Khanty-Mansiysk Chess Candidates R2: Three Decisive Games!

Chess Blog for Daily Chess News and Trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2014

Hello everyone,

Round 2 in Khanty Mansiysk at Candidates 2014. Photo: FIDE

World Chess Candidates 2014 Round 2: The dust was off and three decisive games out of four marked Friday's scoresheets in Khanty Mansiysk.

Levon Aronian was quick to recover from his first-round shock loss to Viswanathan Anand. Aronian chose a quiet line, but one careless Knight move left Mamedyarov's Queen trapped after a knight sac. Aronian gave up a a rook and minor piece for the Black Queen to earn a quick point. 

Replay all games of Round 4 with Chess King

The two former World Chess Champions Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand went into the Reti set-up which is a kind of Bulgarian specialty and Viswanathan Anand steered the game into the his favourite Slav structure. Topalov's extra pawn was isolated and of little use from preventing a win.

Andreikin's Sicilian was strategically successful versus Svidler, but Black eventually self-destructed. Black tried rolling central pawns, but white was very much in control with extra pawns.

Vladimir Kramnik and Sergey Karjakin played a sharp line of Queen’s Gambit Accepted. Kramnik was in no mood for any mercy, obtained a strong passed-pawn and used an exchange sacrifice as Karjakin went into time pressure. 

The FIDE World Candidates Tournament is taking place March 11th-April 1st, 2014 at the Ugra Chess Academy in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. The event is sponsored by the Khanty–Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug and Sibur, and organised by FIDE, Russian Chess Federation and Ugra Chess Federation.

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