He’s not quite the Rodney Dangerfield of top-level chess, but GM Ian Nepomniachtchi was not getting a whole lot of respect ahead of the FIDE Candidates Tournament in Madrid, despite having won the same event just over a year ago.
The Russian, so the handicappers said, was coming off a disastrous and demoralizing defeat in his 2021 world title match with Norwegian champ Magnus Carlsen, a lopsided result marred by elementary blunders from the challenger. This year’s Candidates tournament included a number of powerful rivals, including U.S. GM Fabiano Caruana, top-rated Chinese star GM Ding Liren, and — a trendy pre-tournament pick by many pundits — the young Iranian-born French superstar GM Alireza Firouzja.