The United States have two chess players rated in the world's top ten and they intend to push each other to get even better. Nakamura's fighting spirit didn't allow him to leave Wesley So's recent rating advance unanswered. He went to Gibraltar, where he won in 2008, and began to win game after game.
Already in the first game against the Serbian woman grandmaster Jovana Vojinovic, he did something unusual. Starting with the third move, he moved his queen on six consecutive moves. Nakamura would have been a hero some five centuries ago, around 1485, when the chess queen ceased to be a mere adviser to the king and acquired additional powers.
"That's what the fans want," exclaimed Hikaru, but the fans were utterly confused. "Don't move one piece too often in the opening," was one of the rules they read in chess manuals. Hikaru threw the rules out the window.
As Hikaru remarked, his e-pawn still dwells on its original square. Remarkable.
Nakamura went on to win the first six games and almost won the seventh, but the English grandmaster David Howell escaped with a draw after he reached the Vancura defensive set-up. Josef Vancura was a brilliant Czech chess composer and endgame theoretician who died at the age of 23 in 1921. His nephew Miloslav told me that his uncle suffered terrible headaches: "He had excruciating pain and decided to end his life." His rook endgame analyses were published after his death.
Nakamura could have won the game at one point, but he missed it. Hikaru knew the Vancura defense because he used it against Teimur Radjabov at the Gashimov Memorial last year.
Despite this minor setback, Nakamura won the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters undefeated with seven wins and three draws with 8.5/10. Howell was a half point behind him with 8/10. The world women's champion Hou Yifan led a group of nine players with 7.5/10. It included the Chinese prodigy Wei Yi, 15, who broke another record: the youngest player to jump over the 2700 rating barrier. Altogether, 150 players took part in this open tournament.
Magnus Carlsen added drama to his victory at the Grenke Classic, an eight-player event in Baden-Baden, Germany. Most of the grandmasters played for the Bundesliga championship team that is based there. Carlsen dropped a game to Arkady Naiditsch and had to play catch up till the end. The two players shared first place in the tournament. The tiebreaker went full five games and ended in Carlsen's favor 3-2.
After the loss, Carlsen had to play Vishy Anand - their first encounter after last year's world championship match in Sochi. In the critical position after 23 moves, Anand decided to open up the game, but Magnus was ready. It became a nice lesson in counterattacking, although Vishy did not find the best resistance.
Anand, Aronian, Caruana and Nakamura now compete in the Zurich Chess Challenge (February 14-19).
Images by Sophie Triay (Gibraltar) and Georgios Souleidis (Baden)
Original column here – Copyright Huffington Post
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