Sinquefield 02: Nakamura at the top

The Sinquefield Cup is taking place from September 9th to September 15th at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. The tournament brings together the top two players in the world as well as the top two Americans in a double round robin. The time control is the standard FIDE 90 minutes for 40 moves plus thirty minutes at move 40 with 30 second increment throughout. Sofia rules apply, which means none of the games can be drawn before move 30 - with certain exceptions.

Round two

The name of the game was opening surprises! The main one of course was Carlsen's choice to use a Leningrad Dutch, but Aronian was unfazed and quickly replied with a somewhat uncommon setup with Bf4. Maybe Carlsen was not only trying to hide his preparation from Anand, but also trying to "kick him [Aronian] while he is down" as he said in his own words!

The Nakamura-Kamsky game was a little different. Both players had played this variation before, but it is unusual for Kamsky to use it against such high caliber players: usually he uses this Sicilian against lower rated players to try to win.

The plan quickly backfired as Nakamura obtained a strong initiative and pressure against Black's weakened pawn structure. However with a very timely pawn sacrifice Kamsky was able to obtain very strong counterplay. The game came down to the wire as both player fell under two minutes, and it was then that Nakamura showed why he is known as the king of bullet chess. He played accurate move after accurate move and Kamsky couldn't keep up. Nakamura won two pawns and simplified the position to take the tournament lead.

a not particularly heartfelt handshake when the players arrived

and a more serious one at the beginning of the game between America's top two players

Hikaru was familiar with the opening as he had employed it with black against Gashimov only last year

GM Daniel King provides video analysis of Nakamura vs Kamsky

Kamsky had excellent chances until time pressure caught up to him

Nakamura proved not only why he is one of the best players of the world, but also why he is largely regarded as one of the best blitz players

Kamsky came downstairs immediately after the game to the press room to check what exactly went wrong. Here he is using Sabrina Chevannes' laptop, very clearly pink.

Carlsen against Aronian was a strange affair as Aronian's Bf4 was not as strong as he thought. Despite the fact that Melkumyan had already used the variation, Aronian claims he had invented it himself and "shared the idea with friends that maybe this was not so stupid... but maybe this game proves that it is". Both players agreed that Black was already a little better after 8...Ne4! Without the resource of d5, which Aronian decided not to play, Black obtained good central counterplay. The Norwegian player claimed that he had many times played this Dutch variation online against an International Master who kept using Bf4 against him, but that he had very good results.

Aronian described his position as very unpleasant, but that it was a key part of chess to be able to defend such positions. Once Carlsen allowed Ra1 it seemed that most of his problems had gone away. Carlsen himself blamed his indecision to not act quicker on why he didn't win. "It's a dissapointing result, of course" remarked the world number one.

Carlsen wanted to play the Dutch partially to save the honor of Norwegians in this opening: Kamsky beat Hammer in the Tromso World Cup with this opening with black.

Aronian's idea was something he had shared with his friends before, but Carlsen had already seen it

Carlsen just played Rb8, trying to break with b5 - but that left his knight stranded on a5 and the win slipped away

WFM Arianne Caoili, Aronian's girlfriend, flew from Rome to provide moral support

Photos by Alejandro Ramirez and Sabrina Chevannes

Standings

Schedule

The games start at 20:00h European time, 22:00h Moscow, 2 p.m. New York. You can find your regional starting time here. The commentary on Playchess begins one hour after the start of the games and is free for premium members.

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess 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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.