Sinquefield 08: Carlsen forgives Nakamura

2015 Sinquefield Cup This super-GM single Round Robin brings together some of the best players in the world. This is the second leg of the Grand Chess Tour. The players – Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Fabiano Caruana (USA), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Viswanathan Anand (India), Wesley So (USA). The venue is the Chess Club and Scholastic Center at 4657 Maryland Avenue, Saint Louis, MO 63108. Tickets can be purchased at the Saint Louis Chess Club.

Round Eight

Daniel King shows the game: Carlsen vs Nakamura

Even in tournaments in which the level of fighting spirit is extremely high, such as the 2015 Sinquefield Cup, sometimes there is a chance that every game ends in a draw simply due to the high class strength of the players.

The draws today came in many different flavors, and a few players must be disappointed with the result, either because they were pressing and were unable to convert or because they allowed their opponent’s such advantages to begin with. As it stands, the tournament has been served to Aronian in a platter as he will only need a half a point in his last round to clinch first place - he will be playing Topalov with the Black pieces. If he loses, there are four hungry players behind him one point behind that could potentially catch him.

Despite the fact that So-Topalov played over 50 moves, it didn’t last long in regards to playing time. Wesley So obtained a slight advantage somehow after Topalov made inaccurate form during the opening. Unfortunately, the position was so locked up that an incredible amount of precision was required in order to create even minor problems. So kept lashing out his moves, and was even above two hours on the clock (more than he started with, due to the extra hour at move 40) at some point. Topalov held comfortably in the endgame.

Topalov with two solid draws, unusual for him

Aronian tried to put some pressure against Anand, but he ran into some deep opening preparation. The Indian player successfully neutralized White’s strong pawn center with some clever moves. Aronian sacrificed a pawn for some pressure on the b-file, taking advantage of an awkward knight on a5 for Anand, but Black had everything under control.

All draws? Aronian will take it!

Grischuk repeated the variation that Carlsen played against Vachier-Lagrave earlier in the tournament, but MVL was not going to be caught off-guard in this variation twice. He came up with the strong early Qb6 idea, neutralized all play from Grischuk and the game was eventually drawn when neither side could find a constructive idea.

Grischuk tried to repeat the success of Carlsen

MVL had a good counter ready

The next two games took a very long time to finish. Caruana was able to minimize the danger from the opening with his typical Grunfeld, though this time he brought in an interesting idea with an early e5 break. Giri’s advantage was negligible, and he started playing carelessly. Suddenly he saw himself down a pawn without full compensation. He had to suffer in a very long two pawns and rook vs. one pawn and rook endgame that he eventually drew.

Giri made life hard on himself

Last and certainly not least was the game between Carlsen and Nakamura. The American player very clearly was in trouble straight from the opening. Kasparov came around to talk about the game with me and he was saying how it was a position that Carlsen and he had analyzed a few years ago, and that Black wasn’t lost, but it was very very bad. Slowly the World Champion pushed Nakamura around, got a winning position… and then made mistake after mistake. Somehow Nakamura was able to create counterchances in what should have been a straightforward win. Eventually, after a long torture, he survived.

Naka survived... somehow!

Garry Kasparov was a guest of honor today, and even joined Jenn, Maurice and Yasser in the analysis table!

Kasparov analyzing with yours truly. He was usually right..... ok, ok, maybe always.

Kasparov with his partner for ultimate moves (an exhibition match after the tournament), Rex Sinquefield

Garry with Maurice. In the foreground, Jen Huemmer, the producer of the broadcast.

Standings

Round Eight Games

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Photos by Lennart Ootes

Pairings

Games start at 1 p.m. local time (20:00h CEST, 22:00h Moscow, Thursday 12:30 New Delhi, 03:00h Tokyo, 04:00 Canberra – check your location here).

Playoffs, if necessary, will be on the 2nd at 1pm.

The games will be broadcast live on Playchess, with expert analysis (see schedule below).

Broadcast Schedule