Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Praggnanandhaa and the Eclipse
The FIDE Candidates Tournament 2024 took place in Toronto (Canada) from April 4 to April 22. The event featured a mix of veterans along young talents. The selection of players followed criteria established by the chess organization (FIDE) and applied during the previous two years. The veterans included players who had already played in previous Candidates: Caruana and Nakamura from the USA and Nepomniachtchi from Russia. The young talents included: Praggnanandhaa, Gukesh and Vidit from India; Firouzja (also a participant in the 2022 Candidates) from France and Abasov from Azerbaijan. Traditionally the winner of this tournament is the challenger for the reigning world champion.
Given the importance of that contest, many experts and fans make predictions about who they think will emerge as the challenger. Days before the start of the Candidates, former world champion Magnus Carlsen also talked about the participants. He even classified them into the following five categories (with accompanying Carlsen’s own comments):
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Fabiano Caruana (USA),”Fabi has a great chance to win. His pedigree is very strong. He seems to have regained some strength in classical chess as well, after having a little bit of a down. He’s maybe not quite as good as he was at his best, which probably was in 2018. He has as good a chance as any.”
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Hikaru Nakamura (USA), “Hikaru never had a better chance to become world champion than this. I would say that him and Fabiano are co-favorites. Hikaru has been quite consistent recently.”
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Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia), “Ian hasn’t shown much the last few years, except for the Candidates. He shows flashes here and there. At the moment, I am not convinced, but I think he has enough pedigree to be in the Top Contender group considering he has won twice in a row.”
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Alireza Firouzja (France), “I am an Alireza True Believer. But for now I will put him in the ‘Do Well’ category, which is reasonable considering the difficulties he had last time.“
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Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (India), “I think Pragg is very unlikely to win the tournament, but I cannot see him having a really bad result either“
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Gukesh Dummaraju (India), “I don’t think he will do poorly, but I don’t think he will do too well either. I don’t think he fits into either category, but I think he is not quite ready yet to make the leap, and I think it’s probably more likely that he will have a bad event than a good event.“
- Vidit Gujrathi (India), “He will not win the tournament, although I do think he has the capacity to make a really good score if things go his way. I really like the way he plays, but I could also see him losing quite a few games“
- Nijat Abasov (Azerbaijan), “Abasov obviously had an amazing tournament at the World Cup. Whether he can replicate it is very, very hard to believe. If he gets off to a good start, he can limit the damage severely, but overall I think he is most likely going to suffer“
In round 5, Praggnanandhaa, playing White, faced Nepomniachtchi. The Russian player opted for the Petroff defense. That opening has served him very well in previous competitions. But Pragg came well prepared and despite entering a line previously played by Nepo himself, the Indian player put pressure on Nepo not only over the board, but also on the clock. After move 20, Praggnanandhaa had 50 extra minutes on the clock!!
Pragg prepared and led aggressively his attack but in move 26 he made an inaccuracy. That gave Nepo the chance to escape. Nepomniachtchi, showing his experience and resourceful play, managed to trade queens, reducing the pressure and miraculously surviving a lost position.
After the game, the Indian star admitted his disappointment. He said that “you don’t get too many chances here and you have to make use of the ones that you get.”
The day before this game, the players enjoyed their first rest day. And incidentally, it coincided with a total solar eclipse that the participants could observe from Toronto. We can only conjecture that that astronomical phenomenon also affected Pragg and eclipsed his chess vision for a moment.
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