Hikaru Nakamura

World No.2, streamer

“Okay, 357 games for Javokhir Sindarov. As we look at his stats, we see that he is apparently a great attacking player. He is 99% attack, 96% defense, time is 95%, his mental is 94%, overall 96%.

This is actually very-very good. I have a feeling he might have the best score overall relative to all the other players in the candidates outside of myself. It would not be shocking!

But the big issue for Sindarov is mid-high predictability, clear patterns to exploit.

He blunders under time pressure, you need to get him low on time. He drops his level after losses, he tilts quite a bit. Limited repertoire, he plays the same openings every game. If he plays something in the Candidates, he’s obviously going to play the same opening every single time. Repetitive patterns, predictable moves — high, 60%. It looks like he’s pretty predictable. That’s good.

Now we get to the meat of it. This is actually what really matters! How to beat this player — outplay in the middle game. No opening weaknesses, meaning that he’s pretty good at the start of the game. So, you don’t want to get into a big battle with him at the beginning.

Let’s keep going. Psychology — stability 55%, tilt 31%, post-loss 61.1%, time-outs 12.8%, longest loss-steak is 6, resigns 81.7% of the time.

Now it’s pretty clearcut what the preparation approach should be towards Sindarov in the Candidates.”

Hikaru Nakamura

World No.2, streamer

“It’s very-very clear. What I need to do is I need to play Anish on Wednesday, Fabi or Pragg on Friday. I also need to play Pragg at 1:00 p.m. and then I need to play Esipenko at 10:00 a.m. It’s very clear. That’s all we’ve got to do in order to win the Candidates.

I’ll send an email to FIDE asking for these very amendable changes for the schedule and it should be very-very good!”