Gibraltar Rd10: Steady Final Standings

Round Ten

Hikaru Nakamura (USA) has won the 13th Tradewise Gibraltar Masters, which concluded at the Caleta Hotel on Thursday 5 February 2015. Nakamura drew his last round game with Pentala Harikrishna (India), which took him to 8½/10. Even though Nakamura's opening choice was somewhat quiet (the pawn sacrifice is known to reach a relatively equal endgame), he managed to find some winning chances by winning a pawn, that being said Harikirshna was never in any real danger.

David Howell, playing Black against Hou Yifan, could have reached 8½ had he won but, in trying to do so, overreached and was lost at one stage, luckily for him Hou Yifan missed her best chance and the game was eventually drawn.

Despite this the World Womne's Champion won a pile of money, as she claims the tie for third and the best Women's Prize (15,000 pounds).

Benjamin Bok, from The Netherlands, reached 7.0/10

Despite her last minute blunder Hou Yifan should be quite happy with her performance. The World Women's Champion will be unable to defend her title in Sochi as she had a prior engagement with the Hawaii Chess Festival.

Sharing second through fifth women's prizes were Rout Padmini (India), Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine), Ju Wenjun (China) and Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgaria) 6½.

Dennis Wagner, only 17, finished tied for third after concluding
a breathtaking run by defeating Eduardo Iturrizaga

Baskaran Adhiban also finished with a bang by beating Ivan Cheparinov

Indeed their were a fair amount of people that won their last round games to finish with 7.5/10. Besides Wagner and Adhiban, Topalov defeated Bartel, Wei Yi defeated Felgaer, and Matlakov beat Kuipers.

Wei Yi went from 2641 in October to 2706 after Gibraltar

Argentinean Ruben Felgaer was Wei Yi's last victim

Svidler could only draw Sutovsky and did not tie for third

Yu Yangyi also was out of the big tie beccause of his last round draw with Bok

The winner, without question, with a fabulous performance. Hikaru Nakamura shows the World where exactly he belongs. It is refreshing to see this talented and ambitious player breaking his personal best, regaining his standing as the best American and winning a superbly strong event.

Round Ten Standings

Replay Masters games - Round Ten

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

All photos by Sophie Triay and John Saunders from the Official Website

Links Official tournament site The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.