Another who also had a great tournament, or to tell the truth a very good second half of the tournament, was Teimour Radjabov, who with his victory against Richard Rapport reached 7.5 points. Without a doubt, if he had had a different start to the tournament, everything would have been different for the Azeri. In addition, the French prodigy, Alireza Firouzja, beat Fabiano Caruana and thus avoided being last. Bad tournament for the American from whom much more was expected.

The most anticipated game of this round would be the duel between Hikaru Nakamura and Ding Liren, second and third in the standings respectively, since the second place in the tournament would be defined between them, something important not only because the biggest prize money for the runner-up is better, but also because if Carlsen doesn’t finally defend his title, the runner-up will have to play the world championship match with “Nepo”. Finally, the Chinese achieved a great victory thus obtaining the precious second place.

2022 Candidates Tournament: Final standings

However, and although the last round is already only to complete the tournament, a fight suddenly appeared that takes place taking into account Carlsen’s statements, who assured that only against Firouzja would he defend his title. If the Norwegian finally decides to retire, the world title should be defined between the first and second of the 2022 Candidates Tournament.

With Ian Nepomniachtchi in first place, it will be necessary to closely monitor who finishes in second place, and for the moment that place is held by the American Hikaru Nakamura, who, with his victory against Duda, surpassed Ding Liren (drew Firouzja) with whom until round 12 shared second place. The other American, Fabiano Caruana, drew Teimour Radjabov.

2022 Candidates Tournament: Round 14th Clashes

The next round will take place on Monday, July 4 at 9 AM (ET).

Richard Rapport vs Teimour Radjabov
Fabiano Caruana vs Alireza Firouzja
Ding Liren vs Hikaru Nakamura
Jan-Krzysztof Duda vs Ian Nepomniachtchi

2022 Candidates Tournament: Standings after 13 rounds

Only two rounds remain until the end of the 2022 Candidates Tournament, so each player can get a maximum of 2 points, for which of course they should win the two games they have left to play. The leader Nepomniachtchi has had a very good performance obtaining a total of 8.5 points out of a possible 12.

In other words, the Russian player has obtained 70% of the points, which in a tournament as demanding as this is undoubtedly enormous. And the fact that his chess has been truly great can be seen not only in the points obtained, but also in the evaluation of his total performance: no less than 2937 elo points. Levels only comparable to Karpov in Linares 1994.

How could Nepomniachtchi lose first place in this tournament?

First of all, it should be noted that Nepomniachtchi can no longer lose first place. But a combination of results could see him share that top spot with someone else, and then other tiebreakers would have to be applied. Those who are still able to match “Nepo” are Hikaru Nakamura and Ding Liren, both with 6.5 points (2 less than the Russian player).

In short, for Ian Nepomniachtchi to share first place with the American or the Chinese (or both), he would have to lose the two games he has left to play (to Richard Rapport in the 13th round and Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the 14th) and that any of the mentioned players won their last two games. Practically impossible.

With this, “Nepo” is on the verge of being the winner of the tournament again with 1.5 points above “Naka” and Ding Liren, who was defeated by Teimour Radjabov and his Nimzo-Indian defense, although in favor of the Chinese, it must be said that he tried to be somewhat more incisive than Hikaru Nakamura, although in the end it did not work out. If the Russian draws in his 13th round game, he will be crowned champion no matter what happens in the other games or in the final round.

Fabiano Caruana had a tough game against Richard Rapport. The American player tried his best to exploit the free H-file pawn in a rook endgame, but the Hungarian defended well and it all ended in a draw. In addition, there was a draw betweenJan-Krzysztof Duda and Alireza Firouzja, the last two of the tournament.

2022 Candidates Tournament: Round 13th Clashes

The next round will take place on Sunday, July 3 at 9 AM (ET).

Teimour Radjabov vs Fabiano Caruana
Alireza Firouzja vs Ding Liren
Hikaru Nakamura vs Jan-Krzysztof Duda
Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Richard Rapport

2022 Candidates Tournament: Standings after 12 rounds

In addition, like all Candidates Tournament since 2013, it has a two-round league format. So far, 11 of the 14 rounds have been played and the winner of the 2022 Candidates Tournament will face Carlsen in the World Championship scheduled for 2023.

Four games were played in round 11, two of them ended with a winner, while the other two finished in a draw. Hikaru Nakamura and Teimour Radjabov drew with Richard Rapport and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, respectively. While Ian Nepomniachtchi and Liren Ding both played with black pieces and defeated Alireza Firouzja and Fabiano Caruana, respectively.

Standings after 11rounds of the 2022 Candidates Tournament

It remains to be seen how the tournament will end, but Carlsen said he will only defend his title against Firouzja, and the Frenchman is currently in last place in the standings.

2022 Candidates Tournament 12th round: Clashes

Richard Rapport vs Fabiano Caruana
Liren Ding vs Teimour Radjabov
Jan-Krzysztof Duda vs Alireza Firouzja
Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Hikaru Nakamura

So far, 10 rounds have been played and if necessary, a playoff will be held on July 5. In addition, like all Candidates Tournament since 2013, it has a two-round league format. The winner of the 2022 Candidates Tournament will face Carlsen in The World Championship scheduled for 2023.

Four games were played in round 10, and three of them ended with a winner, and there was only one draw. Ian Nepomniachtchi and Alireza Firouzja drew, Richard Rapport was defeated by Liren Ding, who played with black pieces. Jan-Krzysztof Duda won against Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura beat Alireza Firouzja.

Standings after 10 rounds of the 2022 Candidates Tournament

It remains to be seen how the tournament will end, but Carlsen said he will only defend his title against Firouzja, and the Frenchman is currently in last place in the standings.

2022 Candidates Tournament 11th round: Clashes

Hikaru Nakamura vs Richard Rapport
Alireza Firouzja vs Ian Nepomniachtchi
Teimour Radjabov vs Jan-Krzysztof Duda
Fabiano Caruana vs Liren Ding

As mentioned before, this game was the most relevant, but not even close to the most interesting especially considering that there were three games that ended in victories in this round. The first of them involves the other American player in the tournament, Hikaru Nakamura, although sadly for him it was not good news: he was defeated by Teimour Radjabov.

Alireza Firouzja finally came out of the bottom of the standings beating Richard Rapport, whose performance has been quite irregular during the tournament. The remaining game was the victory of the Chinese Ding Liren against the Polish Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who with this defeat is last in the standings with a performance that so far has been a real disappointment.

2022 Candidates Tournament: Round 10th Clashes

The next round will take place on Wednesday, June 29 at 9 AM (ET).

Jan-Krzysztof Duda vs Fabiano Caruana
Richard Rapport vs Ding Liren
Hikaru Nakamura vs Alireza Firouzja
Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Teimour Radjabov

2022 Candidates Tournament: Standings after 9 rounds

However, round 8 had two wins, one of which involved an American player. The first of them was the one obtained by the Hungarian Richard Rapport against Jan-Krzysztof Duda (whose performance is beginning to be very disappointing), who thanks to the point achieved, is now in fourth place, 2 points behind the leader.

The other victory was the one obtained by the famous streamer Hikaru Nakamura against his compatriot Fabiano Caruana, who despite this remains second in the standings. However, thanks to the point obtained in this game, “Naka” is in third place, 1.5 points behind “Nepo”. In the fourth game of round 8, Firuozja (the only rival against whom Carlsen would defend his title according to what he said a few months ago) drew against the Azeri Teimour Radjabov.

2022 Candidates Tournament: Round 9th Clashes

The next round, that will have the game between the two best of the tournament, will take place on Monday, June 27 at 9 AM (ET).

Ding Liren vs Jan-Krzysztof Duda
Alireza Firouzja vs Richard Rapport
Teimour Radjabov vs Hikaru Nakamura
Fabiano Caruana vs Ian Nepomniachtchi

2022 Candidates Tournament: Standings after 8 rounds

Round 7 had the great victory of Ian Nepomniachtchi over Richard Rapport, in what was a new example of the enormous level at which the Russian player is playing, with a performance of 3007 elo points in these first 7 games, in which he obtained 4 wins and 3 draws. Without a doubt, “Nepo” seems the strongest candidate to be, as in 2021, Carlsen‘s challenger.

However, Fabiano Caruana is not making it easy for the Russian player, since in this round he won again, leaving the difference at only 0.5 and separating both quite a bit from the rest of the players. In the other games, American Hikaru Nakamura drew against Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and French prodigy (of Iranian descent) Alireza Firouzja drew Ding Liren.

2022 Candidates Tournament: Round 8th Clashes

The next round will take place on Sunday, June 26 at 9 AM (ET).

Richard Rapport vs Jan-Krzysztof Duda
Alireza Firouzja vs Teimour Radjabov
Hikaru Nakamura vs Fabiano Caruana
Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Ding Liren

2022 Candidates Tournament: Standings after 7 rounds

On the side of the famous youtuber and streamer, Hikaru Nakamura, he shares third place with Richard Rapport with 3 points in 6 games, 1.5 points behind Nepomniachtchi, but in the fifth round he let a great opportunity pass after drawing with the leader in a game in which he had a better position.

Fabiano Caruana is the player who most closely follows the Russian (at the moment he is 0.5 points below), especially in the sixth round when he beat Alireza Firoujza with black. However, in the same round, Carlsen‘s last challenger defeated Jan-Krzysztof Duda keeping the difference over Caruana, who nevertheless remains one of the strongest candidates to win the tournament.

Player performance in the 2022 Candidates Tournament

Although this is a hard tournament that still has 8 rounds to play in which anything could happen, it is clear that the performance of the first two players so far is well above the rest of the participants. In this way, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana reaffirm their favoritism in this candidates’ tournament.

In the 6 games played so far, the Russian has had a performance of 2970 rating (comparable to the performance of Anatoly Karpov in the famous Linares 1994), while the American, 2903. Hikaru Nakamura, the other American, has had a more than acceptable performance of 2783 rating, although of course far from the first two places.

Ding Liren, who before the start was one of the main favorites, for the moment has obtained 2.5 points and a performance of 2709, a little far from what was expected of him, although in his favor it must be said that in the last tournament of Candidates had a bad start and then recovered. Alireza Firouzja, the only player against whom Carlsen would agree to defend the title in his own words, is currently last with 2 points and a 2641 performance.

How does the 2022 Candidates tournament continue?

The 2022 Candidates Tournament, in which the challenger of the world champion Magnus Carlsen will be defined, continues this Saturday, June 25 with round 7 (click here to see which will be the matchups and standings of the tournament after 6 rounds).

Four gameswere played in round five. All of them ended in a draw. Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura finished their games in a draw against Richard Rapport and IanNepomniachtchi, respectively.

In the same context, Teimour Radjabov drew with Liren Ding, as did Alireza Firouzja with Jan-Krzysztof Duda. It remains to be seen how the tournament will end, but Carlsen said he will only defend his title against Firouzja, and the Frenchman is currently in last place in the standings.

2022 Candidates Tournament 6th round: Date

The 2022 Candidates Tournament takes place at the Palace of Santoña in Madrid, Spain. The sixth round will be held on Thursday, June 23, at 9 AM (ET).

2022 Candidates Tournament 6th round: Time by State in the US

ET: 9:00 AM
CT: 8:00 AM
MT: 7:00 AM
PT: 6:00 AM

2022 Candidates Tournament 6th round: Clashes

Teimour Radjabov vsRichard Rapport
Alireza Firouzja vsFabiano Caruana
Hikaru Nakamura vsLiren Ding
Ian Nepomniachtchi vsJan-Krzysztof Duda

Standings after 5 rounds of 2022 Candidates Tournament