Nepo and Caruana win on Round 7 of the Candidates 2022
The 2022 Candidates Tournament reached halfway today with Round 7 being one of the most fascinating rounds so far. Nepomniachtchi and Caruana won one more game, this time against Rapport and Radjabov respectively. Nepo still leads the tournament with 5.5/7.
Four ceremonial moves at once opened Round 7. The organizing team of the Norway Chess Tournament – Kjell Madland, Benedicte Westre, Jasmine Larsson – and FIDE Managing Director Dana Reizniece-Ozola were the ones to start the games.
Richard Rapport – Ian Nepomniachtchi
Ian Nepomniachtchi chose the super-solid Petroff for Round 7 against Rapport. The game moved quickly to a theoretical draw by repetition but after 28 minutes decided to avoid it.
By move 22 Rapport had gone an hour behind on the clock, when he went for a queen sacrifice. In that position, the Hungarian GM was a lot worse and clearly in Nepo’s preparation. The Russian looked like he was cruising through the round and easily won the game with more than 2 hours on his clock!
After that result, Nepomniachtchi remains the sole leader with 5.5/7, but still heavily criticized. He is the worst possible winner, both in terms of chess and politics” Grønn says on the possibility of Nepo winning the Candidates.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda – Hikaru Nakamura
The Duda-Nakamura game kicked off with the Nimzo-Indian Defense and evolved peacefully to end in a draw. This result leaves Nakamura 2 points and Duda 2.5 points behind Nepomniactchi at the halfway point.
Ding Liren – Alireza Firouzja
Ding Liren and Alireza Fiouzja are the two favorites for the 2023 Challenger’s spot, but with the least impressive results so far. The two GMs have met in 12 major tournaments before and had a 7.5-4.5 score for Liren.
Their game In Round 7 was a 0.00 battle but with a big time difference as Firouzja has spent almost 48 minutes on move 13! On move 54 the players finally agreed in a draw.
Fabiano Caruana – Teimour Radjabov
Teimour Radjabov sprung a big surprise on Fabiano Caruana by meeting 1.e5 c5 2.Nf3 with 2...a6!?, a move barely ever seen at the very highest level!
Not only this but Radjabov moved to a pawn sacrifice with Caruana finding an opportunity to press even more for the win. Caruana increased his advantage but even if his win was clear for the engine, it wasn’t so easy for the human eye. Eventually Caruana found the right moves and won another game, chasing Nepo for the lead with 5/7.
Join our broadcast with GM Daniil Yuffa and WIM Anna-Maja Kazarian, tomorrow at 13:00 UTC.
Round 8 Pairings:
Richard Rapport – Jan-Krzysztof Duda
Ian Nepomniachtchi – Ding Liren
Hikaru Nakamura – Fabiano Caruana
Alireza Firouzja – Teimour Radjabov
