Gukesh joins Nepomniachtchi in the lead after beating Vidit in Round 8

The FIDE Candidates in Toronto is heating up nicely after eight rounds. Gukesh joined Ian Nepomniachtchi
in the lead and Hikaru Nakamura moved into contention alongside Praggnanandhaa.
Fabiano Caruana’s loss to Nakamura took him back to 50% and is surely a major blow.

Gukesh recovered from his loss in Round 7 with a win against Santosh
Vidit in a Two Knights with 4.d3. Superficially it might
have seemed like it was Vidit who had the initiative after
the opening, he was pushing pawns and making breaks, but
Gukesh had the a-file and white’s position was deteriorating
with almost every move. Gukesh crashed in down the a-file, took a left
turn towards Vidit’s King and checkmated it.

Hikaru Nakamura beat Fabiano Caruana in 35 moves from a quiet Ruy Lopez
Berlin. You would scarcely believe it possible for a player
of Caruana’s class to lose the position he had at move 24 but
starting with 24…Qg5?! (24…Re7 is to be preferred and the chosen
move turns out to be messy) it seemed like black was on the back foot
to the end. After 28…Nf8?! (28…Qd7 was better) black was in serious
trouble. 29…Qd8?! (29…Qd7) 30.h5 (30.Qf4 is better) 30…Bd7? (30…Qb6 was
not so bad for black) left black lost and 33…b5? ended the game to a trivial
tactic. According to Dennis Monokroussos’ The Chess Mind email on the round this was Nakamura’s fourth classical win with the white pieces in a row against Caruana.
This seems like the kind of loss that might be hard to come back from.

Praggnanandhaa against Alireza Firouzja looked like it might be the
game of the day, 5…Qc7 was I think supposed to be a surprise but
after Praggnanandhaa’s 6.Ncb5, the 12th most common move in this
position, albeit still with a plus score for white, Alireza went
into a big think. 12…Ne7 was new and the engines think 13.b3 is
the best reaction, 13.0-0 with c3 and b4 to follow seems like the
wrong plan, although one that is still equal. Soon after dynamic
trades happened at fairly regular intervals until there was nothing
to do but agree a draw.

Ian Nepomniachtchi against Nijat Abasov was a Petroff
where the engines say black equalised about move 22.
By move 36 black’s task was clear, it was level but
with a pair of pawns on the Queenside it was
still black who had to be accurate, and as far as
I can tell Abasov played it perfectly
and never was in the slightest trouble. Draw in 63 moves.
Is Nepomniachtchi becalmed?

Round 8 Standings:
1st= Gukesh, Nepomniachtchi 5pts;
3rd= Nakamura, Praggnanandhaa 4.5pts;
5th Caruana 4pts;
6th Vidit 3.5pts;
7th Firouzja 3pts
8th Abasov, 2.5pts.

Round 9 14th April at 19:30BST:
Vidit-Nakamura,
Gukesh-Praggnanandhaa,
Firouzja-Nepomniachtchi,
Abasov-Caruana.