Competing at the NH tournament in Amsterdam, Nakamura, 22, led the Rising Stars to a 26-24 victory over the chess veterans, the Experience team, on Sunday. Another member of the winning team, the young Dutch champion Anish Giri, 16, had an identical 6-4 score as Hikaru, but only one could qualify for the Amber tournament. In the blitz playoff, Nakamura defeated Giri 2-0, ensuring a spot among the world's best chess stars next March in Nice. The Israeli grandmaster Boris Gelfand from the Experience team posted the best overall result in Amsterdam with a 7-3 score.
Nakamura played the most bizarre game against Loek Van Wely, who loves sharp variations of the Najdorf Sicilian. As it happened to him in the past, after tilting at windmills, the Dutchman was blown away by the force of the winds. He brought the defeat on himself. Following the game Smith - Laznicka from this year's World Open, Van Wely's hand was faster than his brain and he made a losing blunder. But why did he chose to play this variation at all?
Apparently, Van Wely was commenting on Laznicka's victory for the magazine New In Chess, but his analysis must have been very superficial. He only needed to check my analysis of the game to see that there was something awkward with Black's position even after the best defense.
I am returning to it in my comments, enhanced by Deep
Fritz 12.
I am sure, Nakamura was prepared for the alternatives, but after Van Wely's
mistake, he won in a mere 17 moves.
Note that in the replay windows below you can click on the notation to follow the game.
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