Ulhumbrus: 13...Nxe4 is an unforced capture. It gives White's king's bishop a free tempo to develop to e4. Both the capture 13...Nxe4 and the recapture 14 Bxe4 consume a tempo but Black uses his tempo to develop a knight which gets taken while White uses his tempo to develop a bishop that remains on the board. Black is able to push the bishop back by 14...f5 and this does attack a central point with a pawn but it also weakens the e6 pawn and exposes it to attack so the question is whether this will on the whole gain Black something or not. That remains to be seen.
15...Qxd1 is a second unforced capture that gives White's king's rook a free tempo to develop to d1. However on 15...Bf6 16 Bxf6 Rxf6 17 Qxd8 Rxd8 18 Ba2! if Black defends the e6 pawn by 18...Kf7 on 19 Rad1 his rook on f6 can't go back to f8 to defend its colleague as its way towards f8 is obstructed by the black king on f7.
However the king may be able to make way later by spending a tempo on the move ..Kf7-e7 so let us take this variation a little further: 19...Rxd1 20 Rxd1 Ke7. This keeps the rook out and makes way for the rook on f6 to come back to f8 and then to d8. And now Black's king is ahead of White's king in development in the endgame.
Whether 15...Qxd1 gives White more remains to be seen.
Instead of 19...Bd6, 19...Rac8 attends to the piece placed the worst, the queen's rook. Then on 20 Rc2 Bf6 21 Bxf6 Kxf6 22 Rac1 Ne7 the game may fizzle out.
The move 23...Rd7 suggests that Black has begun to pay for neglecting his queen's rook. He can't play ...Rac8 in order to challenge White's possession of the c file.
After 24 Nb3 we have a pawn structure similar to that in the famous game Capablanca vs Alekhine, 1927
Kotov said in his annotations to that game that the initiative would be gained by whichever player managed to get his knight to his QB5 square, or in algebraic notation, to c5 for White's knight or to c4 for Black's knight
Ding Liren has probably seen Kotov's book and is trying to get his knight to c5.
This suggests that instead of 24...Be7 it is better for Black to play 24...Nb6 heading for c4.
25 h5 looks like the kind of embroidery that assumes that White can afford to spend a tempo on it because Black lacks any way to do something as useful with his reply. However is this assumption correct? If Black uses his tempo to play 25...Ra7 he becomes able to contest the c file by ...Rc7 and White have have cause to regret having spent a tempo on the move h5.
26 Bd4 prevents ...Ra7 but after 26...Bxd4 27 Nxd4 Ra7 how is White going to prevent the move ...Rc7?
26...e5 does not help Black to contest the c file. If it does something else instead that remains to be seen.
Instead of 30...Nf6, at present 30...Ke6 can be answered by Rd6+
However suppose that Black tries 30...Nb6 threatening to go to c4. On 31 Bxb6 Bxb6 whether Black can defend this position better than the course taken in the game remains to be seen.
Instead of 31...Ng4 31...Nd7 proposes to repeat moves after 32 Bc5 Nf6. One justification for this is that if White does not want to repeat moves he may concede something. The text is a mistake if it allows White to invade the seventh rank and increase his advantage.
The move 36...f4 suggests that Nakamura does not know what to do and is going to lose material or walk into a winning attack whatever he does. The suggestion is wrong if the right explanation is that he is in time trouble. 36...Nf6 does do one thing: it attacks the h5 pawn . On 37 Bd6 Ne4 38 Bxe5 Bf6 has lost a pawn but that may be better than letting White have a winning attack as well as a pawn.
Kibitzing
