Chess (#1192)

The Candidates in Moscow is almost at midpoint. Sergey Karjakin and Levon Aronian share the lead with 4 points from 6 rounds. Viswanathan Anand (3.5) is in third. Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri are on 3 each, with Peter Svidler (2.5), Veselin Topalov and Hikaru Nakamura (2 each) trailing. Everybody has a theoretical chance with 8 rounds left.

Karjakin has shown excellent form, picking off a nice technical win against Anand, capitalising on a big error by Nakamura and fighting hard to hold an inferior position against Caruana. Aronian has been more sloppy and more fortunate with two big strokes of luck; Topalov blundered two pawns against him and Nakamura made an unfortunate touched-move error in a drawn endgame.

Read more from our special coverage on "CHESS"

• Chess (#1191)
• Chess (#1190)
• Chess (#1189)

Anand's form has been uncertain. He won two good games, pulling off a good attack against Svidler and a study-like endgame against Topalov. But he also drifted into a loss versus Karjakin with a series of sub-optimal moves. Caruana and Giri have not quite been able to impose themselves. Topalov and Nakamura have been in poor form. Svilder has played well except against Anand.

It may be a very tense second half. There is a huge premium on winning as opposed to merely doing well since the winner gets a title match with at least 40 per cent share of a guaranteed million-dollar stake. Nobody has a big lead so a couple of key games could change the standings drastically.

In the meantime, Hou Yifan won back the world title with an emphatic 6-3 victory over Mariya Muzychuk. This is the third time the 22-year-old has taken the world title and she has never actually lost a match or even looked like losing in match-play. Frankly, it would make more sense for Hou in terms of her personal development to focus on playing Super-GMs rather than being compelled to play the women's circuit.

Meanwhile, Abhijeet Gupta won the Reykjavík Open with 8.5 from 10 games. Tania Sachdev also had an excellent result, scoring 7 and making her second GM norm.

The diagram, BLACK TO PLAY (White: Anand Vs Black: Topalov, Candidates 2016) is hard to understand at first or even second glance. White is winning. The pieces on a6, c2 are useless defenders, black's king is imprisoned by his own pawns and 2Rs+Kt will create mate threats.

Typically white delivers mate or wins material. The best chance maybe 41...g5 42.Rxf7 Rxa5 43.Rf5 c6 44.Re6 Be3 45.Nxg5+ Bxg5 46.Rxg5 Rxd5 47.Rxd5 cxd5 48.Rxd6 - white will win by creating united passed pawns.

Play went 41.-- f6 42.h4 Rxa5 43.Rf7 g5 44.h5 Rxf2+ [Since 44...f5 45.Rxf5 Bf6 46.Nxf6+ gxf6 47.Rxf6 Kg7 48.Ref8 Rxd5 49.h6+ mates] 45.Nxf2 Ra2 46.Rff8 Rxf2+ 47.Kh3 g4+ 48.Kxg4 f5+ 49.Rxf5 (1-0).

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player