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Rd 11 Nakamura and Wei Yi have rattled off 18 moves in the Catalan. Wei Yi has come up with some tricks and Nakamura is finally having his first major think.
Game draw by three move repeat.
Game draw by three move repeat.
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Last edited by Hans Jung; Today, 11:01 AM. -
Rd 11 Pragga against Bluebaum has played the weird Nxe5, Nd3 and Nf4 with the Q on f3 and the other knight on c3 hitting the black pawn formation d5 supported by c6 in the Russian Defence (Petroffs). Another offbeat position.
Finally the position at move 19 has normalised. Pragga has very active pieces.Last edited by Hans Jung; Today, 11:02 AM.Comment
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Caruana can't win the candidates, he can only play the role of spoiler. A win by Caruana here will knock Sindarov off stride and give Giri a mathematical chance to win. So no pressure but definitely pride involved.
Sindarov with a draw here will basically clinch a win in the candidates. So definite pressure to perform.Comment
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Giri still has a mathematical chance to win the candidates. Slim but its there. However he basically has to win his last four games and Sindarov has to collapse. What are the odds? 10 to 1? 100 to 1?? I don't know. In a couple of hours we will know (when the game shapes up)Comment
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Giri and Sindarov have entered the endgame. White has rook and knight and 5 pawns. Black has rook and bishop and five pawns. Move 30. Caruana has gotten something from very little. Small advantages. Outside passed pawn. Better knight blockading passed pawn. Better king position. Sindarov has made some interesting move choices defending the endgame. Computer assessment +1.Comment
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Rd 11 Two of the three remaining games are endgames.In the Giri Esipenko game White has lost his +1 edge but still has an edge in a better bishop and two rooks and four pawns vs knight and two rooks and four pawns edngame. Its only move 32.
In the Caruana Sindarov game its still rook and knight and four pawns vs rook and bishop and four pawns after move 40. Computer eval 0.00.Comment
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Rd 11 Pragga has found some nice knight tactics at move 33 in the late middlegame. The computer likes them and the eval has shifted to plus 1. Can he weaken the king position?Comment
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I'm loving the shaping endgames. The game positions all remain tense.Comment
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Pragga missed a knockout with Rxf7 and the game ended in a draw.Comment
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Giri did not play optimally in the endgame and so draw.Comment
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The long awaited finish in the Sindarov (after heart palpitations more than once) was a draw. Sindarov was cool hand Luke as Caruana pushed his pawn to the seventh and then played Nc3 with all sorts of threats.Comment
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As a result Sindarov has in effect won the candidates. I will go out on a limb and say it is certain even if the mathematicians have calculated iimpossible odds in scenarios where Giri plays like Houdini and Sindarov totally collapses,Comment
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Rd 11 Vaishali scored a key win off Goryachkina and as all the other games were drawn she extends her lead with a great score of 7 out of 11.Comment
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It was nice to see Judith Polgar again doing commentary. She seems always to find colorful lines to look at and the lines that are most testing of the initiative.Comment
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