Kramnik meltdown continues, not surprisingly. On the other end of the table Caruana missed a huge opportunity to increase his lead.

Karjakin has excellent results against Kramnik and today he even managed to get his preparation in by introducing the very interesting novelty 9 h4 in the Semi-Tarrasch. Kramnik has always been confident in his preparation but repeatedly playing the same opening inevitably makes him a sitting duck and for a second day in row he got surprised in it.

By this point in the tournament Kramnik doesn’t have the patience to continue in a controlled way. He lashed out with 11…f5 inviting immediate crisis. The move wasn’t bad, but it required increased precision by Black later on, something Kramnik wasn’t able to provide. As a consequence, he was lost on move 17. Here’s the game with notes by myself and GM Nedev.

The two players have obviously gone in different directions by now. Karjakin found his way back into the tournament, while Kramnik probably wishes the nightmare finishes as soon as possible. He will still have to suffer for 5 more rounds.

Two games finished in tame draws. So and Grischuk repeated well-known theory in the Berlin with 5 Re1 and shook hands. Aronian didn’t manage to pose many problems to Mamedyarov in the Catalan. It is notable that Mamedyarov also played the trendy 7…b6 in the main line, just like Caruana did in Round 2.

Caruana missed a golden opportunity to increase his lead to a full point before the rest day. He applied continuous pressure on Ding Liren (in yet another Catalan) and managed to get a winning position. Here is the last missed win:

A pity for the American, who would have all but been guaranteed a victory in the tournament had he won it. As it is, after the rest day he will face Mamedyarov with Black in what may turn out to be the decisive game for the final outcome. He will have a rest day to overcome the setback of the missed win. After all everything is still in his own hands.

Unfortunately I will probably stop the daily reports until the end of the Candidates since I am going to play a tournament myself. It is regrettable, as I really enjoy analysing the games, but I will have to concentrate on my own games. Let’s see if the candidates provide inspiration.