^{GM Anish Giri, photo by Lennart Ootes. Source: official website}

It is still not known who will be the winner of a FIDE Candidates Tournament, we have two more rounds, but in five rounds so far, absolute star was Anish Giri, Russo-Nepali Dutchman who came back to Yekaterinburg with a penchant for winning…

Anish made three wins, two draws, four points out of five, and he is only half a point behind the leader, Ian Nepomniachtchi. He won both Chinese Grandmasters, and probably regrets that there were no more players from China in the tournament.

Rd. 8 GM Nepomniachtchi, I. | ½-½ | GM Giri, Anish
Rd. 9 GM Giri, Anish | 1-0 | GM Wang, Hao
Rd. 10 GM Vachier-Lagrave, M. | ½-½ | GM Giri, Anish
Rd. 11 GM Giri, Anish | 1-0 | GM Ding, Liren
Rd. 12 GM Caruana, F. | 0-1 | GM Giri, Anish

Enough for a hope, but we shall see if it will be enough for the title match. Let’s see the results from the previous two rounds.

The results of the Round 11 and Round 12:

White	Round 11	Black
GM Nepomniachtchi, I.	½-½	GM Caruana, F.
GM Giri, Anish	1-0	GM Ding, Liren
GM Alekseenko, K.	½-½	GM Wang, Hao
GM Grischuk, A.	1-0	GM Vachier-Lagrave, M.

White	Round 12	Black
GM Caruana, F.	0-1	GM Giri, Anish
GM Vachier-Lagrave, M.	1-0	GM Alekseenko, K.
GM Ding, Liren	1-0	GM Grischuk, A.
GM Wang, Hao	0-1	GM Nepomniachtchi, I.

Anish today literally stomped over the Caruana’s dream to repeat the title match with Carlsen. But let’s see first yesterday’s game against Ding Liren, because it shows how well prepared Giri is:

GM Anish Giri vs GM Ding Liren

The Candidates Tournament 2020/21 – Round 10, Yekaterinburg, April 23th, 2021
Ruy Lopez: Closed, Delayed Exchange

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Bxc6

^{C85 Ruy Lopez: Closed, Delayed Exchange}

This is a surprise prepared for this special occasion. Giri never played it before.

6… dxc6 7. d3 Bd6

But Liren admitted he didn’t prepare this line seriously, and that 7… Bd6 was decided over the board. And that was quite good idea, because…

8. Nbd2 Be6 9. Nb3 Qe7 10. Na5 O-O-O 11. Qe2 Bg4 12. c3 c5 13. a3 c6 14. b4 Bc7 15. Nb3 Nd7 16. h3 Bh5 17. Be3 f5 18. Bxc5 Qf7 19. Rab1 g5

…he really had a good position and a nice initiative on the King’s side. But then the focus drops…

20. exf5 g4?

…and Giri takes over Anishiative like a true chess predator!

21. Ng5 Qxf5 22. h4 b6 23. Ne4!

Let’t be fair to the stupid machine, Giri didn’t have to sac a Bishop, since 23. Be3 was also winning. But who could resist a temptation of such a beauty?

23… bxc5 24. bxc5 Nf6 25. Nd6+ Bxd6 26. cxd6 Rxd6 27. d4 c5 28. Nxc5 Re8 29. Qc4 Black resigns under the numerous threats.

You can follow full analysis of this game at Chess24.com or even better at Hikaru Nakamura channel!

The standing after twelwe rounds looks like this:

Place	Name	Score	Rating
1	Nepomniachtchi, Ian	8/12	2789
2	Giri, Anish	7.5/12	2776
3	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	6.5/12	2758
4	Caruana, Fabiano	6/12	2820
5	Grischuk, Alexander	5.5/12	2777
6	Wang, Hao	5/12	2763
7	Ding, Liren	5/12	2791
8	Alekseenko, Kirill	4.5/12	2696

In a stormy Round 12 all four games were decided. We will use a tournament rest day tomorrow to see another game by Anish Giri, even more impressive win over Fabiano Caruana.