2/4/2016 – Hikaru Nakamura won the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival last year and he won it this year. But not as smoothly as before. This year after nine of ten rounds Nakamura shared the lead with seven players. By winning the last round against David Anton, he qualified for a tie-break against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Here, after four draws Nakamura won the fifth game and the tournament.
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Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training! Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
Before the tenth and last round no less than eight players had chances to win the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival: after nine of ten rounds Hikaru Nakamura, David Anton, Sebastien Maze, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Pentala Harikrishna, Li Chao, Etienne Bacrot, and Sethuraman S.P. all shared the lead with 7.0/9. A multi-player tie-break was looming. However, things turned out differently: two of the four games on the top boards were decided, two ended in a draw - and thus only two players made it to the tie-breaks.
Harikrishna and Li Chao shared the point as did Bacrot and Sethuraman.
Pental Harikrishna and Li Chao
India's number two, Pentala Harikrishna had a good tournament, scored 7.5/10, won 3.5 Elo-points and in the live-rating list he is now only 5 points behind Anand.
Hikaru Nakamura played energetic chess against David Anton, won his game and was the first to qualify for the tie-break.
Nakamura-Anton
Things were a bit more difficult for Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who was playing with Black against his countryman Sebastien Maze. The game was roughly balanced for a long time but then Vachier-Lagrave managed to exert some pressure and finally came up with a nice tactical surprise which gave him the game - and a tie-break duel against Nakamura.
Mazé vs Vachier-Lagrave
The tie-break between Nakamura and Vachier-Lagrave was close and exciting. After four draws the fifth game was played in Armageddon mode to force a decision: Nakamura won the game, the tie-break and the tournament.
And the winner is: ... Hikaru Nakamura
The fifth and decisive tie-break game
All tie-break games
With a score of 6.5/10 and a rating-performance of 2541 former World Champion Vishy Anand had a dismal tournament. However, he managed to end it with a fine win against Swedish GM Erik Blomqvist.
Anand won with Black against the Najdorf with Bc4 - a favorite of Bobby Fischer.
Grigoriy Oparin and Nigel Short drew
The best woman-player was Anna Muzychuk, who won in the last round against GM Salem A.R. Saleh to finish on 17th place with 7.0/10.
The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the 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 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.
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