A genius, like Alireza Firouzja, is able to climb to the very edge of the pinnacle of chess very quickly;
he was already there two years ago, at 17. But in the Candidates Tournament in Madrid he verified how hard it is to climb the last stretch and be able to challenge the champion, who lives at the top.
After suffering a lot to draw the first two games with the black pieces, it seemed that the French-Iranian was going to knock down the American Hikaru Nakamura in the 3rd, but he found a very fine defense when he already smelled like a corpse.
As all four games were drawn, American Fabiano Caruana and Russian Ian Niepomniashi remain leaders heading into Monday's break.
"This is like the Rolling Stones letting me play some chords on their guitars."
This is how the popular television presenter Risto Mejide explained his emotion after taking the honorary kick-off in the Firouzja-Nakamura game and then staying there watching them, just two meters away.
“You feel the tremendous tension on stage.
Chess hooked me since I was little, but I had never been on the stage of such an important tournament”, he added.
Sister Morphine
(morphine sister) is one of the songs of the Rolling.
And the poisonous lab idea that Firouzja brought to the board with her sixteenth cast was just as dangerous as that potent opiate drug.
In fact, the prodigy of Persian origin brought the American to his deathbed.
Chess programs indicated that defeat was inevitable, except if Nakamura found the antidote, hidden in a very narrow path to salvation.
But the Japanese-born American found it despite the extreme difficulty of it, more befitting a time-consuming home-composed art ending than a live game under the pressure of the clock.
Nakamura looks at Firouzja while he thinks during the game between the two of the 3rd round, this Sunday at the Palacio de SantoñaL.G.
This is the good thing about the experience of a player of enormous talent, who, however, always preferred to dedicate himself to activities other than those of devoting himself body and soul to classical elite chess, which is so hard and demanding.
In his youth, Nakamura spent countless hours playing one minute games on the internet.
Now, at 34, he has made a lot of money during the pandemic as a
streamer,
playing and announcing his games live.
After taking half a point from Firouzja, he was so happy that he confessed to the journalists: "Actually, playing this tournament I lose money, because I would earn much more dedicating these three weeks to my work as a
streamer."
And he left to sign autographs to the large group of admirers who were waiting for him in the street.
Quite different was Firouzja's reaction when he saw, after his rival's forty-first move, that his joy was going down a hole.
Assuming reality cost him a thought of 62 minutes (something very extraordinary; the average reflection is two or three minutes per move).
And after signing the tie, after 53 sets and five hours of fighting, he ran away from journalists and admirers to take refuge with his father in the car that was waiting for him at the door.
A few drops of morphine might have helped him get through a peaceful night, but they would give him a positive result in the anti-doping control that chess players also undergo since, in 1999, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) was accepted as a member of the International Olympic Committee ( IOC).
Classification (after the 3rd round
): 1st-2nd Caruana and Niepómniashi 2 points;
3rd-6th Firouzja, Rapport, Duda and Radyábov 1.5;
7th-8th Ding and Nakamura 1.
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by Leontxo García
