to free his queenside pieces. Eventually, he had no choice but to give up an exchange. The chances for both players remained dynamically balanced, as Caruana’s pawns were too weak to defend. In the endgame, Caruana found a way to force simplifications that easily led to draw, preserving his lead in the tournament.



The game between Grischuk, who had White, and Karjakin was also a Catalan. Grischuk did not obtain any sort of edge in the opening and then, with 20 Bc3, he allowed Karjakin to force a series of exchanges, leading to an equal endgame. The game ended in a draw after 28 moves as the players repeated the position.

Karjakin has five points, tied with Ding for fourth place.



The only decisive result of the day was a victory of Kramnik over Aronian. It has been a disappointing and perplexing tournament for both players, as they were both expected to contend for first place, but have fallen well off the pace. Thursday, Kramnik, who had White, opened with the Giuoco Piano, which normally does not really pose many problems for Black. Indeed, Aronian had no trouble getting a very good position.

The one imbalance on the board was that a trade of bishops on e3 opened the f file for White. Kramnik used that to build up pressure by putting his rooks on the file. He managed to create some threats, but Aronian carefully paried them – for a while. His 25 … Be6 was dangerous, as it allowed Kramnik to sacrifice an exchange on f6, ripping open the pawn position around Aronian’s king. Aronian navigated the complexities well, but he was on a razor’s edge and had to play accurately. On his last move, he finally blundered. Instead of 36 … Rg7, he played 36 … Qc7, allowing Kramnik a winning mating attack with 37 Ne8. Aronian resigned on the spot.

After losing four games in six rounds, the victory gave Kramnik a bit of redemption. He now has 4.5 points, built on a remarkable record as seven of his ten games have ended decisively. For Aronian, it was his fifth loss of the competition. He now sits alone in last, with 3.5 points.



In the other game of the round, Ding faced with So with the White pieces. So sacrificed a pawn out of the opening for the initiative and Ding had to be a little careful. But he avoided any real trouble because of a clever counterattacking idea (16 Bg5! And if 16 … f6 17 Qb3 Kh8 18 Qf7, and it would be Black who would have had to be careful). After an exchange of queens and rooks, the game quickly simplified. The players agreed to a draw after 31 moves in a position with equal chances for both sides.

So now has four points, while Ding has drawn every game of the tournament. If he somehow draws his last four games, he would duplicate the feat of Anish Giri of the Netherlands in the 2016 Candidates tournament in Moscow.

Round 11 is Friday at 3 PM, local Berlin time. The tournament can be watched live at www.worldchess.com, the official site of the World Championship.

Round 10 Photo Gallery