Ian Nepomniachtchi: “The strategy was not to lose”
The winner of the FIDE Candidates Tournament answered Eteri Kublashvili’s questions in great detail. We publish this interview, courtesy of the official website of the Chess Federation of Russia, with some minor edits. The video version is available here.
- Ian, you won one of the most important events in every chess player’s career and qualified for the World Championship Match. It’s a great achievement, congratulations! So, how do you feel now?
- Thank you. I feel really exhausted because it was an incredible tournament in many, many senses of the word. First of all, I guess it took 400 days from start to finish, it is kind of outstanding. Well, when you read about chess history, players were travelling by sea, from America to Europe and so on… In our times, you know, it’s not romantic at all because of the global pandemic thing.
BREAKING: Nepomniachtchi Wins FIDE Candidates Tournament
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi won the FIDE Candidates Tournament with a round to spare. The 30-year-old Russian grandmaster will now play GM Magnus Carlsen for the world championship in November.
While Nepomniachtchi drew his game with GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, his main rival GM Anish Giri lost to GM Alexander Grischuk. Even if Nepomniachtchi loses and Giri wins in the final round, the Russian GM would still win on the first tiebreak as he defeated Giri in the first round.
Virtually eliminated in round 12, GM Fabiano Caruana defeated GM Wang Hao with the black pieces. GM Ding Liren won a second game in a row, today against GM Kirill Alekseenko.
Alas, even wins against both Karjakin and Nepomniachtchi weren t enough for Daniil to earn a medal. He finished fourth, but thrilled spectators with his creative play and desire to fight in every game. We can t wait to see him online in the Airthings Masters, which starts on 26th December, as well as in the Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee from January 16th.
Dubov played some fine games but missed out on first place after losing to Vladimir Fedoseev in the penultimate round - he said he didn t regret his choice to take risks, since wins for Ian and Sergey meant a draw wouldn t have been enough to fight for the title | photo: Eteri Kublashvili, ruchess.ru