What happened at the Candidates 2022?
As every major tournament, the 2022 Candidates Tournament gave us all colors of emotions. From excitement and hope to surprise and disappointment, chess fans from around the world were glued to their screen to watch every match and applaud – or not – Ian Nepomniachtchi, the big winner of the tournament.
Ian Nepomniachtchi won the Candidates Tournament with a 9.5/14 score, the highest since the format was introduced in 2013! With no loses, 5 wins and 9 draws, Nepo crossed his peak rating of 2792 on the live rating list. After a great last-days performance and a big win against Hikaru Nakamura in the last round, Ding Liren came second to become the Candidates runner-up. Alireza Firouzja came 6th and was downgraded from Carlsen’s favorite to “nobody’s perfect”!
In other news
Nepo is waiting for Carlsen to decide if the World Champion is going to play him,
Ding Liren is still the fans’ favorite,
Hikaru Nakamura has a great muscle memory,
Richard Rapport was the ultimate fashion icon,
MrDodgy – unsuccessfully – predicted every rounds’ results,
Anish Giri couldn’t stop tweeting,
Nepomniachtchi was heavily criticised by NRK’s chess expert Atle Grønn,
The Chess Pit Podcast added the right amount of drama in the event,
Judit Polgar won Magnus Carlsen in 19 moves on a casual day at a park in Madrid,
Hikaru Nakamura and Ian Nepomniachtchi drew in 7 minutes on Round 12,
and Firouzja played 268 games until around 5 in the morning, before Round 11 and his game against Nepomniachtchi!
