Four Decisive games in Round 2 of the Candidates - 2

[PostBOTe]

The second round of the FIDE Candidates in Toronto, Canada was a bloodbath with all four games being decisive. Santosh Vidit was the first winner as his shock move 11...Bxh3! unbalanced Hikaru Nakamura completely, the game wasn't over and Nakamura had chances to hold but a final blunder 18.Be2? cost the American the game. Fabiano Caruana will have been frustrated with his draw in Round 1 and he needed a win as this was his second white in a row. He wasn't necessarily better against Nijat Abasov all the way through but his opponent started to weaken his King position and Caruana eventually won with a direct major piece attack. Praggnanandhaa against Gukesh was a real wild affair with Praggnanandhaa continually having to justify his aggressive intentions. In the end he missed a chance to equalise and very quickly was just lost. Ian Nepomniachtchi won the final game of the day to finish against Alireza Firouzja. Nepomniachtchi came armed with an idea that had been played once before, a very unbalanced position resulted and Firouzja had his chances but he miscalculated something and although Nepomniachtchi's king was driven into the middle of the board nothing bad happened to it and the game was over. Round 2 Standings: 1-4 Gukesh, Vidit, Caruana, Nepomniachtchi 1.5pts, Nakamura, Abasov, Firouzja, Praggnanandhaa 0.5pts. Round 3 6th April at 19:30BST: Abasov-Nakamura, Firouzja-Caruana, Gukesh-Nepomniachtchi, Vidit-Praggnanandhaa.

Source: https://theweekinchess.com/chessnews/ev ... candidates