Champions Showdown Chess 9LX: Carlsen and Nakamura share first place

Shared win for Carlsen and Nakamura

At the end of the St. Louis Champions Showdown in Chess 9LX (or Chess960) Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura both had 6.0/9 points and shared first place. They also shared the prize-money for first and second place, and each received 31,250 US dollars.

After day 1 of the tournament Magnus Carlsen and Leinier Dominguez shared first place. Day 2 was the day of Levon Aronian: he scored 3 out of 3 and took the lead. After six rounds he had 4.5 points and was half a point ahead of Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So.

But on the third and final day of the tournament Aronian could not defend his lead. He drew against Kasparov and Carlsen but lost against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Carlsen and Nakamura both scored 2.0/3 on the final day and managed to pass Aronian.

Tournament senior Garry Kasparov once again showed that he can still keep up with the world's best players. In round 1, at the beginning of the tournament, the 57-year old 13th World Champion taught the 17-year old Alireza Firouzja a lesson and Kasparov also drew his game with World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

Kasparov's win against Firouzja, however, remained his only one and in the course of the tournament Kasparov suffered no less than three defeats: against Caruana, Aronian and Nakamura. In the last round Kasparov tried to win an endgame with rook and bishop against rook against Vachier-Lagrave but after 123 moves the game ended in a draw.

In the end Kasparov finished on place eight – but he had fun.

Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian shared third place. Caruana revealed that he played from Germany. On Wednesday, September 16, he will play live in Germany, in the Schachbundesliga Championship tournament, in which eight of the best Germans teams will play live in Karlsruhe to compete for the title of German Team Champion.

Starting position round 7

Starting position round 8

Starting position round 9