Another fun day of games in the candidates tournament. It started out a bit sleepy, with 4 games that honestly looked like draws early on. Then Hikaru uncorks a
savage tactic against Fabiano Caruana, playing 33. Qb4!, which looks like it attacks black’s hanging pawn on b2, but it turns out that’s not the actual threat at all.
Fabi plays 33. … b5, protecting the b pawn and then Hikaru’s next move is a cold shower: 34. Ne7+, Kh8 (basically forced—the knight is defended twice), followed by 35. Nd5!
https://lichess.org/broadcast/fide-c...cmG6L/SKYfaPnS
Fabi resigned. Why? You can’t take the knight because Qxf8 is checkmate! You can’t move the queen away for the same reason. Black’s best try would have been c5, interrupting the queen but that doesn’t help—the queens come off and white goes into an endgame up a full piece.
I don’t know how to share the animation of the game but it’s worth checking out. Very cool sequence from Hikaru to end the game against one of the best players in the world.
Oh, and Gukesh also won, and is now the tournament leader. No big deal.