Sindarov Snatches The Lead In The Pre-World Championship: Game Analysis

Introduction

You, as a chess player, might have heard about the blasting news about a month ago about the FIDE Candidates tournament. If you don't know what in the whole wide world is that, well, it's an 8-player double round robin to decide the challenger to the current World Champion, Gukesh Dommaraju. If you had followed the news, you would have known the winner is a 19-year-old Uzbekistan grandmaster Javokhir Sindarov.

Fast forward to a month later, both Sindarov and Gukesh has joined an event in Poland: Grand Chess Tour Super Rapid & Blitz. The event was divided into two parts: the first part was 25+10 rapid round robin, while the second part was 5+3 blitz double round robin. That means, we got to see both players competing before the World Championship.

In this blog, I have analyzed all three games for you and has selected some puzzles for you.

Some of the puzzles are strategic, or more commonly known, positional, which is mainly finding the best move in the position. The conditions are both the "strongest" move and "second choice" should be at least 0.5 engine advantage apart. Next is tactical puzzles, which I found only one in the games since Grandmasters rarely make blunders.

Without further ado, let's first solve some puzzles! Most of them, you are in a losing position (around -1) so you can train your "when you're losing don't quit" mindset. The solutions are in the annotated games.

Puzzles

From Game 1:

From Game 2:

From Game 3:

The reason game 3 has only one puzzle is because that in the master level, a pawn blunder usually equals to a loss, especially in an endgame.

Games

Game One was an exciting rapid game. The game started with a Caro-Kann Endgame Offer with the rare Qc7!? and Sindarov sacrificing a pawn to gain activity, like a gambit. Sindarov later on sacrificed a piece which is dubious. While he had a chance for counterplay he missed it and Gukesh converted easily.

Key takeaways from this game:

• After 24. Qe2 Black's position looks dangerous with an open king and the attack brewing, but Gukesh didn't panic and instead stayed calm and played 24...Qd4! a beautiful maneuver to defend the king.
• 31...h5! is a nice prophylactic move that stops the Rg4 threat. We should aways ask "why does my opponent play this" after your opponent moves. That way, you would find your opponent threats and can stop it in time.
• 32. Qe2?! by Sindarov is too passive. In a losing position, you shouldn't be passive and defend, you should find ways to counterattack and go all in for it to obtain a chance. For example: attack the weak king, or destabilize the queenside pawns.

Gukesh fist bumps after winning the game! Credit: Lennart Ootes, Grand Chess Tour

Game Two was a 5+3 blitz game. Sindarov gone for a rare line in the Masters level, the Deferred Steinitz. Sindarov slowly presses pressure on Gukesh and has let Gukesh's pawns all be isolated and weak. Gukesh has a chance of coming back but missed it, and Sindarov went on to convert perfectly into a win.

Key takeaways from this game:

• 13...Nd7 is a nice maneuver to place the knight onto a strong outpost to pressure the queenside. We should always improve our pieces to better, active outposts. Outposts are a strong square for a piece that cannot be removed via a pawn attack.
• 24...Rc5! is a great key point that selects where do the rooks trade, not just carelessly taking the rook letting Gukesh to control the whole c-file. Trade pieces if it only favors you, like it opens a file or entering a winning endgame. Also, let your opponent trade, as they had lost a tempo trying for a trade while you can improve your pieces and wait till they take.
• The move that Gukesh missed, 36. d7!!, was a golden opportunity to let your opponent take the free pawn but gains tempo to stop the passed pawn. We should all know that tempo is a crucial part in the endgame, for example, the Triangulation uses a waste of tempo to zugzwang the opponent.

Game three was the second 5+3 blitz match. Gukesh played imprecisely in the opening, but Sindarov had missed his chance to obtain the better position. After some moves, Gukesh had blundered a tactic that loses a pawn. Sindarov took advantage and played precisely in the endgame, finally snatching the win.

Key takeaways from this game:

• 16. Nf5 and 18. Bxa7 was the main part of the pawn-winning tactic. The first one is to double attack the queen and the d6-pawn, forcing the trade, while the latter is to trade off the heavy pieces then pick up the weak d6-pawn. Always look for weaknesses and attack them.

• In the endgame, you should do the following!

  1. Put your rooks on the seventh, or second rank. At there is the base of your opponent's pawn chain, so attacking it would lead to passive defense, eg. rook stuck defending the attacked pawn, or pawn wins.

  2. March your king into the center! At the endgame, there aren't many pieces to checlmate the king, so we should take central space to maximize our use of pieces. Example: after 22. f3!, Sindarov's plan is to play Kf2, and probably also start a kingside attack with g4-h4 etc. Fun Fact: Magnus says that kings in the endgame worth about 4 points.

  3. Push your passed pawns at ALL COSTS. Especially connected ones. Place your rooks behind them and starting pushing, and also bring your king to attack the piece blocking the promoting square. Next, the opposing king will have to go for the passed pawn to defend against this which deflects their king from defending the other side. You will then bring your king to the other side to win the pawns.

  4. Try to create an attack with your pawns if you have the majority on that side. Example, after 24. g4! by Sindarov the continuation for the kingside expansion would be likely be Ng3, f4, h4 and g5. After the trade, we have h6 to create a passed pawn.

The Interview

World Chess had interviewed both Sindarov and Gukesh about each other.

Sindarov's Respond

https://youtu.be/T8EJCopMZ9s?si=Zha7oxPnE407rZ89

“I found out about Gukesh about 10 years ago or even more,” the Uzbek star said after securing his title shot. "I remember we played our first game around 2016 or 2017. He became a grandmaster at a younger age than me. I think at that time I was second youngest, and he surpassed Sergey Karjakin. Even then I understood he would become a very strong chess player. When I realised he was very close to getting the grandmaster title, I started following all his tournaments. Of course, he is very strong and became a grandmaster before me by age. It’s fantastic!"

We Are Not Friends.

Then came the blunt line that instantly set chess social media alight. "I have many friends. I'm a very straightforward person, but I have never spoken to Gukesh. I have friends from India—Arjun, Nihal. I’m very good friends with them, but I’ve never spoken to Gukesh. We only talk about games and nothing else."

Gukesh's Respond

"I've known Sindarov for quite a while," Gukesh said when asked. "When I was playing in youth tournaments, like the Under 10 World Championships and things like that, I knew he was in the same age group as Praggnanandhaa. They're both about a year older than me. So, I didn't play against him that often, but I just knew he was somewhere around there."
"And, I think, until last year I wasn't even sure if he was 2700+. He’s had a great climb recently, and that's nice for chess—it brings new energy to the elite. Of course, Javokhir's performance at the Candidates Tournament is an extremely dominant one. It's very impressive, but I think round-robin tournaments and matches like these are completely different experiences. So, I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from it."

Credit: World Chess

The End

So, what do you think? Who would win the World Champion title? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Be sure to leave a like if you appreciate the work and also give me some suggestions to improve my blog. Also, sorry if this blog seems too late for an event that has passed a month ago, I'm quite busy recently and haven't got much time to annotate the three games and write the body of the blog.

Anyways, thank you for reading this far! See you in the next blog!