GM Sergey Karjakin (left) beat GM Fabiano Caruana in the final
round of the Candidate tournament in Moscow today. Caruana who
felt pushed to play aggressive, played the Richter Rauzer sicilian
variation. Caruana got a fairly decent position, but when he missed
the promising continuation with 33-Rxd1+ he drifted and Karjakin
seemed to be in control. In the 36rd move Caruana blundered with
36.-Re4?? and white killed him with 37.Rxd5! and some moves later
the game was over. Congratulation to Sergey who thereby won this
tournament with 8,5 points, a point more then Caruana and GM Vishy
Anand. Karjakin now has earned his right to play World Champion
Magnus Carlsen in a match for the throne. This match will be played
in New York in November over 12 games. Magnus will be the favourite,
I say he has 60 percent chance to defend his title. Magnus has 3-1
in decisive games against Karjakin, but it has been a while since
Magnus beat Karjakin now. Often Magnus has had promising positions
against Karjakin,but failed to finish the Russian off. It was also Karjakin
who beat Magnus and destroyed his tournament in the blitz World
Championship in Berlin last October. I think we will have a fine match
between two young players who have showed some fine chess the
last years.
This tournament marked a decisive end of the World
Champion chances for GM Levon Aronian, GM Peter Svidler, GM
Veselin Topalov and GM Vishy Anand. They will never be in contention
for a championship match in the future. GM Anish Giri would probably
have about 50 percent chances to beat Magnus in a World Championship
match, but he simply just played all these draws ending his title ambitions
this time. GM Hikaru Nakamura started poorly, recovered with two wins,
but never was in contention for the qualifier spot. Read also the Express
Report in ChessBase.
Photo:Organizer