Niemann obviously wants to 'spice it up' today, and hence opts for a more dynamic approach to the game, rather than any opening with a center pawn strategy or light-squares control.
Giri generally plays for fianchettoing the light-square bishop today, which will reach different kinds of positions compared to the current one on the board. We have a position today a lot in resemblance to a Sicilian Defense, with colors reversed.
Giri has had this position with white pieces but more than five years ago. Niemann has played this position regularly, even just a few months ago.
Conclusion: it is Giri who is 'fishing' for the opening today, hoping to spring a surprise in a position which Niemann plays regularly!
Giri now intends to take his queenside knight to the central square, and with the queen move, he stops the black king pawn from advancing. Hence, Niemann immediately exchanges off the knight, thus stopping the white knight from jumping up.
Now that Black will miss his dark bishop, Giri immediately wants to fianchetto the bishop on the long diagonal. In the meantime, he wishes to expand on the queenside too, hence preparing the advance of the knight pawns.
Though he will miss the services of his dark square bishop, he hopes that his rapid development of pieces will compensate for the factor.
This is a move employed frequently in Grandmaster practice before, by the likes of Carlsen, Nepo, Ivanchuk etc.
Another interesting factor is that Niemann has already played a game with Black in this position before, against GM Rudik Makarian, where his opponent opted for a capture of the black pawn. Giri obviously has analyzed that game and has come armed with his own preparation for this game.
The only logical option for Black here, to diffuse White's activity in the center. Also, Black goes for early simplification, thus not allowing White to obtain any significant advantage due to his bishop pair.
Black gains a bit of control in the center by attacking the queen, as well as indirectly diffusing White's threat of capturing the pawn in the center.
The white queen obviously takes up a place on the kingside, hoping to develop a dynamism against Black. Again, Giri is quite well armed in his idea, as it has already been tested in practice before by the likes of Carlsen and Nepo.
Black simply develops a move, keeping faith in his better development, rather than playing any concrete move. The point is that Giri almost gets a mild advantage here, which is more than what he could have hoped for in such an important last-round game.
The point is that, Black should have recaptured the white pawn with the bishop here, as played in many Grandmaster games. With the capture by the knight, Black allows the white bishop to give a check to the black king, thus developing fluently. After that, White may be able to quickly offset the deficit in development advantage.
Now, Giri has a pleasant choice to play a comfortable endgame with two bishops if he chooses to exchange the queen. Or, he can exchange the light bishops and play a dynamic middlegame where he will be slightly better again, due to having a bishop in an open position against the knight, apart from all the major pieces.
This seems to be a reasonable choice, though a little on the 'safety first' side. Giri now gets ready to play a long endgame with the bishop pair against the opponent's bishop and knight. This is a classic advantage in a practical endgame.
The psychological side of the decision is that Giri cannot lose the resultant endgame, almost. So, he is playing a phase of the game, which is one of his strengths, against an opponent who likes dynamism more than playing a long-drawn endgame where he has to defend carefully.
Obviously, White rejects an exchange of bishops and gets ready to play an endgame with the bishop pair.
So, we are looking at enjoying ourselves in an afternoon of an interesting endgame, where there is everything at stake for the players!
It is not clear why Niemann wants this rook developed to the file so early. There was no harm in getting his king castled and then fighting for the open file with his rooks.
White has multiple ideas behind the move:
1. White 'shunts' Black's bishop here to keep the pawns in the light squares, thus discouraging the Black bishop from sitting in the long diagonal.
3. White now expands with his pawn in the center or on the kingside, as he wishes. Black will find it difficult to react accurately to either of the pushes.
4. More than anything, the torture is in the waiting! Black cannot do much in terms of a dynamic plan, and hence will find it difficult to watch White expand himself slowly, while he couldn't do it much himself. After all, if Black starts pushing his pawns, they might create weaknesses too, to be probed by the white bishops.
Black aims to keep the king nearer to the center, in the square presently vacated by the black pawn. Now, he might keep his kingside rook on its present square and aim to push his pawns on the kingside if the need arises.
With the same logic as Black, Giri keeps his king nearer to the center, a common principle in a practical endgame
Niemann adopts Giri's policy too, keeping the king nearer to the center, as expected.
The white rook comes to the open file, showing his eagerness to fight for control. This also postpones the decision to fix the pawns in the center or on the kingside. But knowing that he has to commit his pawns more, one way or the other, we can expect Giri to push his pawns soon.
Now, this is a turning point! This is the position where White's ideas have been exhausted, and he has to make a 'small plan' and make a series of moves as part of the small plan.
The class of a strong player is to 'smell' such moments and come up with sound plans!
As we remarked earlier, it is on the kingside that White should concentrate, to fix up a pawn structure which will be beneficial for his possessing the bishop pair advantage.
However, in this current position, this looks like a mild inaccuracy. After all, if white had wanted to push the pawn on the kingside flank, he could have kept his rook in the same file itself, instead of bringing it early to the center?
The move just strengthens Black's queenside in general, while not resorting to any active play using his pieces. Niemann also seems to be asking Giri to prove if he has any more deployments to pursue on the kingside?
Finally, White commits his center and advances the king pawn. In the long run, this creates an outpost for the black knight in the center. This is a chance that White has to risk so as to generate play on the kingside in the long run.
This also means that, psychologically, Giri is now ready to play concretely rather than just making strengthening moves so far.
Niemann wants activity for his pieces and thus wants to take his knight deep into the queenside. However, the knight doesn't achieve much after penetrating into the queenside. This might be a typical case of pseudo-activity posing as dynamism!
This rook move doesn't really achieve much, though it looks quite active. Now, Niemann will be able to exchange atleast a pair of rooks, and bring his king to the center too. Most of Giri's advantage thus gets diffused now.
It remains to be seen if Niemann will be able to take advantage of Giri's inaccuracy!
With this rook move, Niemann safeguards his seventh rank, which Giri can use to check the black king and grab a pawn on the seventh rank. Now, the black bishop is ready to move forward. But this looks unnatural; instead of challenging the rook head-on with a rook.
Seeing that Black doesn't have any concrete threats, Giri calmly expands on the kingside with his pawns. In the long run, White will try to provoke a structural weakness in the kingside.
Now, Niemann has to find a concrete way to react, most probably by aiming to diffuse White's dominance in the center by exchanging rooks in the open file.
More of a panic reaction than a concrete idea! The black knight goes back, attacking the white rook and evacuating him from his forward position.
The point is that, with this move, Black's active ideas, initiated a few moves ago with a knight sortie, have all been shelved! Black admits to being on the back foot now.
Niemann's position gets a notch weaker for sure, after this move.
Niemann takes advantage of the unfortunate placement of the white rook and threatens a fork with his knight, attacking both the white rooks. Giri probably doesn't have a choice here but to go back to his original square with his rook on the open file.
White has achieved a simple winning position now. Keeping the black king tied to the defense of the passed pawn, the white king can move to the queenside and capture the black pawn.
Niemann has no choice but to wait, asking White to find the way to progress by getting the white king out of his predicament. The white king is unable to move from his current square now and needs the assistance of the white bishop.
Fantastic play by Giri - even with just four minutes remaining on his clock, he finds the only move on the board to win the game!!
The point is that White could not afford his queenside pawn to be fixed on a light square but had to push it as far as possible to win the game. It is to Giri's amazing endgame prowess that he finds the accurate move even while having less time on the clock!
White still has a winning advantage in the endgame, but there was no need for this pawn move. Giri could have activated his bishop enough to win the game comfortably.
This is not yet a mistake, but there was no need to take the white king to this square. Now, black can restrict the white king's movements with his own king.
This still doesn't spoil the win for Giri - he just has to work a little while longer :-)
Unless the knight pawn is pushed immediately, Black had a chance to exchange more pawns on the kingside, which may diminish White's winning chances.
As we noted, now White einters a same color bishop endgame with an extra pawn, which should be enough to win the game in the normal course.
White has won a pawn now, and is capturing the black rook too, as he is pinned to the black king.
Black gives up his rook for the knight temporarily and will either win back the pawn or even two. He has thus found a way to cash in his huge advantage held for a long time.
It was wrong on Black's part to create a weak pawn on the queenside by capturing with the pawn rather than the knight. Niemann played it instantly, thus making it clear that he was prepared for the move.
Now, the black rook attacks White's light bishop in the corner, but when the bishop moves away, the black pawn will come under fire.
With this exchange, White allows the black knight to come to a better square. The black knight is kept best at its current place, if White wants to exert pressure on the black position.
With Niemann having 11 minutes on the clock for his remaining 11 moves, Giri has 15 and counting down. We are sure to have a dash towards the finishing line here to reach the first time control. Only, it will be interesting to watch who will hold the nerve at this important time.
White's light bishop on the edge will get attacked if White dares to capture the black pawn. This is the logic behind Niemann's odd-looking rook move here.
Giri has long since abandoned his plans of a kingside pawn push. His realization of the advantage still lies in the kingside here.
White has a large advantage; it is still not a defined one. This is where one of the most important conversion techniques is needed for Giri: he has to convert his positional advantage into a material advantage here.
When we expected Giri to initiate action on the kingside, he did it on the queenside! Now, we are going to see concrete action. The days of cautious maneuvering and strengthening are over, and both sides take up their swords here!
The only move, as Black has tto move his rook away fhe rom bishop's attack, thus abandoning the file. This is probably want Giri wants in this position, to initiate action on the queenside.
White may not gain anything by attacking the black rook on the queenside. He could have gone for a pawn thrust in the kingside immediately, going for a breakthrough in the knight file.
Giri perhaps wants to initiate action on the queenside, pushing his pawn forward instantly. That is probably his idea behind driving the black rook away from the file?
Niemann wants to secure the open file, moves the king towards the center. But this is when he might regret leaving away from the kingside. After all, White's advanced pawns on the kingside may be ready to strike a breakthrough right now.
White doesn't mind the black knight landing near his fortress, as he threatens play on the queenside now. His kingside pawns will finally roll on now, creating a weakness in Black's position.
For all practical purposes, Giri cannot afford to repeat the moves to agree to a draw here, as he may be throwing away his chances to qualify for the Candidates Tournament 2026 with a draw in this game.
Not the accurate square for the white rook. The black knight can come back again to its earlier square, and threaten a repetition.
The game is peaking in its tension levels now! 🏋️
Both the players know that White has an advantage here. Giri is finding ways to expand it, while Niemann is looking to contain White's advantage.
This is the moment where both the players are expected to come up with their best, not just in terms of their chess play, but also their strength of personalities, in showing their best temperaments in playing the game. Often, this is what separates Grandmasters from the rest in chess: playing your best when under pressure, in key games of your career!
BTW, we just found out that Anish began this game cheerfully!
Giri has been consuming loads of time in the past few moves and is now lesser on the clock than Niemann. Does it give an indication of a mind in mild disarray? After all, he knows he is slightly better in this position, but is he finding it difficult to find a feasible plan to play?!
In the last few moves, Giri has consumed enough time that he is almost on par with Niemann on time, at a little under an hour. Does this mean that he is feeling the pressure? Is he finding it difficult to understand the pulse of the endgame? Difficult to say.
There is something fascinating in watching two strong grandmasters fighting each other in a complex endgame. After all, the best of the best are always good at the endgame, even an indication of their natural talent when young.
Giri definitely belongs to that class of players who produce magnificent endgames once in a while. So, one hopes that the current game will be a display of his endgame prowess, against Niemann's famed grit and determination on the board!
White already has an advantage, possessing the bishop pair, and there is bound to be some action on the queenside sooner or later. But it is on the kingside that Giri will be eager to create a weakness in the long run. Hence, we can expect him to typically advance his pawns in the side, sooner or later.
Giri has not consumed any time on the clock so far, whereas Niemann has consumed more than 27 minutes! Which means, Giri might soon have a time advantage of about half an hour on the clock!
Alert: This is typically a scenario one should avoid in the last round, to get 'caught' in the opponent's opening preparation.
Welcome to the last and final round of the FIDE Grand Swiss 2025!
What a tournament! And what a day it is going to be!
In case of a decisive result on the first board or this board, the winner is through to the Candidates Tournament 2025! That's the first fact we have to establish. If either of these games ends in a draw, the tiebreak score is pretty complicated! But there is still a chance for all our heroes on seven points to qualify, but it depends on all the other games in the 6.5-point group.
Giri has had a typical tournament, with four wins and six draws so far. His highest victim was Jordan van Foreest with a rating of 2692. Curiously, Giri has had an equal number of wins with White and Black in the tournament.
Niemann also has had a solid tournament, surprisingly, with the same win / draw results! His best was in the penultimate round against Praggnanandhaa, rated 2785. He has had one win with Black in the tournament, against Vokhidov (2645) in the sixth round.
Hence, form-wise, there is not much to choose between these two fantastic players! On paper, too, Giri is just a shade better at Elo 2746 against Niemann with 2733.
What makes the difference today is the color of the pieces. Giri is definitely to play the typical 'play for two results' chess today. If that happens, we don't see much of a Niemann today.
But who knows! It is the last round - logic and normalcy don't work here. Only the nerves!