Ian Nepomniachtchi crushed Alireza Firouzja in Round 11 of the FIDE Candidates Tournament but just when it looked as though that would extend his lead to 2 points with just 3 rounds to go, Ding Liren won a position he'd been struggling to save against Fabiano Caruana. The Chinese no. 1's 3rd win in a row leaves him 1.5 points behind the leader.

Alireza Firouzja drew criticism from Judit Polgar among others for playing a hyper-bullet chess marathon until 6 am on the morning before Round 11, particularly as he was facing none other than Ian Nepomniachtchi, the runaway leader.

The idea to change something after the painful loss to Hikaru Nakamura was understandable, however, and if it had paid off people would write about an inspired decision.

At first there seemed to be no problem in the opening, as Alireza was playing faster in a Petroff sideline, but his choice on move 16 reopened the question of whether he was still on tilt.

Nepomniachtchi would later say:

Rather than meeting the move in kind with a blow such as 16...Rxc3?! Ian responded with the calm 16...h6, asking Alireza to demonstrate his point.

This is when Alireza sank into a 35-minute think and must have realised he'd bitten off more than he could chew. Ian pointed out he was most concerned about 17.a4 with a5 to follow, but:

Sure enough, Alireza went all-in with 17.h4?! Rfe8 18.g5 hxg5 19.hxg5 Nh5 as Nepo's advantage grew and grew.

After 20.Kg2!? Ng6! dark clouds were gathering around the white king.

The only move where you could even slightly fault Ian was his choice after 23...Ne4.

Here 23...Bd8! was the clincher, but walking into 24.Nxd6 is not for the faint-hearted. Ian hadn't missed the move, however, he just reasonably decided to go with his Plan B, 23...Rc4.

The tactics Ian had seen were spectacular and accurate...

...though there was a chance for Alireza to put up more resistance.

Nepo commented:

It just wasn't Alireza's day, however, and after 30.Bb3? Bc5! Nepo slammed the door back into the game shut. He made the rest look easy, and was close to giving checkmate when Alireza resigned.

That was Nepomniachtchi's second win of the event over Firouzja and took him up to 2792.7 and world no. 3, while Alireza has slumped to 2773.7 and world no. 6.

It's all gone wrong for Alireza Firouzja | photo: Stev Bonhage

Ian said of his young rival:

Nepomniachtchi, meanwhile, is now on a stunning +5 score of 8/11, leaving the rest of the field in his wake.

Ian Nepomniachtchi is back, despite the pain of the 2021 match | photo: Stev Bonhage, FIDE

The battle for 2nd place, which might be enough for a match as well, was also intense, with huge battles in Nakamura-Rapport and Caruana-Ding Liren.

Ding Liren would land a huge blow to Fabiano Caruana's chances | photo: Stev Bonhage, FIDE

Hikaru's extra pawn against Richard never looked like being enough for a full point, but the US star still pressed for 96 moves.

He recapped the game afterwards.

The other clash was much more dramatic. At first the opening seemed to have gone Ding Liren's way, but, perhaps riding the wave of having won his previous two games, he went for an idea that culminated in the seemingly powerful 32...Qe5?!

The queen is hitting g3 and b2, but there was a huge hole in the idea. 33.Nf5! by Caruana prepared to meet 33...Rxb2? with 34.Nxd6!, with the point that after 34...Rxd2 White wins back the queen with 35.Nf7+ Kg7 36.Nxe5.

Just as against Richard Rapport the day before, however, Ding managed to respond to the shock and find all the right moves to hold on in what had become an extremely unpleasant position.

He would go on to do much more than that, however, with Fabi getting low on time when he pushed his e-pawn and got hit by a counterattack from Ding.

It was extremely tough for White to counter the black queen, rook and bishop, with the e7-pawn having to be given up as a sacrifice.

Fabi had ways to escape, with the best one perhaps coming just when he'd reached move 60.

61.Bxg5! fxg5 62.Rxe8 Bxe8 63.Qe7+ and the black king can't escape from checks. Everything has gone wrong in the last few rounds for Fabi, however, and after just 3 minutes he went for 61.Qg4?!, when the game went on.

Ding's decision to exchange off queens looked questionable, but the position was still horrible to defend, and Fabi cracked with 74.Bb5, allowing 75...Re7!

The main problem is that 76.Rc2 would run into 76...Bd3! and the rook can't both stop Re2 and defend the c7-bishop. The game didn't last long!

That meant Ding Liren has remarkably now won three games in a row to take over as Nepo's closest challenger, despite starting the tournament by losing to Nepo and then drawing the next 7 games.

It will still take a lot to catch Nepo — Nakamura could inject life into the race if he beats the leader with Black in Round 12...

...while Ding-Radjabov is a game where the Chinese no. 1 will hope to make it 4-in-a-row. In any case, Ding Liren's chances of reaching a World Championship match have been given a huge boost. Once again, if Magnus chooses not to defend his title we'll get a match between the top two finishers.

Replay all the FIDE Candidates games with computer analysis.