Nakamura wins Opening Blitz in Zurich

5th Zurich Chess Challenge 2016

From 12 to 15 February 2016 the world chess elite will arrive again in Zurich for the fifth edition of the Zurich Chess Challenge at the Hotel Savoy Baur en Ville.

The oldest chess club in the world and its honorable member Oleg Skvortsov have suggested a most important innovation for the future of new classical chess: a new time control of 40 minutes per game with additional 10 seconds for each move.

Today was the opening blitz as well as the opening ceremony. Today's blitz tournament doesn't count for the final tally, but it does determine which players have more whites than blacks in the classical portion of the tournament (or rapid portion, depending on how you want to see things). The time control for the blitz was four minutes with two seconds increment.

The evening started with a friendly game between Boris Gelfand and Oleg Skvortsov, the sponsor of the event.
Picture by Vladimir Barsky for ruchess.ru

Players almost ready for the blitz to begin

Round One

From the get-go it was Hikaru Nakamura that lead the event. His win against Aronian was the only decisive result in the first game.

Early leader with his first round win: Nakamura

Kramnik was unable to create real problems against Giri and that game ended in a draw, while Shirov and Anand repeated moves in a Sicilian to also split the point.

A solid draw to start the tournament for these two

Round Two

In the game Giri vs. Anand the Dutch player underestimated the danger to his king in severe time pressure.

Meanwhile Kramnik was a little too aggressive against Nakamura:

Finally Aronian was unable to hold a position that I was certain would end in a draw. He missed a clever trap from Shirov:

It all looked heading towards a draw, but Aronian didn't sense the danger

With these results Nakamura was well in the lead. Aronian's 0/2 start was a bit surprising, and Shirov was the one showing good form! Things didn't quite stop there for the American player, though.

Round Three

Nakamura won yet again, this time against Giri. After exploiting a weakness in Giri's opening, Nakamura collected one pawn and went on to a much better endgame. Pawns started dropping like flies for Giri and the game was soon over. Shirov chose a very boring anti-Berlin against Kramnik which was only good enough for a draw, while Anand misplayed his attack against Aronian.

Some time to joke between rounds

Round Four

Giri was absolutely killing Aronian in the fourth round, but anything can happen in blitz! He managed to not only let go of his advantage, but he was slowly outplayed in a knight and queen vs. bishop and queen endgame. Aronian showed good technique once he had the advantage and won his second game in a row.

Kramnik had a small edge throughout the game against Anand, but was unable to do much with it. Finally Shirov managed a miracle escape against Nakamura:

Round Five

Anand won an important game and destroyed Nakamura

Nakamura finished with a loss in the blitz, but won the tournament anyway! Photo by David Llada.

Shirov survived a slightly worse position against Giri, while Aronian was crushing Kramnik... in deep time pressure he blundered a queen and had to resign! A costly mistake as a win would have allowed him to tie for second with Anand and Shirov, but with that loss he finished in fifth and with more blacks than whites, same as Kramnik and Giri.

Nakamura finished first with 3.5/5. Anand and Shirov had a great showing (Shirov was undefeated, with an unusual four draws in blitz!) and will have more whites than blacks in the rapid portion.

Picture by Vladimir Barsky from ruchess.ru

The concert on the first day was by the world renowned cellist Boris Andrianov (the first Russian cellist to become a laureate at the 6th international Rostopovich competition in Paris). Also invited was the Russian classical guitarist Dimitry Illarionov, and Ilya Gringolts playing the Stradivari (middle).

Opening Blitz Standings

Replay Opening Blitz Games

Schedule

Round 1 - Sat, February 13th, 3:00 pm

Round 2 - Sat, February 13th, 6:00 pm

Round 3 - Sun, February 14th, 3:00 pm

Round 4 - Sun, February 14th, 6:00 pm

Round 5 - Mon, February 15th, 3:00 pm

Links Official tournament site Opening Blitz in PGN The games are being 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.