The Candidates tournament resumed on 19 April in Yekaterinburg. Eight players competed for a €500,000 prize fund, but only one prize mattered — first place, and the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen in a world championship match. It was Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi who triumphed — more on that next week. But the clash below, a true chess epic, gets my vote for the best game.
At the halfway mark, Fabiano Caruana trailed his next opponent, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, by a full point. Caruana is feared for the depth of his preparation and had a year to prepare for this game, knowing that Vachier-Lagrave is stubbornly principled in sticking to his Najdorf Sicilian (characterised by the move 5…a6), whose intricacies he knows inside out.
What happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force? That’s what this game promised to show us when Caruana dropped an enormous bomb: the move 18 Bc4!! astounded commentators, including Carlsen himself.
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