Grandmasters Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana won their matches in Round 10 of the 2024 FIDE Candidates Tournament to move closer to the tournament lead. Co-leaders GM Ian Nepomniachtchi and GM Gukesh Dommaraju drew their game and are now chased by three players half a point behind: Nakamura, Caruana and GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu.
GM Lei Tingjie has won four of his last five games, this time against GM Aleksandra Goryachkina, to jump into a tie for first with GM Tan Jongyi in 2024 FIDE Women’s Tournament. The Chinese grandmasters are one point ahead of their closest rivals Goryachkina and grandmaster Katerina Lagno.
After a day off, round 11 will begin Wednesday, April 17 at 2:30 PM ET / 8:30 PM CEST / 12:00 AM IST.
Ranking – Candidates
Ranking – women
Contenders: The Americans are back in the tournament
The key match was Nepomniachtchi against Gukesh, who was leading the tournament at the start of the round. The opener in this game was the first to get a reaction from the commentators as Gukesh played Ruy Lopez’s unusual Cozio Defense, a departure from his usual Berlin.
Nepomniachtchi opted for what commentators called a “two-score game” in which he would try to achieve without taking unnecessary risks. Gukesh, unchallenged, hangs on in the endgame with heavy pieces.
Gukesh said after the match: “Well, I was black. He played a solid game and it was a fair result.”
The two deciding matches were won by the American players, both of whom suffered setbacks in the final rounds.
After a tough loss the previous day, Nakamura repeated Nepomniachtchi’s eighth-round debut against GM Nijat Abbasov and it worked. Aafter that of Abbasov 13…b5?launching an attack that was too slow, Grandmaster Peter Lecko prophesied, “I really don’t see Abbasov surviving this, to be honest.”
I really don’t see Abbasov surviving this to be honest.
— Peter Leko
Nerves were on full display, however, as Nakamura later needed to make nine moves in 11 minutes to reach move 40 and was “starting to get really nervous” about possibly losing. Suddenly, Abbasov gained an advantage, but 36…Qe7?played after thinking about a minute out of the 18 he had left was a game-changer that allowed Nakamura to recover.
37.Be5! is a “classic wooden shield” as he put it, and Nakamura rose in the exchange to win the game.
“Huge win, very overturned game, very much like yesterday,” Nakamura said. “I wasn’t too happy with the use of my time in critical moments of the game, but we won.”
Huge win, very upturned game, very much like yesterday.
– Hikaru Nakamura
You can listen to Nakamura’s recap below:
Both Caruana and Grandmaster Alireza Firouja were in must-win territory if they were to win the tournament, so we got a sharp Sicilian Naidorf as a result. Caruana described the rare but dangerous 6.Rg1!? and introduced the new move 7.Bc4N.
Caruana could have gained a huge advantage early on with 14.Bxe6 fxe6 15.e5!, a tactic that both players missed. But the turning point came much later, in the endgame, where Caruana began to outplay the struggling opponent. GM Rafael Leitao discusses the game of the day below.
After this critical victory, Caruana resumed his climb to the top. He said: “Everyone has bad moments. I had my worst moment against Hikaru in this tournament. Fortunately, I’m still fighting… this win was very important for me.”
Fortunately, I’m still fighting.
— Fabiano Caruana
Off the board, Firouzja’s problems with event officials are far from over. His father, Hamidreza, spoke to FM Mike Klein about being escorted from the building after threatening to call the police to enter the spectator area.
Unfortunately, he also shared that his son told him he didn’t want to play chess anymore after he failed to defeat Nepomnyashchi from a higher position in the ninth round. Firouja fans will be hoping this is an emotional outburst during a stressful period and not an official statement.
“Last night, Alireza said to me, ‘Dad, I don’t want to play chess.’#FIDECandidates pic.twitter.com/fxlzehh8HQ
— chess24 (@chess24com) April 15, 2024
Praggnanandhaa defeated his compatriot GM He sees Gujrati in round three, but there’s really not much to say about their second meeting in round 10. It was the Berlin Defense, where Pragnananda traded his knight for a bishop on d6, just as Gukesh had played against him the day before in a similar structure. But then they traded down and repeated moves just before the time control.
Six players battle it out to win this tournament with four rounds to go. After a day off, they all play against each other except Firuja vs. Abbasov, the two players struggle the most. 
Female Candidates: All Leigh does is win
Tan went over at par and lost in the eighth round, but she didn’t make that mistake again. In Scotch Opening, GM Humpy Koneru drew comfortably with Black and then managed to win a pawn, but the tournament leader pulled on the brakes, returned the pawn a few moves later and drew a piece-heavy endgame.
In the battle between the two runners-up, Goryachkina vs. Lei, we saw Exchange Slav—but humble beginnings didn’t mean quiet play. Ley grabbed a potentially poisoned pawn on b2 and it paid off in the end.
“That game was, shall I say, up and down,” Leigh said of a difficult ending in which she won at various points but couldn’t find the best extension several times. Goryachkina made her final mistake in the endgame with a straight three pawns against a knight, where 61.Nxe5? missed half a point.
Actually, when Leigh was playing 60…f5, she assumed the position was simply a tie. It wasn’t until her opponent answered that she realized, “Whoa, maybe there are some chances… I was shocked.” Ley won the miraculous finish and earned his fourth win in the last five games.
Asked what had changed over the last five rounds, Leigh said: “I thought I had no chance and there was no pressure for me.” Now that she is leading the tournament, the question is whether she will feel the pressure and whether she will be able to maintain her stellar form .
GM-designate Vaishali Rameshbabu looked like he was about to lose another fifth game in a row against IM Nurgul Salimova, but she stopped the bleeding in this round. At the end of the game, the Bulgarian IM found an elegant winning idea, 42. Kh2! Rc5 43. Rg2, but later collapsed with both players remaining with less than a minute left. Refusing a persistent bid for a replay and a draw when the position was already level, Salimova even lost the endgame she had dominated for so long.
Against Lago, GM Anna Muzychuk played the somewhat unpopular but perfectly sound Ruy Lopez open variation with black. She found a nice sequence to tie, finishing with the only move 16…c6!.
In the end, Muzychuk had two pawns to one on the kingside, but the endgame was tied all the way.
Both tournament leaders will have the white pieces after the day off. Should they push for another win, or should they let the chasing pack take all the risks? We’ll find out their game plans on Wednesday.
You can watch candidate video summaries in our playlist below (click here).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries
You can watch the 2024 FIDE Candidates Tournament on YouTube and Twitch on Chess24, and the 2024 FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament on YouTube and Twitch on Chess.com. The games can also be followed from our events page.
The FIDE Candidate Tournaments are among the most important FIDE events of the year. The players are competing for the right to play in the next FIDE World Championship match against current World Chess Champions Grandmasters Ding Liren and Zhu Wenjun.
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