Ian Nepomniachtchi wins the Candidates 2022 with a round to spare
Round 13 of the Candidates 2022 ended with Nepomniachtchi drawing against Rapport to win the tournament with a round to spare! Also, Nakamura beat Duda to be the sole second.
The first move today was made in the Nakamura-Duda game by GM Judit Polgar , the greatest female chess player in history. Judit was not the only to visit Madrid for the Candidates. Magnus Carlsen, Arkady Dvorkovich, Anish Giri, Anna Cramling, and Vishy Anand were also there!
Ian Nepomniachtchi entered Round 13 with an impressive score of 8.5/12, a 2792 live rating, and only half a point away from winning the Candidates. As white against Rapport, Nepo didn’t find any difficulties to equalize the game and achieve his goal.
Besides the cheerful spirit, Twitter was also wondering if the World Champion Magnus Carlsen will defend his title against Nepo.
Nevertheless, Round 13 had three very interesting games and a big win by Nakamura against Duda for the American to be the sole second. The Radjabov-Caruana started with a “wild” opening with Caruana sacrificing two pawns with the black pieces. The game was soon balanced though to end in a draw and leave both the GMs with on 6.5/13. The second game to end in a draw was Firouzja-Ding Liren. The game evolved into a very interesting endgame with a bishop for 3 pawns for black to eventually end in perpetual check.
Join our last Candidates broadcast with GM Daniil Yuffa and GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko, tomorrow at 13:00 UTC.
Round 14 Pairings:
Richard Rapport – Teimour Radjabov
Fabiano Caruana – Alireza Firouzja
Ding Liren – Hikaru Nakamura
Jan-Krzysztof Duda – Ian Nepomniachtchi
